{"id":217916,"date":"2026-02-26T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T02:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/26\/apples-rumored-cheap-macbook-makes-me-worried-for-windows-laptops-and-chromebooks\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T00:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:45:07","slug":"apples-rumored-cheap-macbook-makes-me-worried-for-windows-laptops-and-chromebooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/26\/apples-rumored-cheap-macbook-makes-me-worried-for-windows-laptops-and-chromebooks\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple&#8217;s rumored &#8216;cheap&#8217; MacBook makes me worried for Windows laptops and Chromebooks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/apple-cheap-macbook-vs-windows-laptops-chromebooks\/\">Apple&#8217;s rumored &#8216;cheap&#8217; MacBook makes me worried for Windows laptops and Chromebooks<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/apple-cheap-macbook-vs-windows-laptops-chromebooks\/\">https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/apple-cheap-macbook-vs-windows-laptops-chromebooks\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-26 21:24:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.zdnet.com\">www.zdnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>    <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall u-block\">Kyle Kucharski\/ZDNET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Follow ZDNET:\u00a0<span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>Add us as a preferred source<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on Google.<\/p>\n<h3>ZDNET&#8217;s key takeaways<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Apple could announce the launch of a new &#8220;cheap&#8221; MacBook on March 4.<\/li>\n<li>It will likely come with the A18 chip found in the iPhone 16 Pro.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Prices will start around $599.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Rumors of a\u00a0new &#8220;cheap&#8221; MacBook\u00a0have been circulating for years, but it looks like the laptop could finally launch in the next few weeks. On March 4, Apple is set to make a series of product announcements at a &#8220;special experience&#8221; here in New York, where I&#8217;m betting we&#8217;ll hear more.  <\/p>\n<p>Apple&#8217;s new affordable 13-inch MacBook is rumored to feature a low-power A18 processor &#8212; the same chip found in the iPhone 16 Pro &#8212; rather than the typical M-series processors used in MacBooks. This would allow it to keep costs low, particularly if paired with more modest hardware such as a less flashy display and a smaller form factor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: Everything Apple may unveil at its March event: iPhone 17e, MacBook M5, new iPads, more<\/strong>\u00a0  <\/p>\n<p>The A18 chip is a powerful piece of hardware, and although it doesn&#8217;t quite match the performance of the M-series processors found in the MacBook Air and Pro, it&#8217;s more than capable of handling everyday use cases for which affordable laptops are designed.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"M5 MacBook Pro\" width=\"1280\" height=\"719.3798449612403\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/>   <span class=\"c-shortcodeImage_credit g-outer-spacing-top-xsmall u-block\">Kerry Wan\/ZDNET<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So, how affordable are we talking? Mark Gurman, Apple insider and author of Bloomberg&#8217;s Power On newsletter, is confident the device will be &#8220;well under $1,000,&#8221; which makes sense given the build components. But the new model&#8217;s price would still need to be lower than a MacBook Air, which can go as low as $749 during sales at third-party retailers like Amazon.<\/p>\n<p>I would estimate a starting price of around $599, noting that anything higher than that wouldn&#8217;t be impactful enough to differentiate it, given the number of products in the expansive MacBook catalog (and the massive discounts available on renewed products). However, $500 or less would make for a product that would compete directly with budget PCs and&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/apple-cheap-macbook-vs-windows-laptops-chromebooks\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apple&#8217;s rumored &#8216;cheap&#8217; MacBook makes me worried for Windows laptops and Chromebooks https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/apple-cheap-macbook-vs-windows-laptops-chromebooks\/ Publish Date:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":217917,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/6ad1205bfab7e00ae7baeb02642f9935616db901\/2025\/10\/21\/babf9ef4-7e86-4d0a-8470-a72fb9a39eb7\/dsc08387.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[50,51],"class_list":["post-217916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-macintosh","tag-macbook-air","tag-macbook-pro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217916"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217918,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217916\/revisions\/217918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}