MacBook Pro M1X Rumoured To Have 120Hz Mini-LED Display, 1080p Webcam

With Apple’s recently announced “Unleashed” event coming up soon, rumours and leaks have been flooding out about the speculated MacBook Pro refresh. While we don’t know how accurate these claims are, they’ve set expectations high and even analyst Mark Gurman says that people have been asking about the new MacBook nonstop.

According to leakster @dylandkt, the new lineup will consist of a 14-inch and a 16-inch MacBook Pro, instead of the current 13-inch and 16-inch options. He also claims that the base models will have 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Moreover, the Pro is said to come with a new charging brick as rumours suggest that the USB-C charging port might be replaced by a Magsafe port.

Sticking with his claims from earlier this year, Dylandkt says that the 720p webcam will finally be upgraded to 1080p and the anticipated M1X chip will sport the same ten cores for both MacBook configurations at similar prices. The M1X MacBook Pro variant was expected to be launched back in June during WWDC but it never came to fruition.

As for the screen, display analyst Ross Young tweeted that both MacBook Pros will feature a mini-LED display with 120Hz refresh rate. Similarly, Dylandkt revealed that Apple has been working on a 120Hz display but says he doesn’t know when it will actually be implemented.

If the M1X MacBook Pro does come with a 120Hz display, then Apple will officially have another addition to its list of products that support the high refresh rate, alongside the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPad Pro. The Unleashed launch event will take place on 19 October at 1:00 AM Malaysian time and is expected to unveil the M1X MacBook Pro and Mac Mini, as well as the AirPods 3.

Apple Slapped With Lawsuit Over Cracked M1 MacBook Displays

Apple has found itself in another legal wrangle, yet again, in the US. Earlier this week, Bursor and Fisher, a law firm based in California, filed a class-action lawsuit against the company from Cupertino, over reports of cracking M1 MacBook displays.

The law firm is specifically suing Apple for selling its M1 Macbooks even it knew that their product was being fitted with unreliable displays that could crack even under the most normal use cases. The lawsuit also takes its accusation further by suggesting that Apple used defective displays on purpose, as a means of getting unfortunate consumers to head over to its stores. Where it could charge them as much as US$850 (~RM3545), just to repair their affected M1 MacBooks.

Issues brought on by the cracked displays reportedly include blacking out, a light show of magenta, purple, and blue lines, or simply “ceasing to function” altogether. Moreover, it seems that replacing the cracked displays of the affected M1 MacBooks do not guarantee that the issue will not occur again, as some consumers who did repair their machines reportedly suffer repeat performance.

At the time of writing, Apple has yet to comment on the matter.

Apple Feels The Pinch Of Global Chip Shortage; Delays MacBook, iPad Production

Apple’s production for the MacBook and iPad has officially been delayed and it’s all due to the global chip shortage. According to a report by Nikkei, the fruit company has pushed back a portion of its component order for the two products from the first half of the year to the second half.

The delay is a clear sign that even giants like the company from Cupertino isn’t immune from issues like the ongoing components famine that was brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. An issue, by the way, that is affecting a company with one of the most complicated supply chains in the world, and its insane ability to mobilise its suppliers in extremely short notices.

For what it is worth and perhaps as a form of consolation to Apple, the company isn’t alone in this. Its rival, Samsung, isn’t faring much better in this climate and if that wasn’t bad enough, it was also forced to shut down its Texas factory back in February, after an apocalyptically cold winter storm swept through the US state. Causing power outages and leaving its residents in the dark.

Outside the realm of smartphones, the chip shortage has also affected the production line for PC components, chief among them being the GPU. To make matters worse, that shortage is further compounded by the unscrupulous actions of scalpers and GPU miners, the latter brought about by the crypto-boom in the value of Bitcoin.

At the time of writing, Apple did not comment on any of the reports.