The 12-inch MacBook, discontinued long ago, was my favorite laptop. I kept mine well into the Apple Silicon era, and when it died, I went on eBay and bought another one. Microsoft's 12.5-inch Surface Laptop Go 3 feels closest, all told, but it has a low-resolution 1024-line display and comes with Windows 11. Chuwi's 10.5" Minibook X is a little too small. Framework's 12 a hair too big. Good, then, that Apple is reportedly about to relaunch the line as a low-cost model with "fun colors."
Rather than using Mac-optimized Apple Silicon, the company is reportedly going to use an A18 Pro chip from the iPhone 16 lineup. While that is certainly less than what you'd get in a MacBook Air, it also won't be a slouch. After all, the A18 Pro chip was the first iPhone chipset that started to get competitive with the original M1 chip that debuted in Macs. As for hardware, Gurman reports that it'll have a screen slightly under 13 inches. Previous reports have named it as a 12.9-inch display. The new MacBook also won't be plastic, even though that could've been a cost cutting measure.
A 12.9" display suggests the dimensions of the iPad Pro model that already uses it. That's 11.09 inches by 8.48 inches (~282mm by 212mm). The old 12-inch MacBook was 11.04 inches (28.05 cm) by 7.74 inches (19.65 cm). Every millimeter matters! **Herzog voice** I would like to see the fun colors.
Previously: A software update has given new life to my ancient MacBook Air
