Now that we have the new MacBook Pro models in stores and early customer homes, the jump to Apple Silicon is already complete in the portable lineup. The MacBook Air and its M1 chip largely meet the needs of general users, while the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips in the MacBook Pro satisfy the most demanding professionals.
However, there is one laptop that has been left in some sort of limbo: the 13-inch MacBook Pro M1. In terms of power there is nothing to complain about, but it retains a design that no longer sticks with the rest of the Pro range and a size that looks too much like its 14-inch big brother. What are Apple’s plans for this model?
He’ll likely go away, but it’s unclear if he’ll have a substitute or leave a void.
The feeling is that sooner or later this “step” halfway between the general and the professional I ended up disappearing. Apple should be attentive to its request once the possibility of the new MacBook Pro presents itself, but in the keynote they made it clear that these big frames and the Touch Bar have no future.
Maybe the question we need to ask ourselves is whether this MacBook Pro will have some kind of substitute. In the end, if we separate it from the rest of the range of laptops, we see a very pronounced price difference between the 1,399 dollars of the high-end MacBook Air and the 2,249 dollars of the most basic 14-inch MacBook. Pro.
Apple could fill this gap with an upcoming high-end MacBook Air (an M2 chip with more RAM and more cores on its GPU), or with a basic MacBook Pro and with a more adjusted price (less GPU cores in the M1 Pro, less storage, less RAM). Something that would remain at a base price of 1,600 or 1,700 dollars and cover a happy medium.
The replacement of this MacBook Pro will clearly belong to one line or another, there will not be a “missing link”
Or maybe you’re wrong and Apple doesn’t fill that gap at all, which is a clear sign that the MacBook Pro is expensive because it’s clearly aimed at professionals and offers MacBook Airs to the general public. But if it does finally happen, it won’t be with a “half” computer that benefits from an older design, if not with a MacBook Air or with a MacBook Pro itself.
When can this happen? Well again we find options. Maybe Apple will recall the 13-inch MacBook Pro as soon as the Stock disappear, easily shaking it. Or maybe, if its demand continues to bear fruit, it will continue to manufacture it until new MacBook Air models in spring 2022 (rumored to be) make it disappear.
We will see it over the weeks. For now this 13-inch MacBook Pro is still here, with a great M1 chip, for those who don’t want to say goodbye to the Touch Bar and hate it. notch new models. It is still a highly recommended purchase.
