This is backed up by a rumour from , who says pretty much the same thing although does hedge his bets by suggesting Apple might prefer the first half of 2022 instead. reported that notable industry supply chain analyst Ming Chi-Kuo agrees with the later date, so it does seem likely that you may have to wait a little longer if you want to upgrade your existing Mac.
How much will the next MacBook Air cost?
Something else Ming Chi-Kuo stated in his report was that the MacBook Air would see a reduction in price, but it’s unclear whether this would be due to the new models being cheaper or Apple keeping the older versions in the catalogue and lowering the cost.
At the moment, buying a new M1 MacBook Air will set you back the following amounts:
- M1 MacBook Air, 8-Core CPU, 7-Core GPU, 256GB SSD £999/US$999/AU$1,599
- M1 MacBook Air, 8-Core CPU, 8-Core GPU, 512GB SSD £1,249/US$1,249/AU$1,949
One way for this to work is that Apple knocks around £100/US$100/AU$200 off the older models and slips the new ones in at the existing price points, which would make the original M1 models even more tempting.
It would be quite surprising to see those prices dropping so soon though, which in turn does suggest that the release date will be 2022 rather than 2021.
What new features will the MacBook Air have?
Rumours suggest that Apple may well be adding new features and bringing back some old ones with the MacBook Air (2021) redesign. You can expect the standard upgrade of new processors, storage increases and access to the latest version of macOS, but here’s the more interesting things we’ve seen reported so far:
Mini-LED display
Ming Chi-Kuo (via ) has said that the new MacBooks Apple has in the works will feature Mini-LED displays. These would bring more balanced contrast to colours and lighting, brighter panels and should prove more energy efficient. So, a better-looking screen and longer battery life. That’s something we’d all like to see in a laptop.
It could be that Mini-LED arrives first in the heavily anticipated , but with current estimates having that device launching at the end of 2021 or early 2022, it could be that Apple updates its MacBook range to Mini-LED all in one go.
You can read about why this display technology is a big deal in
Thinner and lighter design
that the new MacBook Air (2021) will be ‘thinner and lighter’ than the current models. This could be achieved by shrinking down the bezels around the display, possibly bringing it closer to something like the Dell XPS 13 or Huawei MateBook 14 (2020), albeit without the latter’s 3:2 aspect ratio.
How much Apple can reduce the overall size of the Air is unknown, as we’re sure the company will be keen to avoid repeating the mistakes than came with its ultra-slim Butterfly keyboard that resulted in problems for a lot of users. These have been replaced with more standard scissor switches in new MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros, which have eliminated most of the problems of keys giving double hits or not registering at all.
The return of MagSafe
Many long-term Mac users will rejoice at the idea of MagSafe chargers returning to the MacBook Air. These magnetically attached charging cables had the excellent feature of instantly popping out if someone pulled on the cable. So, if your dog decides to run across the room while you have your Mac plugged in, they won’t end up yanking the device off the table and have it clattering to the floor if their paws get caught up in the cable.
If you don’t want to wait for the new MacBook Air (2021) to arrive, you can check out the current as well as our guide to the best laptops currently available.