An extremely cheap MacBook is just around the corner! What compromises will customers have to accept?

It has been rumored for a long time that Apple is preparing a cheap MacBook. A notebook with a 12.9-inch display and a price tag significantly below the current MacBook Air sounds appealing – but as is often the case, a low price comes with a cost. And according to fresh information from a leaker, whose reliability is yet to be proven, that cost could be quite high.

8 GB RAM in 2026

Let’s start with the most painful part. The cheap MacBook is reportedly getting only 8 GB of RAM, with no option for expansion – memory is traditionally soldered directly onto the chip by Apple. At a time when even the base MacBook Air starts at 16 GB and macOS bloats with every update, this is quite a bold choice. It will be sufficient for web browsing and document writing, but any ambitions for multitasking or working with larger files will likely hit a ceiling very quickly.

A18 Pro: fast, but not where you’d expect

Instead of an M-series chip, the cheap MacBook is said to feature the A18 Pro – the processor Apple used in the iPhone 16 Pro. On paper, it doesn’t look bad. In single-core performance, the A18 Pro can even compete with desktop processors, beating, for example, the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X in Geekbench. But a notebook is not a phone. Multi-core performance is comparable to the older Ryzen 7 7840U, and the graphics roughly match the level of a five-year-old M1 chip.

Display without True Tone and possibly darkness on the keyboard

Further cuts concern the display. The cheap MacBook is expected to offer lower maximum brightness than the MacBook Air, which reaches 500 nits. Furthermore, True Tone – a feature that adjusts color temperature to ambient lighting – could reportedly be missing. According to the leaker, the system lacks corresponding drivers for the ambient light sensor, which would confirm the absence of True Tone.

And then there’s the keyboard. The leaker isn’t 100% sure, but there’s a real chance that the cheap MacBook will come without a backlit keyboard. This would be the first MacBook without this feature in over 15 years. Anyone working in the evening or in darker spaces would feel it immediately.

Slower SSD and no fast charging

The list of compromises doesn’t end there. Storage will be limited to a maximum of 512 GB with slower read and write speeds than MacBook users are accustomed to. A special variant with 128 GB should also be available for schools. Fast charging is also expected to be absent, which Apple will likely compensate for with a smaller battery. And finally – while MacBook Pros from 2021 support high-impedance headphones, you can probably forget about this feature on the cheap model.

Everything depends on the price

Initial estimates spoke of a price of 599 to 649 dollars (approximately 12,000 to 13,200 CZK), but newer reports push the price tag closer to 699 to 749 dollars (14,400 to 15,400 CZK). And this is where the rubber meets the road. At six hundred dollars, it would be an interesting entry into the macOS world for students and casual users. At seven and a half, however, customers will start looking at a discounted MacBook Air with M4, 16 GB RAM, and a significantly shorter list of compromises.

Apple is expected to unveil the cheap MacBook early next month along with new MacBook Pros, affordable iPads, and the anticipated iPhone 17e. Until then, take all information with a grain of salt – the track record of the mentioned leaker is yet to be proven. One thing is clear, however: Apple is attempting something it hasn’t done before, and the outcome will depend on where exactly it draws the line between “affordable” and “too stripped down.”

Does a cheap MacBook with 8 GB RAM make sense in 2026, or would you rather pay extra for an Air?

Source: Notebookcheck