$599 MacBook With iPhone Chip Expected To Enter Production This Year (macrumors.com)
- Reference: 0179345274
- News link: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/09/18/1210236/599-macbook-with-iphone-chip-expected-to-enter-production-this-year
- Source link: https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/17/macbook-with-iphone-chip-production-rumor/
> Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today reiterated that a more affordable MacBook powered by an iPhone processor is [1]slated to enter mass production in the fourth quarter of 2025 , which points towards a late 2025 or early 2026 launch.
>
> Kuo was first to reveal that Apple is allegedly planning a more affordable MacBook. In late June, he said the laptop would have around a 13-inch display, and an A18 Pro chip. Kuo said potential color options include silver, blue, pink, and yellow, so the laptop could come in bright colors, like 2021-and-newer models of the 24-inch iMac.
>
> This time around, he only mentioned the MacBook will have an unspecific iPhone processor. Apple recently introduced the A19 Pro chip, which has 12GB of RAM, so it will be interesting to see if the lower-cost MacBook uses that chip instead. The entire Mac lineup has started with at least 16GB of RAM since last year, with the only option with 8GB being the MacBook with an M1 chip, which is sold exclusively by Walmart for $599.
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/17/macbook-with-iphone-chip-production-rumor/
What's the difference between tablet and phone? (Score:2)
Why not just plug your phone into a monitor/keyboard/Ethernet dock via a Thunderbolt connection?
Re:What's the difference between tablet and phone? (Score:4, Insightful)
The software is shit.
Re: (Score:2)
Why not do something like having a MacOS hypervisor running in the background, that would activate when the phone was docked? Thereby giving the user a desktop experience on their phone and would revert back to iOS when in mobile mode....
Re: (Score:2)
Motorola tried something similar with the "Atrix" device about 10 years ago and there was absolutely no market for it, and it died within a year.
The only people that want a fully converged device like that are the people that don't understand that doing real work with a computer still needs real wattage. Even the best that Nvidia can do with the Jetson Orin Nano still has the SoC using ~12W under load, and it has a proper heat sink / fan on it in able to disperse the heat.
If all you are doing is email and
Re: (Score:2)
So pretty much every single company's road warrior sales rep...who's jobs when it comes to their computer is pretty much reply to emails, talk on the phone and give PowerPoint presentations. That seems to me like there is a market. Maybe it just wasn't advertised very well...
Re: (Score:3)
In those 10 years laptops like the MB Air and even Windows laptops have gotten so thin and light that it's barely any more burden to carry it around than a dock and keyboard and other accoutrements to make a phone into a laptop to say nothing of what say an iPad Pro can do which is the real device that blurs the lines.
Plus people have come around to the idea that phones are good at being phones and computers are good at being computers and trying to make either cover the other you end up with something wors
Re: (Score:2)
> , yeah your phone + desktop display probably gets the job done. Anything more than that and you're better off with a higher spec device.
If I have to lug around a screen (and full keyboard),
might as well call it a laptop. And the CPU is not the
issue anymore: the hungriest apps are not going to be
the "desktop" apps, it's the "mobile" apps that it's
already running.
Re: (Score:2)
While I agree that real work with a computer still needs real wattage, I do believe that most people could carry all of their documents other than entertainment media on their phone, like it was a personal secure cloud, connect them to hardware that has an optical net connection and lots of processing power, but doesn't have nonvolatile memory, do work, and go away without leaving any personal business behind. Memory in the phone might need extra power and cooling to work with the more powerful hardware, bu
Re: (Score:2)
It is because 10 years the ago the chips in the phones were way underpowered compared to even a budget laptop. Today that is not the case. The chips in the today's top of the line phones and tablets could certainly run a full desktop/laptop OS if they were allowed to do so.
Re: (Score:2)
> Why not do something like having a MacOS hypervisor running in the background, that would activate when the phone was docked? Thereby giving the user a desktop experience on their phone and would revert back to iOS when in mobile mode....
Now fix the keyboard and make the screen fold out
to be about double the iPad size, and increase the
storage significantly... and you get the device they
are advertising (except unfortunately the screen
and keyboard don't fold and not touchscreen mode).
Maybe 6 years from now, though.
Re: (Score:3)
You can do that with any modern phone but people don't do it....
