Rumor: A foldable MacBook could be nearly as expensive as Apple Vision Pro
Apple is said to be developing a foldable MacBook, but a high price tag could limit its initial appeal to deep-pocketed early adopters.
A pair of analyst reports today from Ming-Chi Kuo and Ross Young has renewed chatter about a foldable MacBook notebook. After winding down its car project, Apple is now understood to focus on future money-making projects.
One of them is rumored to be a MacBook with a display using a flexible OLED panel which folds in half. According to Kuo, the foldable screen should be “crease-free as possible.” He expects the computer to run an unannounced Apple M5 chip. But all this cutting-edge tech could prove too expensive for your average consumer.
Rumor: Apple is developing a foldable MacBook
When unfolded, the display would reportedly measure either 18.76 or 20.25 inches, Kuo has it. Ross Young chimed in on X, saying he expects Apple to use an 18.76-inch display instead of a 20.25-inch one for cost reasons.
In a post on Medium, Kuo speculates a foldable MacBook may end up costing nearly as much as Apple’s Vision Pro headset, which retails for $3500. The analyst also called for a fullscreen design and a virtual keyboard, but he’s not expecting a foldable MacBook to drop until 2026 at the earliest.
Kuo is the first analyst to say back in April 2022 that the iPhone maker was “actively testing” a foldable iPhone/iPad hybrid.
A folded MacBook should be compact
In the folded position, such a computer would have a similar size as the current 13-inch or 14-inch MacBook Pro. If true, a foldable MacBook should be bigger than the 13-inch iPad Pro but smaller than the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple apparently aims to make the panel as crease-free as possible, requiring high design specifications for both the display panel and the attached hinge. According to Kuo, the cost of the panel and hinge is “very high.”
“Current preliminary estimates put the panel and hinge costs at around $600–650 and $200–250, respectively,” he wrote.
LG should build flexible OLED panels
He expects these costs to drop if yields improve significantly by the time of mass production. Kuo also learned from his sources in the Asian supply chain that Apple has commissioned LG Display to start mass-producing flexible OLED panels for a foldable MacBook in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Korean website The Elec reported in December 2020 that Apple had started the development of a 20.25-inch OLED display.
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