MBA in high demand; Silverthorne's new name; Anand on MBP

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
MacBook Air in high demand
"It might not be the iPhone, but the MacBook Air is selling much stronger than many of us would have guessed. After a full month of being on the market, the MacBook Air is still a difficult commodity to obtain in some markets (not all), and Apple is still quoting a 5-7 business day minimum shipping time even for the most standard models ordered from its web site.

Meanwhile, Amazon won't be shipping orders until March 16 now, and many customers who run to a Best Buy thinking they'll find one hiding out there will be surprised: there aren't many to go around. One Best Buy source (not a retail floor worker) told me that Apple has kept them pretty thin on stock. Now I can see why."


The processor formerly known as Silverthorne
"Intel's Silverthorne and Diamondville chips will be called Atom and the company's Menlow platform for ultramobile computers will be renamed Centrino Atom when these products hit the market, according to a company spokesman.



"The processors are made using Intel's 45-nanometer process, and will run at clock speeds up to 1.8GHz. Slower versions will also be available, but Intel isn't saying what the slowest clock speed will be. Pricing for the chips has yet to be announced.



"The chips, which measure less than 25 square millimeters, have a thermal design power (TDP) of between 0.6 watts to 2.5 watts. That number refers to the maximum sustained power that users are likely to see with the chips, not the maximum amount of power the chips can consume."


Anand reviews the MBP
"The new MacBook and MacBook Pro, much like the MacBook Air before them, are much more functions of Intel's innovation rather than Apple's. In the case of the new MacBook and Pro models, the innovation is almost exclusively limited to what Intel has been able to do with mobile Penryn as Apple made no changes to the exterior of either system.



"Regardless of where the innovation comes from, it is still an improvement in technology and mobile Penryn proves to be everything we expected it to be. The biggest improvement by far comes in the battery life department. Just as we had seen earlier, you can expect these new models to outlast their predecessors by a good 7 - 15%.



"The performance side of things is more of a mixed bag. There are some situations where Penryn is clearly faster than Merom while others show the two with equal performance. It's for this reason that we say the biggest improvement lies in battery life, not performance.



"Apple picked the right CPU partner in Intel, as it seems that every year we get good increases in either performance, battery life or both.



"If you're holding out for something more revolutionary you may want to wait for Montevina later this year, or Nehalem sometime next year. Both platforms will give Apple ample opportunity to make more changes to the design and featureset of the MacBook and MacBook Pro, all while improving battery life and performance."

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 2
    flounderflounder Posts: 2,674member
    Can we get some original content?
  • Reply 2 of 2
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Flounder View Post


    Can we get some original content?



    This is the biggest, IMO, weekend news that AI hasn't covered. If you've read this news elsewhere then there isn't any reason to read the thread. I had thought I labeled the thread well enough to prevent you from wasting your time reading clicking the link.
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