Possible redesigned MacBook Air photos surface - rumor
Pictures of a possible MacBook Air prototype with no hard drive and extra battery space have surfaced ahead of Apple's Oct. 20 "Back to the Mac" event.
The photos, obtained by Engadget from an anonymous source, show a unibody frame that appears to be for a 13.3-inch laptop computer, which could possibly be an early prototype of an upcoming revision to the MacBook Air. The computer appears to have USB plugs on both the left and right sides, Mini DisplayPort and an SD card reader.
Engadget's source claims the rest of the machine is also unibody, including the "large single mouse button," but the screen will keep the current MacBook Air style, instead of the "edge-to-edge glass with black edges" that current MacBook Pro models have.
The laptop allegedly runs the same 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo as the current MacBook Air, further evidence that the photos are of an early prototype. Engadget's source claims "the model dates back to at least April."
The unverified photos represent "just one SKU," so Apple may have something else in store as well, wrote author Paul Miller.
AppleInsider confirmed Friday through several independent sources that Apple will release a smaller 11.6-inch MacBook Air next Wednesday at the company's "Back to the Mac" special event.
Another source familiar with the matter believes the smaller form factor will forgo conventional hard-disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD) storage options in favor of an "SSD Card" that resembles a stick of RAM, although AppleInsider is unable to confirm this detail.
Earlier this month, AppleInsider reported that supplies of the two existing 13.3-inch MacBook Airs had dried up throughout the company's indirect sales channels, suggesting that a complete overhaul to the line was imminent.
The photos, obtained by Engadget from an anonymous source, show a unibody frame that appears to be for a 13.3-inch laptop computer, which could possibly be an early prototype of an upcoming revision to the MacBook Air. The computer appears to have USB plugs on both the left and right sides, Mini DisplayPort and an SD card reader.
Engadget's source claims the rest of the machine is also unibody, including the "large single mouse button," but the screen will keep the current MacBook Air style, instead of the "edge-to-edge glass with black edges" that current MacBook Pro models have.
The laptop allegedly runs the same 1.86 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo as the current MacBook Air, further evidence that the photos are of an early prototype. Engadget's source claims "the model dates back to at least April."
The unverified photos represent "just one SKU," so Apple may have something else in store as well, wrote author Paul Miller.
AppleInsider confirmed Friday through several independent sources that Apple will release a smaller 11.6-inch MacBook Air next Wednesday at the company's "Back to the Mac" special event.
Another source familiar with the matter believes the smaller form factor will forgo conventional hard-disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD) storage options in favor of an "SSD Card" that resembles a stick of RAM, although AppleInsider is unable to confirm this detail.
Earlier this month, AppleInsider reported that supplies of the two existing 13.3-inch MacBook Airs had dried up throughout the company's indirect sales channels, suggesting that a complete overhaul to the line was imminent.
Comments
I mean, I've got nothing to go on here... but at least I can say I called it if I'm right...
Ugh!
Another source familiar with the matter believes the smaller form factor will forgo conventional hard-disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD) storage options in favor of an "SSD Card" that resembles a stick of RAM, although AppleInsider is unable to confirm this detail.
It's in the picture, which quite unmistakably is an Apple laptop. Macbook Air RAM is soldered to the motherboard, which is the set of 8 chips just above the battery = 2GB. The SSD chip would be the board to the left of that, which resembles SSD chips in netbooks:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...DMPES-32G.html
If they are using 25nm, it looks like 64GB x 4 = 256GB; if not, it would be 128GB. 256GB is plenty for most folks but I'm a bit disappointed by 2GB of RAM. I guess the SSD is fast enough to act as swap space but 3-4GB should be the minimum these days.
It'll be interesting to see what speed they get out of the SSD part. Sony manages to put their one in a quad RAID-0 configuration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrWfEw84faw
1.2GB copy in under 4 seconds so >300MB/s sequential write. They use a proprietary SSD chip to do this.
