Cheap MacBook 2026: you will miss these features

Apple is launching a cheaper MacBook 2026, but that lower price also has a downside. These are the features you will miss.

Cheap MacBook 2026: you will miss these features

Apple will soon release an affordable MacBook. Of course, that sounds great on paper, because who wouldn’t want a MacBook with a lower price tag? But which features will you miss with this cheap MacBook 2026? We dived in!

Screen: less bright, without True Tone

The differences start with the screen. According to various rumors, the maximum brightness is below 500 nits (the maximum brightness of the MacBook Air screen). You will especially notice this if you work a lot in bright light, for example in a studio with fluorescent light or near a window.

True Tone is also missing, so the screen does not automatically adjust to the ambient light. That is a feature that you will only miss if you no longer have it, especially if you often switch between warm indoor light and daylight.

Storage and speed

Then there is the amount of storage and speed. This new budget model should make do with 256 GB or 512 GB of storage, with possibly a 128 GB variant for schools. Options of 1 TB or 2 TB, which you can choose with Air and Pro, are probably not going to be available.

As if that weren’t enough, according to the first rumors, the SSD speeds on the base model are lower than on the latest MacBook Air and Pro. This is probably because Apple uses one SSD chip. Opening large photo libraries, video files or programming projects will then be a little less smooth.

No M chip, but A18 Pro

According to rumors, the MacBook will have an A18 Pro chip from the iPhone 16 Pro. Of course, the A18 Pro does not have the speed of recent M4 or M5 chips in new MacBooks. But you can roughly compare it with the performance of the M1 chip.

Furthermore, this chip does not support Thunderbolt. So you get ‘normal’ USB-C ports instead of the faster Thunderbolt options that you are used to with regular MacBooks.

Missing minor features

Other smaller features that you should also miss include fast charging and backlit keys. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but these are two features that you use surprisingly often in practice.

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