Consider this the 'celeron' of Apple. Some people want an Apple product because they want an Apple product, they don't do any real productivity work on it. For $599 it will have a crap (for apple) monitor and something worse than the butterfly keyboard and will probably get 30 hours of battery life, and will give all the fanbois/apologists yet more things to declare 'total dominance' over any other choice.
Re: (Score:1)
Please name one. There is a difference between a USB-C connection and a Thunderbolt connection.
Re: (Score:3)
Pixel? Samsung?
Re: (Score:2)
You can do that with any modern phone but people don't do it....
Kiiiinda I guess, but somehow everything is shit.
Re: (Score:2)
What phone has a Thunderbolt connection?
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking phones SHOULD have a Thunderbolt connection, but people smarter than me are saying this: "Thunderbolt is fundamentally not supported on smartphones due to the lack of PCIe root complex support, stringent power design requirements, and cost. It’s a desktop- and laptop-grade standard with exacting hardware demands." I would want Thunderbolt to stream audio/video from phone to larger device, but perhaps Google's trick of just sending the source address to the target device and having it c
Re: (Score:2)
Back when the iPhone was introduced I was convinced that within 10 years computing would be mostly done this way; connecting your portable computer (smart phone) to a dock that turned it into your home computer. I'm surprised that this idea never gained traction. I can understand why some markets would have avoided this (extreme gaming for one) but for many people this phone and dock setup would easily be enough for daily computing needs. I also envisioned tablets that were nothing more than a screen and ex
Re: (Score:2)
> Back when the iPhone was introduced I was convinced that within 10 years computing would be mostly done this way; connecting your portable computer (smart phone) to a dock that turned it into your home computer. I'm surprised that this idea never gained traction.
I think there have been a few reasons for this.
I think the biggest one is that nobody could meaningfully agree on a form factor. Now, *I* always thought that a great option would be to have a 'zombie laptop' that had a keyboard, trackpad, webcam, and a battery, with a slot to slide your phone into. The phone would connect to the peripherals and give a 12" screen and a keyboard, while charging the phone in the process.
The devil, of course, was in the details. Even if Apple made such a device and molded it to
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, all good points as to why this never took off. As a technology teacher for 18 years I would somewhat try to predict the future of hardware/software to give students ideas on where to look for the next big thing. I missed the mark on this one. I like your zombie laptop idea. That still sounds like a promising avenue to look into.
Re:What's the difference between tablet and phone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because Apple doesn't allow you to run the software you want to on your phone.
Go ahead and fire up Xcode on your iPhone. I'll wait.
Re: (Score:2)
If I had to guess they probably won't let you run the Mac OS software emulator on the phone. So if you have desktop Macintosh applications you want or need to run then you're not going to be allowed to do that. Even if there's no particular technical reason why you can't Apple wants your money twice.
Apple would have to merge iOS and Mac OS for you to be able to run the apps back and forth. I don't think software developers would want that either because they're going to want to sell you the software twi
Re: (Score:2)
How about the hardware does not support it? To use a Thunderbolt connection, the motherboard must have a Thunderbolt controller chip. I do not know of any phone that has one currently. Due to cost and space limitations, phone manufacturers do not include them. Laptops and desktops can have them.
Re: (Score:2)
> Why not just plug your phone into a monitor/keyboard/Ethernet dock via a Thunderbolt connection?
That would work, except the SSD is too small,
the screen is too small, those aren't full keyboards,
and uh oh yeah WRONG OPERATING SYSTEM.
Phones won't run 90% of the apps I use.
But CPU-wise, it would be plausible.
Gonna sell like hotcakes (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, this is a shot across the bow right at MS as I would bet the build quality and battery life will exceed what you can get from a $600 wintel machine.
Honestly will be a fantastic option for all those non-techy family members who we're all a little apprehensive about giving Windows to and for those of us without the skill or patience to transition to some flavor of Linux (which this hardware will still be nicer than).
For doing online browser stuff and media consumption the only reason not to recommend something like a Macbook Air has been the price. Complain about Apple all we want (and we should) but even the cheapest MacOS system is a very functional everyday user machine. There's a reason the decline of Windows has tracked the uptick of Mac systems, people like them. Gotta accept and acknowledge those facts if we want to change opinions on this.
Re: (Score:3)
You are correct. The only better timing would have been in August right before school.
