Personally with all the rumors flying around i think a 15 macbook is possible.
They are likely going to kill off the 2.0 Alu, and rebrand the 2.4 as a Pro,
And they might just introduce a 15" notebook in the same price range as the 2.0 Alu... Something like
- 2.1-2.4 Duo
- 9400 GPU/256/512 memory
- 2gig/4gig ram
- 250gig hdd
They might kill off the low end MPB and replace it with the 13" pro too.
Then the ranges will more or less be equal to the old iBook/Powerbook range.
I have a similar feeling. I was thinking about it and here are my conclusions. It's all hypothetical on apple releasing a tablet, witch I have doubts of.
tabletbook becomes the new air, small light cool machines for people with money to spare.
macbook looses the optical drive, air-ish form factor only, a little thicker to enable what is currently in the macbook, C2D processor, not downclocked graphics, just as much ports as on the current unimacbook. Lower price point. Not sure what happens to white macbook, possibly still around at the same price as the aluminium drive-less macbook.
current macbook gets some small changes on the internals becomes 13" mbp, firewire, the screen that is currently in the air, maybe 2.53ghz, yadiya.
Minimal investment to change to these new lines. The case for the 13" mbp already exists. The new macbook would inherit most of the air's, just a redesign of the bottom piece to accommodate the larger components and a good airflow.
Keeps up with apple's direction, stepping away from hard media, for one. You get a nice dilemma between the white macbook and the unibody non pro macbook. One that still does it all at an affordable price and one a bit more advanced and cooler. A good reason to step up to the 13" pro. And still an ultraportable that is niched and marketed in a way that it can sell for a ridiculous amount of money and evokes apple's true technological greatness (refering to a tablet here).