Should you buy an M3 or M4 MacBook Air now, or wait for the rumored budget MacBook?
Should you buy an M3 or M4 MacBook Air now, or wait for the rumored budget MacBook?
https://tech.sportskeeda.com/laptops/should-buy-m3-m4-macbook-air-now-wait-rumored-budget-macbook
Publish Date: 2026-02-20 09:15:00
Source Domain: tech.sportskeeda.com
Apple is reportedly working on a budget MacBook. This has been corroborated by multiple industry sources, such as Ming-Chi Kuo, Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, and TrendForce.
In fact, TrendForce believes this upcoming MacBook could cost as low as $599 – $699, which would make it significantly cheaper than the M4 MacBook Air or even the M3 variant (if you can still find one). This begs the question: Should you wait for this rumored budget MacBook, or buy an M3 or M4 MacBook Air, both of which are already available on the market?
In this article, I will compare the current MacBook Air with the rumored budget MacBook, based on the latter’s leaked specs.
Note: This article is based on leaked and speculated information and should be taken with a grain of salt.
Read more: New analysis sheds light on Apple M5 Pro and M5 Max’s 2.5D alleged chiplet design and more
M3 or M4 MacBook Air vs rumored budget MacBook: A comparison
Leaked Specs comparison
Here are the specs of the M3 or M4 MacBook Air and the rumored budget MacBook (based on leaks):
| Specifications | M3 or M4 MacBook Air | Budget MacBook (leaked) |
| Display | 13.6-inch Liquid Retina screen 2.5K resolution 16:10 aspect ratio 60Hz refresh rate 500 nits peak brightness |
13-inch IPS touchscreen |
| CPU | Apple M3 8-core CPU Apple M4 10-core CPU |
Apple A18 Pro 6-core CPU |
| Memory | 16/24/32 GB LPDDR5X Unified memory (Soldered) | 8 GB memory |
| GPU | Apple M3 8-core GPU Apple M4 8/10-core GPU |
Apple A18 Pro 6-core GPU |
| Storage | 256GB PCIe Gen 4 unified SSD (Soldered) | — |
| Battery | 52.6Wh | — |
Design, build quality, and display