Re: (Score:2)
This is an attempt to get into the Chromebook market, particularly education. Schools aren't going to tell parents that they need to buy a $1,500 Macbook, but a $250 Chromebook isn't out of the question.
It will be interesting to see how badly crippled it is by software lockdowns. Mac App Store only? Or even iPad OS.
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think a company known for over priced accessories with high margins would in any way preserve features and build quality when attempting a low level budget device?
In fact we know what it will look like, Apple has done this before with other products such as the iPhone 5C, a device that said less "high build quality" and more "look we can make cheap plastic crap too". The iPhone 5c was a flop to the point they never released individual sales numbers, and proceeded to cancel the device lineup.
Re: (Score:2)
2013 was a long time ago, Apple's production chains have only gotten better, FoxConn and others have built a lot of manufacturing capacity.
I am not saying this will be the same quality of a top end Macbook, for whatever we think of that, but in terms of fit and finish and feel I bet it will be similar to an Air and that feels nicer than most cheap windows laptops.
They've also been prepping their customers for this for a long time. When we say features what do we mean? This is going to be a keybaord, trackp
Re: (Score:2)
> For doing online browser stuff and media consumption the only reason not to recommend something like a Macbook Air has been the price.
Chromebooks are still cheaper. Granted, I know we hate the cloud here on /., but the average non-techie buyer is just going to see the price tag and that the Chromebook handles basic computing tasks just fine.
I know inflation has been a bit out the wazoo lately, but $600 still buys a fairly decent entry level PC laptop. This seems to me more like Apple attempting to hold the line, since in this economy there are probably more than a few Mac users still rocking some Jurassic era hardware and Apple doesn't
$599? (Score:4, Insightful)
They can barely make a phone at that price point.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'm not buying it. Apple knows better than the play in the sub $800 laptop space, because there is no profit margin in it.
Plus, "Apple Intelligence" doesn't seem to play well on systems with less than 16 GB of RAM. It would be a bad look if the hot new software feature they're promoting doesn't work on all of their new devices.
Re: (Score:2)
I have my doubts as well. But then again Apple Inc. is pretty maxed out on revenue gains these days. Some quarters #1 in valuation, some not. Therefore I wouldn't put it past them to be eyeing just that market, and a "loss leader" device to get more people on board with Apple Services. IIRC their past earnings calls usually have Services making them far, FAR more money that hardware...
Re: (Score:2)
This is a market share grab. Perfect timing with the Windows 10/11 fiasco happening right now.
Re: (Score:2)
> They can barely make a phone at that price point.
I agree Apple's phones are overly expensive, but - there is a cost associated with miniaturization and having to engineer for smaller space. Making a $599 laptop should be easier than a $599 phone with equivalent computing power.
It's of the reasons why thin, light laptops cost more than thick, heavy laptops - especially back when they first went mainstream.
Re: (Score:2)
Making something small and compact can easily be more expensive than a product without those constraints. The resolution on most phone displays is close to as good as that on many laptops or even desktop displays. It's more difficult and hence more expensive to make a high PPI touchscreen display for a phone than to make a larger desktop monitor with the same resolution. Boards don't need to cram everything into as small of a space either. A laptop doesn't need to contain a cellular modem/baseband either.
Re: (Score:3)
> They can barely make a phone at that price point.
Actually, Apple still sells the iPhone 13. We don't know what they're actually charging for it, since it's only sold through carrier partner channels to prepaid carriers, but they do still offer an inexpensive phone. Retail, it's [1]$200. [walmart.com] They've been doing this for awhile, where ostensibly "discontinued" models continue being produced for a bit longer for a second life as prepaid phones. Apple has a lot more baked-in profit margin in their pricing than you might realize.
[1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Straight-Talk-Apple-iPhone-13-128GB-Midnight-Prepaid-Smartphone-Locked-to-Straight-Talk/454408250
Completely locked down I'm sure (Score:4, Interesting)
I strongly suspect this cheap laptop will be locked down. No root, no exception to only allowing signed apps. This will be wildly successful. If you need "developer" access you'll need to buy a MacBook pro.
Hope I'm very wrong but every version of macos on the last few years has been stepping towards this sort of thing.
