Analyst Min-Chi Kuo has speculated on the platform X about a Cheaper MacBook model, which, according to his report, should be priced below the current entry-level MacBook Air (999 euros). He cites the reasons for the decline in sales of MacBooks by around 20 percent over the past five years. Apple wants to sell 25 million devices next year instead of the expected 20 million in 2025, and around 5 to 7 million of them are to be accounted for by a new, low-cost entry-level model.
In order to be able to realize this price, it should be certain that the entry-level MacBook will use cheaper hardware components. According to Kuo, it is expected to use an A18 Pro chip, which is known from the iPhone 16 Pro and offers roughly the performance of an M1. It is expected to have only 8 GiB of RAM and a much smaller battery capacity. The screen will probably be 13.3 inches (about 34 cm) in size.
Best Cheap Macbook Price and feature
The second USB-C port could also be omitted as well as the popular Touch ID keyboard. Mass production could begin as early as the end of 2025 or the beginning of 2026, there should be a total of four colors adequate to the iPads and Kuo expects a starting price of around 699 US dollars.
Although a cheaper MacBook may sound attractive to many users, many, including the colleagues from 9to5Mac, ask themselves the question of the actual added value. If the price would end up being $799 after all, it might be worth resorting to discounted offers for older MacBook Air models instead. These are now and then reduced in price and offer more power with more current M-chips and 16 GiB RAM.
So with a cheaper MacBook, everything will depend on whether it offers an acceptable ratio of price and performance. $799 is likely to be too high, $ 699 would be more acceptable. And if you then subtract the typical Apple education discount, the entry-level MacBook could even be under $ 600, which could make it quite an alternative for students.
