Apple readying production of smaller, lighter 11.6-inch MacBook Airs?
Apple is destined to revamp its super-slim, but soft-selling MacBook Air as early as this fall, wrapping the new model around an LED-backlit display that's nearly two inches smaller than the model available today, according to sources in Taiwan.
Since introducing the 13.3-inch MacBook Air as the "world's thinnest notebook" nearly three years, Apple has watched sales of the ultra-portable trickle off to levels believed to be immaterial to its bottom line. As such, the product line has received little attention from the company, undergoing just two minor revisions in a 29-month span -- the latter of which took place well over a year ago.
At just 0.76 inches at its thickest point, the MacBook Air is undoubtedly slim enough for its target audience of business travelers and those consistently on the go. However, sales of the device suggest that its 13.3-inch footprint and 3 pound carrying weight may be a bit more than that class of customers would prefer -- especially given the resounding success of Apple's more compact and lighter 9.7-inch iPad.
In an effort to make the design of the Air more appealing and further differentiate the notebook from the company's mainstream 13.3-inch MacBook, Apple in 2008 reportedly began experimenting with a partial carbon fiber enclosure (1, 2) that would shave upwards of a 100 grams off its weight.
With plans for such a design failing to materialize over the last two years, it's believed that Apple returned to the drawing board at some point and began crafting a makeover that would deliver both size and weight reductions, further pushing the envelop of ultra-portable notebook computing.
The first evidence to this end arrived earlier this year when an analyst citing sources in Apple's Taiwanese component supply chain revealed that the company was placing orders for parts to fit a slimmer and lighter MacBook Air based around an 11.6-inch LED-lit display and Intel Core i-series ultra-low voltage processor.
On Friday, a report put out by Taiwanese rumor site DigiTimes appears to further corroborate such claims, alleging that Apple's primary notebook manufacturer Quanta has landed orders to produce the first 400,000-500,000 11.6-inch "MacBooks" for delivery to the Mac maker before the end of the 2010 calendar year.
No further details were available from the report. Apple last updated the 13.3-inch MacBook Air back in June of 2009 when it dropped the entry-level price to $1,499 from $1,799 for a model with a 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. A $1,799 offering based around a 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 128GB solid state drive was also introduced.
Since introducing the 13.3-inch MacBook Air as the "world's thinnest notebook" nearly three years, Apple has watched sales of the ultra-portable trickle off to levels believed to be immaterial to its bottom line. As such, the product line has received little attention from the company, undergoing just two minor revisions in a 29-month span -- the latter of which took place well over a year ago.
At just 0.76 inches at its thickest point, the MacBook Air is undoubtedly slim enough for its target audience of business travelers and those consistently on the go. However, sales of the device suggest that its 13.3-inch footprint and 3 pound carrying weight may be a bit more than that class of customers would prefer -- especially given the resounding success of Apple's more compact and lighter 9.7-inch iPad.
In an effort to make the design of the Air more appealing and further differentiate the notebook from the company's mainstream 13.3-inch MacBook, Apple in 2008 reportedly began experimenting with a partial carbon fiber enclosure (1, 2) that would shave upwards of a 100 grams off its weight.
With plans for such a design failing to materialize over the last two years, it's believed that Apple returned to the drawing board at some point and began crafting a makeover that would deliver both size and weight reductions, further pushing the envelop of ultra-portable notebook computing.
The first evidence to this end arrived earlier this year when an analyst citing sources in Apple's Taiwanese component supply chain revealed that the company was placing orders for parts to fit a slimmer and lighter MacBook Air based around an 11.6-inch LED-lit display and Intel Core i-series ultra-low voltage processor.
On Friday, a report put out by Taiwanese rumor site DigiTimes appears to further corroborate such claims, alleging that Apple's primary notebook manufacturer Quanta has landed orders to produce the first 400,000-500,000 11.6-inch "MacBooks" for delivery to the Mac maker before the end of the 2010 calendar year.