Perfect for kids - Hope it runs Roblox! (Score:3)
As others stated, it's a chromebook running IOS. I don't think many will buy it as their primary work laptop. However, I can picture every family with small kids buying this instead of giving their kids Mommy/Daddy's old laptop. If it has enough power to run Roblox, it will be one of their biggest hits of all time.
I am surprised Apple hasn't done this before. In our house, my wife and I run macs. One kid has a chromebook. One has a cheap Windows laptop. Why? because macs are expensive and the chromebook barely gets use and the windows laptop is just a gaming machine and honestly mostly runs Roblox Studio, occasionally games that are also available on consoles.
We'd love to replace both with these and just run Apple stuff...single family iCloud account, share peripherals more easily...no need to troubleshoot windows stupidity...no need to worry about what ads Windows is serving my kids.
This is the smartest thing I've read about Apple in a long time. It's smart to focus on luxury, but given how weak Windows and Android are ATM, why not make a power play to expand the userbase...especially for families like ours where we gladly pay for premium Apple devices for ourselves and professional use, but stick to budget devices for kids...ensuring that we're locked in even longer and moreso.
Re: (Score:2)
It will run MacOS, not iOS.
The smart money doesn’t bet much on Kuo (Score:2)
Am I the only person to recognise his name and know that he has a decidedly mixed record when it comes to predicting future Apple products? He gets it right about 70% of the time, so a little better than a coin toss, but not something I’d use for making money.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe you're thinking of Mark Gurman. Ming- Chi Kuo tends to have a better track record... although still not perfect. Gurman's predictions are definitely like a coin flip.
Basically an iPad without a touch screen (Score:2)
Or maybe (if it exists) it's just an iPad and this analyst is wrong.
iPhone to a display (Score:2)
So, you can already plug your iPhone into a dock that is connected to a monitor. Or a USB-C directly to a monitor. You can also connect a keyboard and mouse, or a playstation controller, to a iPhone via bluetooth. Of course the software isn't ideal to be used this way; but if you are just using safari, sometime like google docks, playing videos, or videos games it works just fine.
At this point Apple could, but they won't, create a hypervisor so that when it sensed it was plugged into a dock or monitor
What we really want... (Score:2)
Is to take our phone and plug it into a usb or thunderbolt hub and have a full desktop OS, 100%, plus mobile apps integrated. Then we unplug and have the phone be 100% mobile. Then we go to work and plug in, going back to a full desktop. Then we go to the bathroom and plug it into a laptop skeleton with integrated hub, getting the desktop. One device to rule them all.
Re: (Score:2)
Or why even buy a computer at all? Let's ignore that the entire appeal of computers is their flexibility.
Re: (Score:3)
Or, (in-)famously, "What's a computer?" :)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm trying to figure out why the fuck anyone would want to buy this thing in the first place?
If you want something with the power of a phone....buy a fucking phone....no?
Re: (Score:2)
Its a Chromebook. Think about what's in a flagship phone and a top of the line laptop 10 years ago. Now think about what people are doing on laptops and whether or not they could use that 10 year old one just fine. The "power of a phone" is all relative - in this case it can service the needs of a cheapo chromebook type experience just fine. (Its apple so will cost 2x a chromebook).
I remember there was a phone laptop docking combo a while back that did just this - you plugged the phone into the laptop a
Re: (Score:2)
> you plugged the phone into the laptop and just used it there, but it looked clunky as hell
Samsung still has DEX (Desktiop EXperience) available for its phones. You can either plug it into a computer and use the phone like a program within a computer, or you can connect it to a USBC docking station with HDMI, mouse, and keyboard attached and use the phone in a desktop style.
It works decently well enough. I wouldn't want to use it full time but I've used it occasionally (typically when my home internet is out. My desktop doesn't have a wifi card since I use ethernet, so I can't really pair the
Re: (Score:1)
> I'm trying to figure out why the fuck anyone would want to buy this thing in the first place?
> If you want something with the power of a phone....buy a fucking phone....no?
CPU power is not the issue. I would buy one to
have a device with a full keyboard and the ability
to run arbitrary (not App Store) programs.
This under-powered laptop will run all these
things just fine: Emacs, Audacity, VLC, Firefox,
Google Earth, LibreOffice, Zoom, and the native
MacOS apps including Mail, Music, and Preview.
It should also do fine with SBCL (Lisp compiler)
and databases like Sqlite (and my little programs).
