The mythical cheap MacBook seems to be more real than ever. The first time we reported on the rumors of a low-cost Apple laptop was way back in 2020. But this time, it’s different.
Leaks and reports are much more lined up — there aren’t any details from the likes of Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman that differ wildly from reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. It’s looking likely that we will see a budget MacBook with an iPhone chip sooner rather than later.
You may like
Cheap MacBook: Rumored specs
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Price
$599
Chip
A18 Pro
RAM
16GB*
Display
12.9-inch LCD
Colors
Silver, blue, pink, yellow
*This isn’t a rumor that’s been reported, but rather a prediction on our end, given the fact that Apple has confirmed that every Mac system comes with 16GB minimum to run Apple Intelligence.
Cheap MacBook: What will it be named?
(Image credit: Laptop Mag)
Officially, no idea. The rumor mill doesn’t have any clear angle or corroborated comment on what the naming could be. So we’re just navigating in the dark here.
However, if I may throw my two cents in the ring, I’d love to see it called just “MacBook,” and there’s a very particular reason I’ll get into soon.
Cheap MacBook: Rumored price & release date
(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)
MacBooks are indeed some of the best laptops you can buy, but outside of the occasional barnstormer of a deal ($749 M4 MacBook Air anyone?), they’re not exactly known for being cheap.
The lower end has been largely dominated by a combination of Windows laptops and Chromebooks, and Apple looks set to take a chunk of this market with a $599 laptop. There are a couple of conflicting reports suggesting a $699 system, but I’m going to put my prediction hat on here for a second.
Companies that sell hardware make a lot of their money by getting you to buy new stuff. At $599, you may notice a ton of people are buying the M1 MacBook Air from Walmart — a great laptop, but given its refurbished, one that Apple’s not making money off of.
I think Apple is keen to nip this in the bud with a new system that will fill this gap, which, according to rumors, could come anytime as early as this year (unlikely) to the first quarter of 2026 (more likely).
Cheap MacBook: Rumored design
(Image credit: Apple)
Remember when I said it should be called the “MacBook?” Well, here’s where that comes in. Butterfly keyboard be damned, the 12-inch MacBook was one of my favorite laptop form factors.
You may like
While it’s not looking too likely that we will see a return to a form factor this small, a report from Kuo has said that 12.9 inches is more likely than not.
On top of that, Apple could be going all iMac on it and offering some nicely playful colors — specifically, rumors point to either silver, blue, pink or yellow.
Cheap MacBook: Rumored specs
(Image credit: Apple)
This is where things get interesting. There’s been a clear differentiation between Apple’s iPhones (sporting an A-series chip) and MacBooks (packing the M-series), with only a couple of crossovers in the iPad and iPad mini.
But we’re set to see the first significant step in a new direction — the first MacBook to run an A-series chip from an iPhone. Specifically, it’s looking like the A18 Pro we saw in the iPhone 16 Pro Max. When you put our benchmarks up against your average Intel or Snapdragon laptop, you can see that while this silicon is ahead in single-core, multicore falls behind.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Device
Geekbench 6 single-core
Geekbench 6 multicore
iPhone 16 Pro Max (A18 Pro in rumored low-price MacBook)
3,836
8,306
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x (Snapdragon X)
2,124
10,505
Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro (Intel Core Ultra 7 256V)
2,760
11,115
However, there’s one thing we’re not thinking about here. This is the A18 Pro running in a smartphone, where the level of power it’s using will be significantly less than the other options on this list. Apple could turn up the volume on the power going to the chip, which could overcome that multicore limitation, or see that as enough.
The latter here is incredibly exciting to me, as that super low wattage paired with a much bigger battery cell of a laptop could mean insane power efficiency. Throw in a (rumored) efficient lower-end LCD display with a 60Hz refresh rate and you’re onto a winner.
Did I get too excited saying it’s the A19 Pro that should be in a MacBook? Perhaps. I still stand by that opinion, given how insanely powerful that GPU is and the increasing number of similarities between Apple’s phone chip and computer chip architecture. But the A18 Pro is still more than enough horsepower for most folks to get stuff done.
Cheap MacBook: Outlook
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
Cards on the table, when Apple releases this machine, I’m going to buy it so hard. A small, lightweight machine with great power efficiency across all my productivity needs, which also just so happens to come in fresh new colors? I’m all in!
It’s also the Cupertino crew’s attempt to cash in on the Chromebook hype, and given how beasty that A18 Pro chip actually is, they could very well be onto something.
The mythical cheap MacBook seems to be more real than ever, and if it reaches the expectations set here, this could be the one I recommend to most people. But what does that mean for the MacBook Air? Well, that’s a conundrum for another time.
Follow Tom’s Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds.
