Apple MacBook: First ARM MacBook may have up to 20 hours battery life, an A14X Bionic chipset and 16 GB of RAM, but also a 720p webcam and a butterfly keyboard

[Redaktion]

Apple is planning to equip its first ARM-powered MacBook with an A14X Bionic, according to a new rumour. The in-house chipset will be paired with up to 16 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD, along with a 720p webcam and a 4th generation butterfly keyboard. Between 15 and 20 hours of battery life beckons for the new 12-inch MacBook, too.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-First-ARM-MacBook-may-have-up-to-20-hours-battery-life-an-A14X-Bionic-chipset-and-16-GB-of-RAM-but-also-a-720p-webcam-and-a-butterfly-keyboard.483738.0.html

[Graham]

I have doubts that this source has any real leads. all those specs anyone can guess at, the butterfly keyboard has proven to be not well received so i can't see them re-using it, and the whole covid thing has brought unwelcome attention to the poor quality camera.

[S.Yu]

Further removal of ports for no apparent reason. Apple's really hard to like.

[Stu]

Woo, 720p camera. Shut up and take my money.

[DexterY]

Probably discontinue supporting after a few years like what they do with the phones and ipad

[Digitalguy]

You mean the longest supported smartphones and tablets in the market

[Molap]

The amount of misinformation around is unreal.  Apple already confirmed they are not using A bionic chips, the mac chips will have their own line of chips with a different letter so the A14X is definitely not going to be used in any mac, something more powerful will be used.

[Rico Mico]

The amount of misinformation around is unreal.  Apple already confirmed they are not using A bionic chips, the mac chips will have their own line of chips with a different letter so the A14X is definitely not going to be used in any mac, something more powerful will be used.

You are completely right, they could listen from me a lot more exact info as from these sources.

The new Mac will take the Air line at the beginning and later the MBP, the chips will be from A14-family but a lot bigger and specially a lot more TDP, which will result on at least 1.5 - 2 times more performance as the iPad Pro (A14X) version.

So as a resume, expect:
- MBA- style laptop
- 1080p Webcam
- ARM A14- family up to 2x faster than the next iPad Pro
- around whole day battery life
- led screen
- thunderbolt 3

Next year MBP with ARM and microLED screens.

[Ray-kun]

The amount of misinformation around is unreal.  Apple already confirmed they are not using A bionic chips, the mac chips will have their own line of chips with a different letter so the A14X is definitely not going to be used in any mac, something more powerful will be used.

You are completely right, they could listen from me a lot more exact info as from these sources.

The new Mac will take the Air line at the beginning and later the MBP, the chips will be from A14-family but a lot bigger and specially a lot more TDP, which will result on at least 1.5 - 2 times more performance as the iPad Pro (A14X) version.

So as a resume, expect:
- MBA- style laptop
- 1080p Webcam
- ARM A14- family up to 2x faster than the next iPad Pro
- around whole day battery life
- led screen
- thunderbolt 3

Next year MBP with ARM and microLED screens.

There will be no microLED screens. but miniLED screens, then maybe yes.

[ChrisGX]

How incredibly naive people posting here are. Do you imagine that Apple would lose something by turning out a Macbook with performance in the same bracket as the A14X (tablet) SoC? And, why wouldn't Apple do that? Are you aware that two Macbooks Air SKUs, i.e. the Core i5-1030NG7 and the Core i3-1000NG4, offer no more performance today than was already attained two years ago when using the A12X/Z SoC? Now, the performance of the A14X will be far superior to the A12X/Z and power consumption will probably be below the level of the mentioned Intel chips. It would make perfect sense to introduce fanless Mabooks powered by Apple silicon first. Fanless Macbooks with A14Xish performance would present a very compelling case when contrasted with Macbooks and Windows laptops with Intel's lacklustre low power processors inside.

The A14X, despite other comments here, would be an excellent starting point for a fanless laptop SoC. The only thing missing really is a sufficient complement of PCIe lanes for device connectivity but Apple might simply elect to add those to the SoC.