Apple’s ARM history in the Mac began a little more than five years ago with the MacBook Air – at that time alongside the Mac mini M1 and MacBook Pro M1. From a purely sales perspective, the devices have probably aged almost too well, because the jump to the new chips was so huge that even today hardly anyone should experience performance problems. Apple left the MacBook Air M1 as an affordable entry-level model in its range until March 2024 and only discontinued the series with the introduction of the M3 versions of the compact notebook. However, you could still purchase the device from other retailers – Apple therefore relied on third-party providers to send them into the price war. A prominent example of this is Walmart in the USA, where the device sometimes only cost $549. MacBook Air M1 no longer in stock
However, the days of the 2020 model are now really numbered. The MacBook Air has been sold out for a few days, as Walmart documents. Deliveries are obviously no longer taking place. The timing is probably by no means a coincidence, because if Apple’s expected entry-level notebook actually only costs $699 in the basic version, there is little room left for the older M1 version of the MacBook Air. So you can see this as another indication that the launch of the basic MacBook is targeted for the week of March 4th.
Expected features of the new basic MacBook
According to previous reports, the device, simply called “MacBook”, will have a 13″ display and rely on an A18 Pro processor (like the iPhone 16). There was also talk that Apple would offer extremely colorful cases in yellow, green and blue. In order to differentiate it from the more expensive MacBook Air, in addition to the weaker chip, lower maximum configurations in terms of RAM and SSDs can also be assumed. It would also be conceivable to only find one USB-C port, which is the case with the MacBook Air The display is most likely also cheaper.
