MacBook Air to see harddisk upgrades?

[zainjetha]

Hi guys

noticed that on macrumors front page it states that that the macbook airs are getting sold out quickly?

Do you reckon that apple may be selling them with small harddisks of 64gb and 80gb as a trial first to see if they are what the consumers want before bumping up harddisk sizes?

I currently have a macbook pro which i use as my main machine. Its hooked up to a apple cinema display and kb and mouse and i do unplug to take on move. however i am going to pass this machine onto somebody in the company and replace it with a Mac Pro and a MBA for on-the-go?

However i have a 10gb mailbox and there is plenty of other data which needs to be synced. i would use maybe 40gb however 120 would be nice...

thks

 

[chrismac00]

I think they will see updates soon. Definitely more HD space and probably(most likely not) new Intel chips. But not anytime soon.

 

[zainjetha]

my logic is that they are using it as a test drive or 'beta' before they go full speed into market with something that will merely gather dust on the shelves..

 

[Zwhaler]

I think they will see updates soon. ... But not anytime soon.

Anyway, I don't think that we will see upgrades to the MBA soon. Apple spent a lot of time making this machine, and I don't think they would finalize it for MacWorld, only to make it better (ticking off the loyal first buyers, much like they did with the iPhone) with something like a better hard drive. The next update we will see to the MBA (Rev. 2) will see new hard drive options, but not before then. Apple almost never makes HD upgrades to their products mid cycle.

 

[zainjetha]

Well yeah i was an early iphone buyer... i bought an 8gb.... had i known 16gb would come i would have gladly waited.... but oh nooooo, they just couldnt launch at start...

 

[UltraNEO*]

Well yeah i was an early iphone buyer... i bought an 8gb.... had i known 16gb would come i would have gladly waited.... but oh nooooo, they just couldnt launch at start...

Hmm... ain't there a 4gb iPhone version before the 8??

 

[blairwillis]

As long as the MBA is a hot seller (hard to keep in stock in many markets), there is no chance of an upgrade.

Upgrades tend to occur when (1) current technology becomes cheaper to produce, (2) new technology becomes available, or (2) sales need stimulation.

Looking at each scenario:

(1) I haven't looked at SSD prices in the last few weeks, but I doubt there's been much change, so going over a 64GB SSD is cost prohibitive. And I don't think we'll see much of a bump up from the 80GB HD because it would cause a disenchantment with the smaller 64GB SSD... For example, comparing a 120GB HD to the 64GB SSD and the SSD at "half the size" becomes more difficult to rationalize for such a price increase. Right now, the psychological size difference is minimal, and the cost/benefit ratio allows for plenty SSD models to be selling. The drives will have to gain size increases within a reasonable parity. This doesn't rule out adding a third option, though, and perhaps the lineup could be 1.6 GHz 80GB HD, 1.8 GHz 120GB HD (+$400), 1.8 GHz 64GB SSD. (I'm using 120GB as a purely hypothetical size, I'm not sure what the current tech or soon-to-be tech is planning.)

(2) Absorb (1) above and consider that cost effective SSD's >128GB are still a ways off.

(3) Sales of MBA's seem to be doing just fine, with limited availability. Apple doesn't seem to take the route of overly squeezing supply artificially. We're dealing with high-dollar tech that's produced overseas, so it's an intricate system to figure, but demand seems strong. It's not like they're warehousing thousands of MBA's just to make it a hard-to-get item. That's just pure observational conjecture, but I think most of you would agree. (In comparison, I'd say there was probably a bit of that going on with the iPhone, at least a very conservatively paced shipping during it's first several weeks at market.)

Finally, let's remind ourselves this is really "breakthrough" technology. The size of this thing required some real "custom work" in terms of the smaller processor and internals. It's akin to the form factor jump of the iPod Nano. Peel one of those things open and marvel at its microscopic engineered guts. Due to the nature of this thin wonder I think it will be a while before we have major leaps and bounds in specs.

Now here's what I want to know... how do you have a 10GB mailbox? I'd presume you are sending/receiving some hefty attachments on a regular basis. Either that or you decided to keep all the spam you ever received. Why not archive some of that externally? I have almost a decades worth of mail (yes, I'm a pack rat) and I'm showing just under 1GB here.