Will Apple’s upcoming low-cost MacBook actually be worthwhile?

As soon as next week, Apple is set to unveil its cheapest MacBook to date. It’ll be powered by an A18 Pro chip, offer a 12.9-inch display, and come in a plethora of colors. It’ll also have a couple key compromises to bring it down to a lower starting price. That raises the question: will it be worth it compared to the MacBook Air?

Key compromises

For the most part, you’ll be getting all of the key elements of a great MacBook experience: an aluminum chassis, a crisp Retina LCD display, an excellent trackpad, long battery life, and so on.

That said, there are a few rumored areas where the budget MacBook will cut corners compared to the MacBook Air, those including:

• 400 nit display, no True Tone support, and no P3 color gamut
• Slower charging speeds
• Limited storage options + slower SSD speeds
• No keyboard backlight
• No N1 chip, relying on a cheaper Mediatek networking chip

For the most part (at least in my opinion) – these aren’t major nor surprising cuts. It’s all extremely precedented based on previous lower-cost Apple products. For example, the iPad Air Magic Keyboard doesn’t include a backlight.

Of course, you’ll have to deal with the fact that you’re using an iPhone chip instead of an M series chip. Don’t let that concern you, though. Despite sounding weak, the A18 Pro actually matches the M1 roughly in synthetic benchmarks. That doesn’t mean it’ll be good as an M1 all the time, but the fact that it’s in the same league at all speaks volumes for the competence of Apple’s lowest end silicon.

Will it be a good value?

Ultimately, whether or not its worth it compared to the MacBook Air depends on the price it comes in at. For $699, I think it’ll be a little tough of a sell, at least at launch. M4 MacBook Air has gone on sale as low as $749 (though it’s currently only on sale for $949) – so it could be a close call.

That’s just launch pricing though, obviously the cheaper MacBook too will go on sale over time. So, I’d say in all likelihood, the cheaper MacBook will be a good value, even compared to the MacBook Air. There’ll still be a $300 MSRP difference between the two laptops.

If the MacBook comes in at an even lower cost, say $649 or $599 – it’d truly be killer. It’s also rumored to come in a couple fun colors like green, yellow, and pink. If the price is right, it might even have a decent leg up on the MacBook Air.

We’ll know for sure when the computer hopefully launches next week. Apple will be kicking off a week of announcements starting on Monday, March 2nd – with an in-person media experience on Wednesday, March 4th.

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