Quanta rumored to be building new 'inexpensive' MacBooks in Dec. quarter

AppleInsider · August 13, 2018 2:17PM

Frequent Apple partner Quanta should soon see a surge in orders thanks to "new inexpensive notebooks" from the former, a report claimed on Monday.

Quanta is expected to see its shipments top 10 million units in the December quarter as a result of Apple's help, said Taiwan's DigiTimes. The publication didn't say anything more in regards to the new MacBooks.

DigiTimes has a mixed track record when it comes to the details of Apple products, but is much more reliable with its focus, the Taiwanese electronics industry. Many of Apple's suppliers have operations or headquarters in the country, such as its main assembly partner, Foxconn.

Apple recently updated the MacBook Pro line, but has yet to make any upgrades to the 12-inch MacBook or the 13-inch MacBook Air. Both lines are due for a refresh, particularly the latter, which has had only modest upgrades in recent years and is now the only MacBook without a Retina display.

The company could announce new Macs at its usual September press event. There though, the focus is likely to be on new iPhones and iPad Pros, as well as OS upgrades, which could mean the MacBooks will be launched before or after unceremoniously.

tipoo · August 13, 2018 2:20PM

Curious about the positioning. It's rumored to have a retina screen, but also come in under the 12"s price? That seems odd, unless it's the 12" that drops to the Air's price slot while this replaces it.

Anyways, being largely like the 12 but for using the extra space for another USB C port, and of course the third gen butterfly keyboard, would be good by me.

wood1208 · August 13, 2018 2:26PM

Shame Apple has yet to make any upgrades to Function keys 13" Macbook Pro. Hope it is part of Quanta's product line along with what article talks about. Moreover, Function Keys 13" MBP needs 4 USB-C ports like rest. Is it too much to ask ? Apple needs to make GO TO in each laptop category. Keep expanding base users and rest of users with higher priced will keep adding as their need for better equipped laptop increase.

CuJoYYC · August 13, 2018 2:26PM

Headline "Quanta rumored to be building new 'inexpensive' MacBooks in Dec. quarter" First line in article: "Frequent Apple partner Quanta should soon see a surge in orders thanks to "new expensive notebooks" from the former …" So, is it inexpensive or expensive?

melgross · August 13, 2018 3:21PM

Ok, we do expect a refresh, but what does inexpensive mean in this context?

vadimyuryev · August 13, 2018 3:31PM

melgross said:

Ok, we do expect a refresh, but what does inexpensive mean in this context?

From $999-$1299

rogifan_new · August 13, 2018 4:11PM

Apple needs to combine the MBA, rMB and 13” non-touch bar MBP into one model.

macapfel · August 13, 2018 4:29PM

It’s back to school and MBA is old. Would be nice to have an update – well, about now ...

CobraGuy · August 13, 2018 5:22PM

Inexpensive?

obviously fake.

larz2112 · August 13, 2018 5:35PM

vadimyuryev said:

melgross said:

Ok, we do expect a refresh, but what does inexpensive mean in this context?

From $999-$1299

So, inexpensive compared to other Apple notebooks, not inexpensive compared to notebooks in general. In the Apple ecosystem, a $999-1299 notebook is considered inexpensive. The thing is, most people define what is expensive or inexpensive based on their own financial status, so the term "inexpensive" is a very relative term. Maybe a $999-1299 notebook is considered inexpensive in the Apple ecosystem of products, but for someone making an average desk job salary, I don't think they would consider a $999-1299 notebook inexpensive.

tht · August 13, 2018 5:56PM

Its been a long 3 years for the realignment of the consumer Mac laptops. It just seems so weird that Apple fell into this hole. It’s like whoever replaced Doug Field and Bob Mansfield had no understanding of computer hardware and just fucked up Mac the lineup, both desktop and laptop. And Schiller had too many jobs to do anything about it.

It just seems so simple to do something like:

$1000 5W CPU, 12” display, 1 USB-C/TB3 ports
$1300 15W CPU, 13” display, 2 USB-C/TB3 ports
$1700 25W CPU, 14” display, 4 USB-C/TB3 ports
$2200 45W CPU, dGPU, 16” display, 4 USB-C/TB3 ports, SD card slot
$600 24” 4K TB3 display
$1200 32” 5K TB3 display
$600 TB3 eGPU box

I don’t find much fault with going with the Touchbar or going with butterfly keys, or even with 1 USB-C port on the MB12 - statement design is Apple’s thing and failure is common when doing that - but not having a good holistic lineup for 3 years is inexcusable.

mac_dog · August 13, 2018 7:37PM

Apple is not in the business of making anything inexpensive.

melgross · August 13, 2018 7:42PM

vadimyuryev said:

melgross said:

Ok, we do expect a refresh, but what does inexpensive mean in this context?

From $999-$1299

Can’t be over $999. When they say inexpensive, they mean noticeably below the lowest mark of current devices.

melgross · August 13, 2018 7:47PM

Some of you guys are a joke. Wn speculation about the price of the iPad was going around, right before it actually came out. Some wags were saying that it would never be below $800. Others had the price pegged at $1500, saying that this was Apple, after all.

as we know, they were all wrong, and wrong by a lot. They were so wrong, that Hp, and others, which were preparing their own tablets, had to scrap them because they were too heavy - and too expensive. For years, obody could match Apple’s price. So we saw those crummy 16:9 7” tablets for the same price as an iPad.

at one time, the Air was selling, at Apple for $799. So if Apple is thinking of an inexpensive notebook, they will do it.

