Revised MacBook Air
Have been downloading movies via iTunes and am starting to think maybe I want a next-gen macBook Air rather than MacBook Pro? Suddenly an inbuilt DVD burner doesn't seem like such a deal breaker.
So does anyone know anything about a new version of the MacBook Air?
Specifically, when can we expect a Centrino 2 version? Which particular Centrino chip is most likely for inclusion? Will the on-board GPU that comes with the Penryn chipset improve graphics quality and video playback significantly versus the current model?
Will it be offered with 4 Gb of RAM?
When will a 256 Gb SSD drive be available?
Is Apple likely to provide additional ports?
Will apple offer a USB hub designed specifically for the Air as a kind of Port replicator?
So does anyone know anything about a new version of the MacBook Air?
Specifically, when can we expect a Centrino 2 version? Which particular Centrino chip is most likely for inclusion? Will the on-board GPU that comes with the Penryn chipset improve graphics quality and video playback significantly versus the current model?
Will it be offered with 4 Gb of RAM?
When will a 256 Gb SSD drive be available?
Is Apple likely to provide additional ports?
Will apple offer a USB hub designed specifically for the Air as a kind of Port replicator?
Comments
Specifically, when can we expect a Centrino 2 version? Which particular Centrino chip is most likely for inclusion? Will the on-board GPU that comes with the Penryn chipset improve graphics quality and video playback significantly versus the current model?
When: New low-voltage, small-package size chips like the ones the air currently uses will be released in September. 1.6GHz and 1.86GHz, not much improvement. Or Apple could use medium-voltage small-package chips, which will be released in July at 2.26 and 2.4GHz, but they may be too hot for the air.
The new integrated GPU should be a substantial improvement, but that depends on how well Apple and Intel write the driver for it.
My guess in January? But then again who knows.
I am very curious about your experiences with it tho.
When the Air first came out, it was instant love at first sight. Even after I found out they did away with the optical drive, I was still on board.
The only thing that gave me pause were the small HD sizes. And to a lesser extent the speed and ram limits. If it weren't for these issues, I KNOW I would have snapped up one right away. But as it is, I'll wait.
The flash drives, even with the recent $500 price cut are still too small for my needs. But even the 80gig regular HD is too small.
I am ready to make the leap of letting the DVD/CD drive go...like I did with the floppy years ago....but I'll most likely be getting one of the updated macbook or macbook pros instead.
The Air is one sexy sleek machine...but the new macbooks and macbook pros are suppose to take alot of design cues from it, so I look forward to that.
Then in a couple of years perhaps I'll revisit the Air and see how far technology has come in being able to pack more into it's slim body.
Until then...I look forward to the new macbook updates.
I know with a "mobile me" account, you get 20 additional gigs of virtual HD space....and that is great. I see where Apple is going with this "virtual" world...and I like it.
But even so, that would only be 100gigs if you bought the 80gig Air. Actually less since the OS takes up so much room.
I am so used to having ALL my music on my laptop. Especially now that I've "upgraded" my ipod to a touch which holds less than my old 60gig ipod. I also travel alot, and I like to take photos with my DSLR. The slimmer Air would be perfect size wise...but I want to store all my photos as well. And carrying around an external HD kinda defeats the size advantage.
Even if Apple couldn't get a 250gig HD in it like in the macbooks, If they could only squeeze a 160gig one in...I'd be happy.
160 gigs is the absolute MINIMUM I'd go for a laptop. And even that is barely enough. I want access to ALL my stuff when on the road.
I can sacrifice and adjust to the lack of an optical drive...but that on top of a small HD is TOO much of a sacrifice all at once.
I'll just throw out my $0.02 on a little bit of that.
When: New low-voltage, small-package size chips like the ones the air currently uses will be released in September. 1.6GHz and 1.86GHz, not much improvement. Or Apple could use medium-voltage small-package chips, which will be released in July at 2.26 and 2.4GHz, but they may be too hot for the air.
The new integrated GPU should be a substantial improvement, but that depends on how well Apple and Intel write the driver for it.
FutrePastNow,
Very interesting post. More like $100 worth instead of $0.02!
I understand that the forthcoming intel chips running at 2.26, 2.4 and 2.53 Ghz chips consume only 25 watts of power versus the current 35 watts found in most laptops. However, rhe current 1.6 and 1.8 Ghz chips in the Air consume only 20 watts of power. The small package processors running at 1.6 and 1.86 only consume 17 watts of power.
Could an Air take an extra 5 watts without compromising its thermal integrity?