No further details were available from the report. Apple last updated the 13.3-inch MacBook Air back in June of 2009 when it dropped the entry-level price to $1,499 from $1,799 for a model with a 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. A $1,799 offering based around a 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 128GB solid state drive was also introduced.
Comments
Since introducing the 13.3-inch MacBook Air as the "world's thinnest notebook" nearly three years, Apple has watched sales of the ultra-portable trickle off to levels believed to be immaterial to its bottom line. As such, the product line has received little attention from the company, undergoing just two minor revisions in a 29-month span -- the latter of which took place well over a year ago.
Those MBA are great looking and well engineered, but man those price points are way too high... $1499 is a lot of money...
Also the keyboard to dump all the extra keys around the edge, invent some smarter navigation, and keep a decent qwerty.
Still heavy tho.
A4 chip, iOS, touch screen, keyboard.
Much thinner than the MacBook Air, much lighter, longer battery life.
Made for Safari, Mail, Pages/Numbers/Keynote, Photo/iMovie.
And very cheap.
Those MBA are great looking and well engineered, but man those price points are way too high... $1499 is a lot of money...
They might be too high for you as a consumer, but they aren?t too high for the HW you get. Even the copycats that followed it were often more experience than the MBA despite using pretty much the same base components, if not lesser components.
Now that Apple has seemingly perfected milling aluminium at low costs this could be possible, though I personally cringe at the thought of Mac OS X running on 16:9 display that is only 11.6? on the diagonal, or a whopping 6.15? height. I guess some will like that, but not me. I Even now on my 13.3? MBP I have unused real estate on the sides but can?t get enough vertical space for viewing webpages and other content.
would love a price drop and better battery life. but would settle for 4gig of ram, more storage and better battery life at same price lol.
sweet. pricey, but no one has topped the air. still the most beautiful laptop around.
would love a price drop and better battery life. but would settle for 4gig of ram, more storage and better battery life at same price lol.
I think it?s the battery life that is lacking the most, though moving to 4GB would be nice.
I do wonder if the great battery life of the other two Mac notebooks, that really aren?t really that much heavier for most users, and offer a lot more performance for the price is making the MBA a tough sell. When the 13? MBA arrived it was the only aluminium 13? Mac notebook so I can see if Apple plans to end this size device. That is before we get into Apple?s eventual exclusion of optical drives from notebooks making them even more MBA-like.
And the price is worth it if that’s what it takes: with the aluminum case, backlit keys, fast CPU, etc. this is no low-end netbook.
I got the first-gen model, and 3 years later it’s still my primary machine while my iMac gathers dust. It’s not as powerful, but it’s powerful enough... and being so thin and light that I can grab it with one hand and run out the door (or to another room) is something I’m not willing to give up! Now that I’ve tried it, it’s hard to imaging living with any other laptop. They all feel like lugging a brick.
And three years later, my battery life is still great too.
I’d like the glass trackpad, the usual speed boost, and anything that can make it even smaller would be great too! I’d accept a bit smaller screen.
Soon I plan to use my MBA as my fileserver, but do my actual work on the bigger, faster iMac. When I want to go out (or over to the couch), I’ll just grab the fileserver itself... no syncing of documents needed!
I'd rather see something which looks like a small MacBook Air, but is really an iPad+Keyboard design.
A4 chip, iOS, touch screen, keyboard.
Much thinner than the MacBook Air, much lighter, longer battery life.
Made for Safari, Mail, Pages/Numbers/Keynote, Photo/iMovie.
And very cheap.
i have no desire to have a laptop running ios or a keyboard on an ipad. a hybrid os x that allowed one to run ios apps would be ideal though.
I think it’s the battery life that is lacking the most, though moving to 4GB would be nice.
