The rumored OLED MacBook Air delays are no bad thing – the last thing I want is a price hike

A person holding the 15-inch MacBook Air at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2023.

(Image credit: Apple)

A new rumor suggests the OLED MacBook Air has been delayed until 2029
OLED tech could push the price up, so a delay isn’t the worst news
By 2029, OLED could be much more affordable

Apple’s MacBook Air packs in a surprising amount of quality considering it’s the company’s most affordable laptop, with a blazing-fast chip and superb build quality making it feel far more premium than it should. Yet it’s always lacked a truly flagship feature – an OLED display – and a new rumor suggests that we’ll now be waiting until 2029 to see that tech make its debut in Apple’s laptop.

That’s according to leaker Jukanlosreve on X, who cites Korean outlet The Elec to claim that the apparently poor sales performance of the OLED iPad Pro has led Apple to push back the OLED MacBook Air’s release date. It’s not the first time we’ve heard of a delay to the OLED MacBook Air, and it might sound strange to hear it, but I’m actually glad that there’s more evidence it’s been postponed.

That’s not because I’m some partisan OLED hater – no, I would love to see an OLED panel one day grace the MacBook Air. But I’m concerned that adding OLED would compromise the MacBook Air’s best feature: its price.

OLED is a costly addition to any computer, and there’s no doubt that bringing it to the MacBook Air would push up its price. Right now, you can buy an M2 MacBook Air for under $1,000 / £1,000, with the speedy M3 model costing just $100 / £100 more. How long would we be able to continue saying that if OLED was part of the equation?

Still the best Apple laptop for most people

MacBook Air (2022, M2) — (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

After all, the MacBook Air is not a laptop designed for Apple’s most demanding users – that’s a role fulfilled by the MacBook Pro. Instead, the MacBook Air is for everyone else, and its combination of fair price and a sprinkling of quality features means that in most cases, it’s the best Apple laptop for most people.

I’d be willing to bet that the majority of Apple’s MacBook Air customers care a lot more about the price than they do about their laptop’s display tech. After all, they’re not demanding pros who need the best of the best – they just want a solid laptop that performs well enough for their needs and lasts them years. The MacBook Air fulfils that role superbly right now. Would it be able to if it got a high-end upgrade that its users don’t need and a price rise that they definitely don’t want?

Ultimately, the report from The Elec doesn’t say that Apple will never bring OLED to the MacBook Air, just that it’s been delayed until 2029. By that point, OLED costs might have fallen enough that the price impact will be minimal, in which case we could have our cake and eat it, too.

That would be a great time to introduce OLED to the MacBook Air. Right now, though, keeping the price low is probably what most MacBook Air fans care more about.

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Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he's learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That's all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.