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MBA with Retina?
- Thread starter musiclvr
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I wouldn't think there'd be an update before early 2016, and the discussion of whether or not that'll include retina has been hotly debated here. Given the niche that the new retina Macbook is designed to fill, my own personal take is that it's doubtful the 2016 Macbook Air will include retina, or even have many changes to it. Full disclosure: I just purchased a 2015 Air, so I'm a fan; but purely from a business line and marketing perspective, I think they'll keep the Air around as it is for a while. There are certainly enough people who will still continue to buy it, I think.
If anything, perhaps in 2016 the retina Macbook will have a few more changes - maybe another port? a few internal changes? - and that may be what you find most attractive; it will be both the lightest and have the Retina screen. It just wasn't for me at this early juncture in its life cycle, though it was very tempting!
You can already get a MBA with retina, it's the new Macbook. The slower processor is what keeps me away from buying it, tho.
The processor is fast enough that I doubt most people would notice a difference between the two machines. Of course you might not be "most people" though.
Personally, I'm fairly sure it would be fast enough for 80-90% of what I use a laptop for; everything that's web-based, chatting, etc. Where I'd be worried is whenever I want to play a game (even with low-quality settings) and use pro apps like Adobe and big files. I wouldn't want to pay $2k (CAD in my case) for something that cannot handle everything in some capacity when I know a MBA can (with its only downer is not having a retina screen).
I think that's the most likely case. It's very hard to see how Apple could rationalize spending much more on developing the MBA. The MBA probably holds on as the budget alternative until they can expand the rMB line down the priceline.
I don't know why Apple couldn't redesign the MBA into a 11' form factor and give it a Retina display (like Dell did with the XPS 2015).
That truly would be the perfect laptop.
Till then, I hope Apple either redesign the MBA some way down the line, or the MacBook gets a better keyboard, battery life and 2nd port.
That truly would be the perfect laptop.
Till then, I hope Apple either redesign the MBA some way down the line, or the MacBook gets a better keyboard, battery life and 2nd port.
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Technically speaking, it is possible to upgrade the current Air line with a retina display, regardless of what some people say that it would be impossible from the battery point of view.
However, from the marketing point of view, Air will never have a retina display, and eventually will be discontinued. By then, it is quite likely that the second or the third generation MB will have a second port, faster processor and a comparable performance to the current Air line.
The new MB, as it is, falls short of my 11" i7 Air and in no way is a direct replacement. Having said that though, it is not a slouch either. I played with it at an Apple store and found out that the "perceived" speed of the machine is very good. The new keyboard is very different and has much less travel, yet it would not be hard to get used to. The new force sensitive switchless trackpad is surprisingly good and the haptic feedback is so successful that I had a hard time to believe that there wasn't a mechanical switch under.
We just have to wait for the new MB to mature, that's all.
They could release a new retina macbook that is the size of the current 13" macbook air and drop the current 13" macbook air.
Retain the 11" macbook air as there cheapest entry model.
or
Release a new macbook retina that is the size of the current macbook air. The new retina could have a 15-16" screen
keep the current macbook air line as their cheap entry models.
The trouble in keeping product lines is shop space. They are already forcing things out to the side due to the apple watch so I think something has to go or they'll end up looking cluttered and resembling more a bargain basement store with cram em in cram em high approach.
As the age old business saying goes.
If everyones your customer no ones your customer.
Retain the 11" macbook air as there cheapest entry model.
or
Release a new macbook retina that is the size of the current macbook air. The new retina could have a 15-16" screen
keep the current macbook air line as their cheap entry models.
The trouble in keeping product lines is shop space. They are already forcing things out to the side due to the apple watch so I think something has to go or they'll end up looking cluttered and resembling more a bargain basement store with cram em in cram em high approach.
As the age old business saying goes.
If everyones your customer no ones your customer.
You've missed a possibility: The Air and 13" rMBP ranges already overlap a lot, and the rMBP offers more bangs-per-buck at the expense of a mere 1/2 pound in weight. If Skylake, the new do-everything USB-C/Thunderbolt ports and Apple's new battery sculpting tricks allow the rMBP to move to a slightly lighter, tapered design, then the 13" Air and rMBP could easily become one and the same.
My (complete and utter) guess at the 2016 line up would be:
12" retina MacBook
13" retina MacBook Something
15" retina MacBook Pro
"Something" could be "Air", "Pro" or something new depending on the whims of marketing.
Eventually, the rMB will drop in price sufficiently to become the entry level model, until then, one of the old Air models could be retained as the economy option.
More complete and utter guessing:
* MacBook "Something" just has 2 combined USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports
* 15" rMBP keeps current design except for has 2 x USB-C/TB3 in place of current Thunderbolt/MiniDP, and keeps its existing USB3, HDMI and SD sockets.
To your point: if I was interested in a 13" option, I would have been hard-pressed NOT to go for the rMBP, because the weight difference isn't that huge, and certainly the latter is far more powered.
But as I was looking at the 11" footprint, really, the comparison was between the Air and the rMB.
Just my own approach, of course.
In my opinion Apple should have just skipped the 12 inch MB and released a Macbook Air with retina display. Everybody loves the design of the MBA, so why not build off of that? Nope.. instead they had to create a whole new Macbook with a terrible keyboard and IMO an ugly design, in comparison to the MBA anyway. Anyway, I don't think the new iteration of the MBA will include a retina screen unfortunately.
It costs what the Air did before the price came down. Hopefully the same will happen to the rMacBook.
To be honest, if you upgrade the 11 Air to 8GB ram and 256GB SSD, it's only £80 cheaper than the similar spec rMB.
Well probably see the price come down soon, I think the main cost is the fact that the Core M processor is so new.
Well probably see the price come down soon, I think the main cost is the fact that the Core M processor is so new.
Core M isn't new, it's just a new brand name for the Y variant of processors Intel has been putting out for several generations - the major improvements brought forward by Haswell finally made it potent enough for most computing needs.
My personal grip is really that I don't care about a thinner laptop, I want to keep the MBA's power coupled with a better display, but Apple doesn't see things this way.
This is such an interesting point, in the sense that there is more than one way to define "smaller" - thinner, screen real estate and weight. When I doing my stalking at the Apple Store, I realized that for me, it was the latter two that I cared about the most, all else being equal.
The 11 and 13 Airs with 8GB RAM and 256 storage cost $1200 and $1300 (same as the rMB)
There is unlikely to ever be another updated air.
The macbook will get more powerful with better core M processors and the pro will get slightly thinner and lighter for those who need more power on the go.
The macbook will get more powerful with better core M processors and the pro will get slightly thinner and lighter for those who need more power on the go.
The keyboard on the rMB is atrocious IMO. I can't believe Apple thought it was okay to release that to the public.
You can like or dislike the new butterfly keyboard, but...is its design ugly?? Of course not. It's the most wonderful macbook ever...and macboor air seems to be old-fashioned and aged when is near to it
I'm not fond of the keyboard either, but the shaky screen bothers me more; it just feels flimsy.
I bought a MacBook and kept it for a week, then returned it and bought an MBA. I can definitely notice the difference. I don't know if I'm among "most people" or not.