Please explain more about GPU drivers. Thanks
17W CPUs will provide longer battery life
2GB RAM still
120GB HDD or 128GB SSD
In general, many small improvements, but nothing life-changing.
ps: I'm very, very happy to not have an optical drive in my laptop.
FutrePastNow,
Very interesting post. More like $100 worth instead of $0.02!
I understand that the forthcoming intel chips running at 2.26, 2.4 and 2.53 Ghz chips consume only 25 watts of power versus the current 35 watts found in most laptops. However, rhe current 1.6 and 1.8 Ghz chips in the Air consume only 20 watts of power. The small package processors running at 1.6 and 1.86 only consume 17 watts of power.
Could an Air take an extra 5 watts without compromising its thermal integrity?
Please explain more about GPU drivers. Thanks
Only Apple engineers know how much more heat the MBA's fan can dissipate. Processor power also affects battery life.
On the graphics thing, I don't know who writes Apple video drivers (supposedly it's Apple but they must have a lot of help from the manufacturers), but they are sometimes... imperfect. I'm just thinking of the weird situation where the Radeon 2600XT outperforms the Geforce 8800GT at some tasks on the Mac- which can only mean that whoever wrote the Nvidia driver did a terrible job.
But the GMA X3100 outperforms the 950 by a fair margin on the Mac, so we can assume the X4500 will do better still. It should be capable of decoding hi-def h.264 video in hardware, a good thing.
Could an Air take an extra 5 watts without compromising its thermal integrity?
Perhaps but consider how much that may improve battery life on the MBA. Could turn it into a six hour machine between charges.
I think Apple will lean towards battery life over raw speed in this instance since the Air is designed for mobility.
Oops, saw the mcarling beat me to it about the battery life.
Have been downloading movies via iTunes and am starting to think maybe I want a next-gen macBook Air rather than MacBook Pro? Suddenly an inbuilt DVD burner doesn't seem like such a deal breaker.
If you are just starting to download movies from Itunes maybe you haven't gotten a feel for the sizes of the files but you will be short of disk space rather quickly. I say this because one of the reasons I purchased my MBP recently was to get iTunes. Things like television shows and movies take up a lot of space and if you expect to keep them around you need a big disk drive.
That assumes that you want to keep them available in the portable platform that AIR is. To me that is the whole point of having iTunes on a laptop, that is to have portable entertainment. So in a nut shell the current disk drive simply doesn't cut the mustard. The lack of a CD drive built in is really a personal thing, I'd rather have one right now. If I had AIR as a second computer maybe not.
So does anyone know anything about a new version of the MacBook Air?
Sure let me tap into my corporate account at Apple and walk the net there. In other words nothing in the way of info. You would likely to see something on the rumour sites first.
Specifically, when can we expect a Centrino 2 version? Which particular Centrino chip is most likely for inclusion? Will the on-board GPU that comes with the Penryn chipset improve graphics quality and video playback significantly versus the current model?
Look at Intels public documents and make a guess for yourself. I suspect that the upgrade is further off than many think. This mostly due to Apple having a whole raft load of hardware that is much older than AIR needing an update. Plus the remote possibility that Apple might be working with Intel on a different solution.
Will it be offered with 4 Gb of RAM?
This one I'm doubtful on.
When will a 256 Gb SSD drive be available?
This one I'm doubtful on. For what you want out of the machine I'm going to suggest from experience that that ought to be a minimal size. The 200Gb disk on my MBP is filling up faster than expected. It all comes down to packaging density, AIR doesn't leave much room for the storage module. That kind of sucks.
The only good thing here is that by the time Flash does get to that density other technologies for Solid State storage may hit the market thus impacting pricing. That is like 2010 or maybe even later. It is still hard to compete against old disk technology.
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Is Apple likely to provide additional ports?
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This is a huge issue for me and is what kept me from buying an AIR in the first place. I would not go for an AIR until they address the USB and Ethernet issues. That is me of course.
Notably; as described above I've become acutely aware of the issue of storage space if you go with a laptop PC. That issue is worst on the AIR. More so you options for external storage are more limited than they need to be.
Will apple offer a USB hub designed specifically for the Air as a kind of Port replicator?
I doubt it. I still believe that Apple can address the USB and other port issues without drastically changing the design of AIR. Now the question is do they want to and if they do how quickly will it be updated. I'd expect that you will have to wait more than a year to see a major change here.
Dave
Thank you for your considered response. Very interesting.
You're absolutely right about the Air and iTunes being incompatible because of the Air's limited disk space. I am presently using an iMac with 320 Gb hard drive and am well aware that downloading movies chews up disk space, which is exactly why I haven't yet purchased an Air.