It will do XCode and GCC for all the Linux apps
that I use: mostly utilities from Homebrew.
Re: (Score:2)
Slashdot must be full of mods who turned down investing in Apple in the 80s.
Schools would love them... (Score:3)
If Apple does this right, schools will love them, especially if they have a touch screen, and likely would make a significant dent on the Chromebook population out there.
Then, there is the fact that an entry level laptop is nice to have when traveling and not needing high end features. Back when Apple had their m3 (Intel m3, not Apple Silicon M3) MacBook with a single USB port, the 11" form factor was perfect for long trips, because it could easily be slung into a bag without worry. Having something that
Re: (Score:2)
Doubt the schools would love them. Schools love the Google ecosystem and particularly how they can be an organization that micromanages what the students can do all while having a supremely disposable device. The price and touchscreens are nice and all, but it's really about the Google infrastructure. It's also a contributor to why a lot of businesses like Windows, the effort invested in *not* letting the user be able to do what they want at the whim of some designated third party.
Besides, the Chromebooks
Re: And (Score:2)
It used to be for their flexibility. Now it's more of a utility. Just web browsing, printing, etc.. This will help them enter the school required throw away device arena.
Re:And (Score:5, Insightful)
It's "so complicated" because with almost any other laptop manufacturer you can add RAM after the fact, and not have to upgrade everything else in the system that you don't need upgraded just to get more RAM.
Want more than the anemic (rumored) 12GB? Well instead of spending $100 to toss out a shitty low-denisty SODIMM and replace it with a 16GB module, you get to spend $800 more in order to get a completely different laptop model with far more spec than you actually need in every other aspect of the system, and a price that you may no longer be able to afford. Yay?
It's shitty design and you know it.
Re: (Score:2)
Many laptops already don't have upgradable RAM, and since SODIMMs are limited to lower speeds, eventually no laptops will have upgradable RAM. LPCAMM and LPCAMM2 were supposed to solve this, but by the time they started hitting the market, they too suffered the same fate: they allowed faster RAM than SODIMMs, but were still a clockspeed bottleneck.
It's fine to sell a laptop with slower RAM today, but in a few years, when that faster RAM is the mainstream, it won't be.
Re: (Score:3)
> It's "so complicated" because with almost any other laptop manufacturer you can add RAM after the fact, and not have to upgrade everything else in the system that you don't need upgraded just to get more RAM.
The people who upgrade ram in their laptops are probably like 1% of the total market. Most are bought by corps or individuals who treat them as an appliance.
Re: (Score:2)
You're not wrong, but this is a website populated mostly by that 1%. I suspect that most of the people here do upgrade components or build their own PCs from parts.
Re: (Score:2)
> The people who upgrade ram in their laptops are probably like 1% of the total market.
More like "frustrated that they can't upgrade the RAM in their laptops". Last time I went laptop shopping, the ones that didn't have soldered down everything were few and far between. You're lucky these days if there's a M.2 slot to upgrade the storage.
Re: (Score:2)
> Most are bought by corps or individuals who treat them as an appliance.
Funny you mention corps. I work for a multinational and what our IT does is buy the base level as an appliance and then manually upgrade user RAM on an as needs / as approved basis. Multitasking rarely requires a higher end computer, but always requires more available RAM. Corps definitely play with this stuff.
the point is (Score:1)
Apple charges a king's ransom for RAM and storage, so the starting configuration is very important to how worthwhile one of their products is.
The reason for this new product is Apple needs to retire the M1, if for no other reason than they don't want to have to support it ad infinitum. Their current strategy for addressing the low end of the market is to sell the M1 for cheap through Wal-Mart. Once the M5 is announced the M1 will look really long in the tooth, and it's not clear that the cost to make the M1
Re: (Score:2)
There is a concept in computing where a certain spec is good NOW, but will not be good in the future. Rather than replace the entire computer many would rather just increase the power of their current one where its lacking.
Also, by preventing outside ram installation, Apple is free to charge whatever premium they want on more RAM. If they're the only way to increase the ram on a machine then if they decide you're going to pay an extra $500 to go from 8gb to 16gb, then you're stuck.