I do wonder if the great battery life of the other two Mac notebooks, that really aren’t really that much heavier for most users, and offer a lot more performance for the price is making the MBA a tough sell. When the 13” MBA arrived it was the only aluminium 13” Mac notebook so I can see if Apple plans to end this size device. That is before we get into Apple’s eventual exclusion of optical drives from notebooks making them even more MBA-like.
i dont' know, when you get the 13" mbp and the air side by side that 1.5 pounds and blockiness really stands out. no doubt the mbp is THE laptop if you want performance and beauty but the air is like art ha.
but wouldn't be suprised if they phase it out or replace it with a ipad+keyboard
Do you have the dock on the side? Can you readjust the image size to get more onto the small screen?
Maybe you should get a bigger screen?
steve thought of that too. its called the 27" led display!
Like the iPad, please put the ram and flash storage directly on the motherboard in order to reduce size, weight, and cost while increasing reliability. This upgradability silliness is so 20th century.
i dont' know, when you get the 13" mbp and the air side by side that 1.5 pounds and blockiness really stands out. no doubt the mbp is THE laptop if you want performance and beauty but the air is like art ha.
but wouldn't be suprised if they phase it out or replace it with a ipad+keyboard
If weight was the primarty consideration, then your choice is pretty simple, but if you also factor in price, performance, and battery duration between two aluminum Mac notebooks I can see how 1.5lbs and slightly thicker case might be less important, and thus make the 13”MBA less optimal than it used to be for less people.
PS: I just heard from my unnamed source in China that Apple’s 11.6” MBA will not use Core or Atom CPUs, but instead use two dual-core ARM processors dubbed by Apple as “A5”, yet will still use Mac OS X. See, making stuff up is easy.
But it shares important aspects with netbooks too: 2 Gigs of RAM, small screen, smaller keyboard. It strikes me as a high-quality netbook - limited usability, with a tiny form factor.
it differs from a regular netbook in important respects, however: It cannot play HD movies via HDMI on your home theater system, it cannot access regular web video without crashing, no TV Tuner, etc.
i must be the only person that doesn't care about playing movies on his laptop. not putting you down just saying that it never enters my mind when thinking about a new laptop or portable device. i watch tons of netflix on home imac but nothing much on the portables.
If weight was the primarty consideration, then your choice is pretty simple, but if you also factor in price, performance, and battery duration between two aluminum Mac notebooks I can see how 1.5lbs and slightly thicker case might be less important, and thus make the 13?MBA less optimal than it used to be for less people.
agree. if you want to hedge your bets, go mbp.
i have turned over a new leaf which is an old leaf....desktop is now important for power and laptop/mobile isn't. i used to get big powerful laptops to replace desktop but switched back. so 3pounds is my limit. i swore nothing over 3 will be in my bag....ha.
i must be the only person that doesn't care about playing movies on his laptop. not putting you down just saying that it never enters my mind when thinking about a new laptop or portable device. i watch tons of netflix on home imac but nothing much on the portables.
Yes you are certainly not alone, but most frequent business travellers do use their laptops to watch movies and tv shows.
i must be the only person that doesn't care about playing movies on his laptop. not putting you down just saying that it never enters my mind when thinking about a new laptop or portable device. i watch tons of netflix on home imac but nothing much on the portables.
I watch nearly all my media on my notebook, but I still want it to be an excellent way to read text.
agree. if you want to hedge your bets, go mbp.
i have turned over a new leaf which is an old leaf....desktop is now important for power and laptop/mobile isn't. i used to get big powerful laptops to replace desktop but switched back. so 3pounds is my limit. i swore nothing over 3 will be in my bag....ha.
You moving to a Desktop plus Tablet combo?
I watch nearly all my media on my notebook, but I still want it to be an excellent way to read text.
You moving to a Desktop plus Tablet combo?
ipad now, maybe air if they do refresh.
i love the imac. the work i do on it i can't stand to try and do on a small screen so desktop at work and home and ipad for everything else. i love that when i pick up my bag i feel like i am forgetting something cuz it is so light
but i do have an android phone. not because i think it is better than iphone but for a small feature set and philosophical disagreement with the iphone/att thing.
the iphone 4 display is a marvel. i get my android phone next to a coworkers iphone 4 and the difference is obvious.