Apple is
possibly revisiting its strategy on its MacBook range with reports appearing
about the company’s plans to launch a budget version of the device and if one
were to go by these reports, Apple may price these in line with MacBook Air
laptop.
If you are
not familiar, the 128GB storage MacBook Air is priced at $999 while the 256GB
one is $200 pricier at $1,199.
Now the other
information from this report indicates that the new MacBook will have a
much-improved display screen sporting a resolution of 2560x1080pixels. The
display would therefore be the Retina type and these panels will be made and
supplied by the South Korean giant LG.
It is further
learnt that LG will be supplying the panels by the end of April and the
MacBooks will start shipping by around June.
Manufacturing
(assembling) of the new entry-level MacBook will be done by 2 companies,
Quanta, which will make 70% and Foxconn, the remaining 30%. Apple has set a
target of 6 million pieces of this cheaper version of MacBook within 2018.
The
speculation is still on whether the device will be called Macbook Air or will
be simple called MacBook. The company has been promoting the MacBook Air and
MacBook Pro models over the past year and it is possible that the market
feedback has given it the idea that there is a demand for a lower priced
MacBook and the present plan may be part of the strategy to fill that gap.
There have
been predictions on this even earlier and market observers expect that the
cheaper version may help increase the volume of sales in this range and
category of devices by 10-15%.
Over the past
few years, Apple has been focusing on its premium MacBook Pro variants.
According to Digitimes Research senior analyst Jim Hsiao, shipments for this
upcoming MacBook model are expected to reach four million units by the end of
2018.
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