I reckon you're right about other models being updated before the Air. I am beginning to think it will be January before it happens. If it is January, then maybe Samsung's recently announced 256 Gb SSD drive will be available.
What would you do if you were Apple about the ports?
Wizard 69 / Dave,
Thank you for your considered response. Very interesting.
You're absolutely right about the Air and iTunes being incompatible because of the Air's limited disk space. I am presently using an iMac with 320 Gb hard drive and am well aware that downloading movies chews up disk space, which is exactly why I haven't yet purchased an Air.
Heck I'm already regretting not getting a 320 GB drive in my MBP. It is something to reiterate if you are interested in iTunes, especially stuff outside of simple music, the AIR just doesn't have enough drive space. This is a huge shame too, as it is exactly the type of device that would make long plane flight more bearable.
I reckon you're right about other models being updated before the Air. I am beginning to think it will be January before it happens. If it is January, then maybe Samsung's recently announced 256 Gb SSD drive will be available.
I could be right but do realize that is simply a guess on my part. That guess based on the current status of the entire lineup of hardware.
Even 256 Gb might be pressing things if you have a taste for a lot of video / tv. Unfortunately Apple did not try to depart from the old formula for laptops where the "disk" is considered a separate piece of hardware. Apple could have done much better with the solid state storage on a card just like the RAM. Or for that matter on the back side of the RAM card. This would have given them a lot more space for Flash chips.
AS it is now the mini "disk" module is so small that it will always be expensive and lagging what is possible in a standard notebook disk.
What would you do if you were Apple about the ports?
Oh this is the easy part.
1.
Change the audio analog connector to the one used in the iPhone so that we can get sound in and out. That takes up zero space.
2.
Make the little access door configurable. That is give people the option of having an additional USB port instead of the video connector.
3.
Provide on the new access door either a LAN socket or a firewire socket. Firewire missing here is a real shame but may be due to issues of power. The Lan socket on the other hand shouldn't cost anything power wise.
4.
If the door upgrade won't fly for what ever reason Apple will need to create ports someplace else on the AIR. Frankly a firewire and lan port won't take up a lot of space. The biggest issue is the thickness of the connectors but history has already demonstrated solutions there. Apple could take example from the old PCMCIA lan cards where the Lan "receptacle" popped out the side of the card. Apple could easily reengineer such a connector to be far more durable than what they where noted for. That would easily take care of Ethernet.
5.
Frankly though if I had a opportunity to choose between an Ethernet port and a Firewire I'd go the Firewire route. That simply to allow hooking up more of the commonly available video hardware.
Dave
For the record, I totally dig where Apple is going with the whole "no optical drive" thing.
As this world becomes more digital....a cd/dvd drive will mean less and less to people.
BUT....Hard drive space is a deal breaker for me. As much as I love the Air's design and looks and can accept it leaving the optical drive behind....I can't jump on board just yet.
Not until the HD size increases. Both the Flash Drive and regular HD options fall way short in what I need in terms of space.
Heck...even the macbook's limit of 250 gigs may not be enough for some.
But 80? No way. Between my music collection and just the OSX...I'd be maxed out. Not to mention my regular programs, photos and files!
Some may say that the Air is not marketed for that kind of user. But I disagree. People like me who travel ALOT....are attracted to the Air's design....but then turned off by it's lack of HD space. And getting an external HD kinda defeats the whole size advantage the AIr has over the macbook.
I KNOW some say, that you can get "virtual HD space" online now thru things like Apple's "Mobile Me" and such....but that is no substitute.
I find it CRAZY that the ipod classic has TWICE as much storage space as the macbook Air(160 vs 80 gigs).
160 gig HD is the MINIMUM amount of HD space a laptop today should have. Just the regular OS software downloads will EAT that up in no time. I mean REALLY. :-)
I'm not complaining. Just pointing out what I think alot of people are feeling.
I think the AIr is a revolutionary laptop design. I can understand the sacrifices that had to be made. I can accept the lack of optical drive, and the slower chip....but limiting the HD space to such a degree kills it for me. I want to be able to actually USE my AIR for stuff more than just checking email on the road. If I wanted that, I'd just stick an ipod touch in my pocket when traveling! No. I want to be PRODUCTIVE. And although the Air is no Macbook Pro substitute in terms of power...it should have the space to carry what I need to do the job.
I know laptops will never have what the desktops have...but a max 80 gig hard drive? Gimme a break.
I will wait.