Apple recently launched its most affordable laptop, the MacBook Neo, a device that focuses more on the budget segment, targeting mostly students. This new device sports a 13-inch Liquid Retina display and runs on Apple's A18 Pro chip, the same silicon deployed in iPhone 16 Pro series smartphones. Now that the device is out there, there is a flurry of reports and rumours going viral suggesting what new upgrades the latest in line laptop from Apple will receive in the upcoming days, and building on that, one of the most anticipated upgrades/updates would have been touchscreen support for the Neo model, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman suggests otherwise. According to Gurman, Apple is likely to stick with the touchscreen upgrade for the MacBook Pro model only rather than the Neo variant.
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Employing a touchscreen would invite increased production costs, and that might eventually result in increased prices for the MacBook Neo; currently the device comes with a Magic Keyboard.
MacBook Neo Touchscreen Support Could Mean Higher Pricing
Mark Gurman terms the MacBook Neo a 'terrific device', complementing its display, build quality, form factor, trackpad, etc. and noting in his latest Power On the newsletter, it says that this is the best one one can get in this price range. However, he also believes that touchscreen support for the latest MacBook Neo might not be something that the Cupertino-based tech giant is considering at the moment, a claim that surfaced shortly after the device marked its debut.
Gurman says that Apple is still at a crossroads with this decision of whether or not to add a touchscreen to the latest MacBook Neo, which is a series beyond the MacBook Pro, the touchscreen support for which could arrive by the end of this year. Therefore, even Mark Gurman has wavering views about it, and "touch is being considered for Apple's lowest-tier Mac".
If Apple does go ahead with touchscreen support for other Macs, then the MacBook Air would be a better option, according to Mark Gurman, who has expressed that the Air variant will not get an iPhone-style OLED for "at least two years", and it would astonish him if Neo gets touchscreen support in the next three years.
How Did Apple Keep The Neo Variant Cheap?
According to Gurman, Apple reportedly had to rework several internal components of the MacBook Neo to keep the pricing lower. The goal was to bring the device down to around $599, or $499 for students through education pricing. Because of these cost constraints, adding a touchscreen would likely push the price up, which makes the chances of a touch display appearing on the laptop quite slim.
Apple recently introduced the MacBook Neo earlier this month. In India, the laptop starts at Rs. 69,900 for the base model that comes with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. The higher storage variant with 512GB is priced at Rs 79,900. The device features a 13-inch Liquid Retina display with a pixel density of 219ppi. It also includes Apple’s Magic Keyboard and offers Touch ID for biometric authentication, although this feature is only available on the 512GB variant. Powering the laptop is Apple’s A18 Pro chip, paired with a 36.5Wh battery that Apple claims can deliver up to 16 hours of video streaming on a single charge.