The imminent revival of the moniker-less MacBook is expected to be positioned as a lower-cost option below the MacBook Air, and ongoing rumors of that MacBook have left me with several questions, including what possible limitations this MacBook may have in terms of tech specs.
Look no further because today, a leaker, who posted on Weibo, has discovered several references from an internal version of Apple’s Kernel Debug Kit for a macOS Tahoe beta. Now, since that version was leaked last year, chances are that things may have changed for this MacBook, and since this leaker doesn’t have a solid track record, these downgrades below should be taken with a grain of salt.
- Lower max display brightness: The current MacBook Air’s display maxes out at 500 nits of brightness; however, the leaker expects the display on the lower-cost MacBook to have a slightly lower max brightness, possibly at 400 nits to match that of the M1 MacBook Air.
- Lack of True Tone technology: All of the built-in displays on today’s MacBook lineup, the iMac, and the Studio Display feature True Tone display; however, the upcoming lower-cost MacBook may skip out on this feature. I felt that was hard to believe, considering even the base iPad has had True Tone technology since the 9th-generation model.
- No 1TB or 2TB capacities: The leaker expects this lower-cost MacBook to come in only 256GB and 512GB capacities. Additionally, there may be a potential 128GB storage option that could be exclusively offered to educational institutions. Historically, Apple had offered education-only models of the iMac, MacBook, and MacBook Air to educational institutions in the past. This decision not offer higher storage capacities may be Apple’s effort to avoid the base MacBook from entering into the MacBook Air’s pricing territory.
- Slower SSD speeds: The leaker expected this MacBook to use a single NAND chip, which could have slower read and write speeds compared to the higher-end MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. We’ve seen this before with the base M2 Mac models with 256GB of storage.
- No fast charging: Whereas the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro have had fast-charging capabilities, this base MacBook may lack this feature. The leaker hasn’t said whether this MacBook would have MagSafe 3 or not.
- No backlit keyboard: This entry-level MacBook may not feature backlit keys. For comparison, the Magic Keyboard Folio for iPad and the new version of the Magic Keyboard for iPad Air lack backlit keys. Even the polycarbonate MacBooks that Apple previously offered lacked backlit keys.
- No high-impedance headphone support: All of the current Macs have had support for high-impedance headphones; however, this lower-end MacBook may lack this feature, similar to the M1 MacBook Air.
- No N1 networking chip: The leaker claimed that the lower-cost MacBook will not feature the N1 networking chip. This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that the latest M5 14-inch MacBook Pro from October also lacks the N1 networking chip.
Other specs we expect for this lower-cost MacBook are the A18 Pro chip, a smaller 12.9-inch display, 8GB of RAM, and regular USB-C (non-Thunderbolt) ports. We could also see some fun colors for this MacBook, such as light yellow, light green, and blue.
We won’t have to wait that long for Apple to introduce this MacBook next week, and we can expect some hands-on coverage at the “Apple Experience” that will take place in New York, London, and Shanghai on Wednesday, March 4.