What I find interesting about devices like the Air is that people generally view them as the special cases but they are really more of a glimpse of the future for all laptops and I like it. I would love to see a Macbook styled pretty much the same way but with standard RAM slots to support up to 8GB and obviously more ports. If the SSD is 256GB, the Macbook can have that too.
What this MBA style suggests to me is that the price won't be much cheaper than it is now and they'd have to bring it into Macbook pricing.
New Macbook Touch : 11.6-inch, OSX 10.7 + touch screen and IOS layer
- There's no mouse...
- MacBooks don't have trackpad buttons (except for the {old} Air)
- The words "single mouse button" is usually reserved for 'haters'
-------------------
Seperately, I've always thought the Air is just waiting to get 3G included and my hunch is the networks just don't want Apple to release something that would stall their networks. Whilst I am fully aware that you can easily add 3G to any laptop by USB/WiFi I'm sure just Apple doing it would be the thin end of a massive bandwidth wedge for the service providers.
But there still aren't any signs here; I guess Apple are sticking with the tether with your iPhone line...
HP mini 311 11.6-inch
Your conclusion?
"large single mouse button"... ...what a very odd thing for the source to say....
- There's no mouse...
- MacBooks don't have trackpad buttons (except for the {old} Air)
- The words "single mouse button" is usually reserved for 'haters'
Although poorly worded, I believe the source was referring to the 'clickable' MacBook and MacBook Pro trackpads.
Alleged picture of the new Macbook Air 13.3-inch
HP mini 311 11.6-inch
Your conclusion?
Smaller Picture Please.
and my conclusion?
? the MacBook has an internal battery
? by scale of the USB ports on the HP- the MacBook is 11.6" - 13" in size
? the HP has more ports
? The MacBooks logicboard is blue and quite small
?
the 2 gig ram limit is what stopped me from purchasing the first Airs. Hope they figure this out.
2GB is more than the 1GB that's standard in most netbooks
Seperately, I've always thought the Air is just waiting to get 3G included and my hunch is the networks just don't want Apple to release something that would stall their networks. Whilst I am fully aware that you can easily add 3G to any laptop by USB/WiFi I'm sure just Apple doing it would be the thin end of a massive bandwidth wedge for the service providers.
But there still aren't any signs here; I guess Apple are sticking with the tether with your iPhone line...
This topic keeps cropping up - Apple's development of products seemingly frustrated and limited by available bandwidth.
When the iPhone and iGreed were simultaneously introduced, where Apple sought a share of the ongoing connection/subscription revenue, I thought that Apple should just build/buy and operate it's own telecoms network with a near worldwide presence - like Vodafone. That way they could provide as much iBandwidth as necessary for the devices they sell, and milk the connection charges at the same time.
Apple needs to develop and operate their own iNet and do the vertical integration tango properly, rather than by proxy through 'deals.'
Also that profiler doesn't show "Card Reader" so is that really an SD card reader (Could just be the OS doesn't recognise it I suppose)? And those 'USB' ports on either side don't look the same, the one on the right looks smaller, almost like a micro sim.... And where are the audio port/s?
So there's a mini DisplayPort, USB and maybe an SD card on the left. On the right there's MagSafe and a smaller USB port?
And is that just the WiFi chip up the top, could it include GPS or would that be separate?
Hmmm... It's a mystery.
Alleged picture of the new Macbook Air 13.3-inch
HP mini 311 11.6-inch
Your conclusion?
Apple spends more time than HP on making the insides of their products look pretty.
I could be wrong, but using my handy-dandy trackpad zoom feature, doesn't that label on the right say something about Sanyo and Compaq and some model number that begins with an "FX-"?
Hey, are your trying to stop all the speculation fun? It's obviously a typo!
Hey, are your trying to stop all the speculation fun? It's obviously a typo!
Yeah to throw us off track... But we didn't fall for that one.