Re:And (Score:5, Insightful)
So? 99.9% of laptop users will never upgrade their RAM anyways. This is a budget laptop. It doesn't need to be upgraded. It's made to do the basics, like a Chromebook. For someone on a tech website, you're certainly completely out of touch with technology needs.
Re: (Score:2)
Replaceable memory is not just to provide upgradability, it allows buyers to shop memory pricing.
" This is a budget laptop. It doesn't need to be upgraded."
Odd, that's never been a description of budget laptops previously.
" For someone on a tech website, you're certainly completely out of touch with technology needs."
Takes one to know one. and you're replying to an AC.
Re: (Score:2)
And you seem to be completely out of touch with the problem of environmental e-waste. Many devices could have their usable life extended by multiple years if these corporations made devices that were sustainable and not designed to be replaced. Which is easily achievable by implementing simple things that these devices used to have such as user upgradable RAM slots and replaceable batteries for starters. It's especially sad when these very same corporations greenwash the shit out of everything to make it
Re: (Score:2)
Because for a long time a big part of the value proposition of a mac was being able to do a mid-life upgrade on HD and RAM to be able to stretch its useful life to ~6-7 years. Of course that hasn't been true in a decade, but people still feel bent over paying Apple's prices for additional RAM and storage at purchase, which are about 4x retail rates.
Re: (Score:2)
That'd never been the value proposition of a Mac. They already had longer lifespans than the average PC with no need to do such upgrade. Appe never touted such as a key buying feature in anything other than the pro desktops.
Re: (Score:2)
Back in the day we'd install wild boards that would upgrade the Mac CPU's by a generation or two, add FPU's, etc.
All of this depended on the systems being too expensive to replace or buy new except once in a blue moon.
At $600 which is probably $200 in 1986 money, it's a bit harder to be mad.
Those systems were probably $10K in 2025 dollars. Heck, a few were $10K in 1986 dollars.
Re: And (Score:2)
It also depended on low speed interfaces to processors. You used to be able to accelerate computers which came with a 68k chip by slapping a daughterboard with a faster CPU on it into the CPU socket. That's not practical today.
Side note, anyone want a radius accelerator for Mac SE?
Re: (Score:2)
> Because for a long time a big part of the value proposition of a mac was being able to do a mid-life upgrade on HD and RAM to be able to stretch its useful life to ~6-7 years.
My main computer is a Mac Mini from 2009.
Does everything I need, including my little
software development projects.
Syncs with my (new) iPhone and iPad.
The only problem with it is no (security) updates.
But I run Firefox, live behind it's firewall, and the
most dodgy thing I ever do is trust the Python repos.
I'll upgrade when the main board someday croaks.
At which point I'll buy another one (maybe new,
maybe a has-been refurb off Ebay), plug my Time Machine
drive into it, and pick up where I left off the day befo
Re: (Score:2)
> So? 99.9% of laptop users will never upgrade their RAM anyways.
Only because they can't. The problem is not that they don't want to, it's that they don't understand. The end result is someone buys something budget, quickly find it was never their use case in the first place, and then buy the better device not knowing why it was better, but hey it runs good and the old device is now e-waste.
Education would be a better result than contributing to a product that is perpetuating a product waste cycle.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not even remotely true. Even when laptops had upgradable RAM and hard drives, less than 1% ever did so. The reality is that most just buy a new machine. You're forgetting that you're not the average user.
Wander over to your HR department and ask everyone how much RAM their home computer has. Bet not a single one would even be able to tell you what RAM is and what its function is. Those are average users.
Re: (Score:3)
Most laptops nowadays have soldered-on RAM. Generally, with the exception of some gaming laptops, modern laptops have the mainboard of a tablet (in terms of design). This allows for reduced thickness and reduced cost, which is what most people want. Simply put, most people will buy the laptop and never upgrade it, and let's not forget we aren't swapping to a 5400RPM HDD anymore, so RAM starvation isn't obvious to most people like it was back in those days.
Re: (Score:2)
> This allows for reduced thickness and reduced cost, which is what most people want
Reduced thickness? No, I think pretty much everyone agrees laptops are as thin as they need to be. Any thinner and they'll slip when you're typing on them, and we want some thickness to keep them robust.
Which also raises another problem with the "thinness" fetish promoted only by laptop marketdroids and the morons who work as reviewers for so-called "tech" websites like Engadget et al: the keyboards on most modern laptop