SpamSandwich · August 13, 2018 7:51PM

melgross said:

Some of you guys are a joke. Wn speculation about the price of the iPad was going around, right before it actually came out. Some wags were saying that it would never be below $800. Others had the price pegged at $1500, saying that this was Apple, after all.

as we know, they were all wrong, and wrong by a lot. They were so wrong, that Hp, and others, which were preparing their own tablets, had to scrap them because they were too heavy - and too expensive. For years, obody could match Apple’s price. So we saw those crummy 16:9 7” tablets for the same price as an iPad.

at one time, the Air was selling, at Apple for $799. So if Apple is thinking of an inexpensive notebook, they will do it.

Only reason for them to do such a thing would be either to recapture lost market share in the education market or to grow the low-end consumer market... and they are not and never have been interested in competing on price.

wookie01 · August 13, 2018 10:51PM

Inexpensive ARM MacBook?

wizard69 · August 14, 2018 12:20AM

tipoo said:

Curious about the positioning. It's rumored to have a retina screen, but also come in under the 12"s price? That seems odd, unless it's the 12" that drops to the Air's price slot while this replaces it.

Anyways, being largely like the 12 but for using the extra space for another USB C port, and of course the third gen butterfly keyboard, would be good by me.

Considering I never see a Mac Book in the wild I wouldn't be surprised if the current Mac Book is dropped and replaced with an ARM based unit. Due to Intels high prices that is the only way to get to a low priced Mac Book (except for possibly a deal with AMD but for whatever reason Apple doesn't buy AMD chips). At least in the past that is what we have been told to justify the Mac Books high prices.

The reason I see an ARM chip from Apple as possible is that they are already on par performance wise with the chip in the Mac Book. The bigger Apples production runs for A series chips the lower the cost and the greater the opportunity for binning chips. So a Mac book might have an A12 that runs lets say 500MHz faster than the chip in the iPhone (maybe wishful thinking but there is a possible upside in a laptop). Combine that with wider memory and the high integration seen in iPhones hand you have a tiny but very powerful compute module for the Mac Book that might cost apple 20% of an Intel based solution. In case you are wondering, yes I believe the 20% value is realistic. If it has more than one USB-C port I might even buy one.

wizard69 · August 14, 2018 12:34AM

melgross said:

Ok, we do expect a refresh, but what does inexpensive mean in this context?

Well that is a very good question. I believe that Apple can hit the $700 mark and keep quality high going with an ARM based chip. Maybe even get below that number.

Why do I believe this? It is pretty simple Intel charges a lot for what amunts to a very low performance chip. With ARM Apple might be able to hit $80 for the entire mother board (this assumes off board SSD and Apples tight allocation for RAM). We already know that Pad is very close to to Mac Book performance and an A12 would likely blow away the current Intel chip. Give A12 a few mods (memory bandwidth, ports, new GPU) and it could easily reside in a Mac Book and give stellar performance for a netbook.

The motherboard price is a wild guess but You don't need much more than what is in the iPad for a suitable notebook solution. It comes down to a couple of more USB ports (keyboard, additional USB-C port). Remember the Mac Book is already extremely limited for most notebook users. Apple really needs a notebook that appeal to the light user instead of a high end devices of limited functionality. They also need to be aware of what is available in the market place, there are many high quality notebooks in the sub $800 range whos greatest weakness is the OS they ship with.

wizard69 · August 14, 2018 12:41AM

SpamSandwich said:

melgross said:

Some of you guys are a joke. Wn speculation about the price of the iPad was going around, right before it actually came out. Some wags were saying that it would never be below $800. Others had the price pegged at $1500, saying that this was Apple, after all.

as we know, they were all wrong, and wrong by a lot. They were so wrong, that Hp, and others, which were preparing their own tablets, had to scrap them because they were too heavy - and too expensive. For years, obody could match Apple’s price. So we saw those crummy 16:9 7” tablets for the same price as an iPad.

at one time, the Air was selling, at Apple for $799. So if Apple is thinking of an inexpensive notebook, they will do it.

Only reason for them to do such a thing would be either to recapture lost market share in the education market or to grow the low-end consumer market... and they are not and never have been interested in competing on price.

It has little to do with competing on price it has a lot to do with creating a rational Mac lineup that actually sells in volume. Macs big problem right now is the lack of volume, thus nobody at Apple giving a hoot. Just look at all of the models that have had no significant enhancement even when the hardware is available from Intel. Build models that can actually sell in volume and maybe, just maybe somebody at Apple will pay attention.

Teh point of an ARM based device is that Apple can actually lower price, drive volume and still have a very healthy margin on each device.

melgross · August 14, 2018 1:26PM

SpamSandwich said:

melgross said:

Some of you guys are a joke. Wn speculation about the price of the iPad was going around, right before it actually came out. Some wags were saying that it would never be below $800. Others had the price pegged at $1500, saying that this was Apple, after all.

as we know, they were all wrong, and wrong by a lot. They were so wrong, that Hp, and others, which were preparing their own tablets, had to scrap them because they were too heavy - and too expensive. For years, obody could match Apple’s price. So we saw those crummy 16:9 7” tablets for the same price as an iPad.

at one time, the Air was selling, at Apple for $799. So if Apple is thinking of an inexpensive notebook, they will do it.

Only reason for them to do such a thing would be either to recapture lost market share in the education market or to grow the low-end consumer market... and they are not and never have been interested in competing on price.

That’s only partly true. For what they compete against, most Apple products are fairly priced, despite those who think otherwise. The iPad coasts about the same, and even less than some competing products. So,do some of Apple’s phones. If you look at some competing all-in ones, you’ll see they cost even more than the iMac. When Apple lowered the price of the Air to $799 a number of years ago, Windows OEMs struggled to meet that price. When the Mini first came out, it was considered to be fairly cheap.

sometimes Apple has low pricing, though not the cheapest, by any means, and sometimes they have higher prices. But to say that they never compete on price simply isn’t true.

Quanta rumored to be building new 'inexpensive' MacBooks in Dec. quarter

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