Some More Details about the 11.6-Inch MacBook Air?

[Mr. Retrofire]

Black Power key would be way cool!

I think they call it the ninja-key.

More questions? Ask a ninja:
http://www.askaninja.com

;-)

 

[FuNGi]

I read this and all I could think of was the Old Spice guy. Look at your laptop, now look at me. Back to your laptop, now back at me.

Hahahahaa. "I'm the laptop you wish your laptop was."

LOL. Why????? (other to get folks to go click on new page and display some more ads) The current top end MBA comes with a 2.13 GHz C2D. That means there is no change in CPU other than making the "better" version's CPU now the entry level one. I wouldn't be surprised to see the MBA mutate into something similar to the MB where there is just one "sub" model offered. No 'better' , 'best' versions.... just the one lower priced one. That's it.

Apple will change the case, bump the graphics with a 320m , shrink the screen. Most of any battery life increase will come from the smaller screen.
The 320m will contribute slightly too.

the 2.13 GHz C2D is $300+ in price. Any talk of $999 (and lower ) price points is the drugs talking. I am not going to be surprised if this comes in at exactly the current price if they put a SSD in there by default.

I thought it funny too how the original post references the ULV i7 not the C2D mentioned in the newer macrumours post. I also think that the price point is going to be near $1499 as well.

P.S. Macbook Air store is down

 

[arctic]

P.S. Macbook Air store is down

Not just the Air. All Macs have the "We'll be back soon." sticky note.

 

[FuNGi]

Not just the Air. All Macs have the "We'll be back soon." sticky note.

cooooooool

 

[deconstruct60]

An 11.6" inch MBA must be whittled down, if necessary, to get it under the $999 price point

Going with 11.6" primarily saves power and weight. A smaller screen system ( screen , backlight + display circuitry ) consumes less power. Since the case is made of metal, the less metal used will greatly contribute to lighter weight. For the same volume of respective materials, metal is relatively heavy compared to electronic parts.

While the screen is marginally less if Apple increases the memory and/or switches to SSD that will drive the price back up. [ Actually the memory could be a wash if still surface mounted, because more dense alternatives are available to be surface mounted at similar prices to two years ago. ] There is no overall system savings in the 11.6 screen if add back in more expensive components.

It will be a lighter and smaller MBA. The MBA was getting smoked on weight and size in the ultramobile category with more recent designs. Sticking with the C2D relative to many of those others going with Atom class CPUs well help a bit too. MBA primarily just needed to be better than Atom and older Core Solo era class CPUs.

 

[deconstruct60]

I'd love to see how many people could distinguish between a C2D and i3 in a blind test. .

if a floating point dense CPU rendering exercise while looking at the screen fill as the rendering probably could. The biggest difference is when start to stress floating point and memory throughput. If mismatched at Ghz levels then probably wouldn't. It would be close but perceptible.

However, for generic every day applications. No. (if graphics differences didn't get in the way.) However, probably wouldn't see much of difference on mundane apps for an AMD Zacate either.

Apple is already buying 320m IGP+IO chips for Mini , MB , and MBP 13" anyway so using C2D keeps their parts supply much more simple.

It is one of the most expensive C2D still in the inventory so Intel will keep selling it for at least another year too. [ There is always some doom and gloom, FUD folks ranting how Intel is about to remove all mobile C2Ds from their inventory in a couple of months. Bottom end ones, yes. (once mobile Sandy Bridge models come next year ). Top end ones, no. ]

 

[deconstruct60]

I think you all forget Rosetta.

Not really forgetting Rosetta. Rosetta is software. The A4 would Rosetta run dog slow relative to a laptop/desktop class PPC or Intel processor also.

Apple didn't even write Rosetta. It is owned by IBM now.

Look the hard facts are that the ARM ( and A4) processors use dramatically less power than Intel's and Power desktop/laptop class processors because leave lots of stuff out. 10,000's of transitors left out and lower timing requirements means get a more perf/power processor.

This is same reason why Atom is having so many problems trying to crack the phone space. It is faster than ARM but doesn't compete quite well enough on power.

Using emulation to mimic a faster processor implementation on a slower one is going to have major problems in user acceptance.

 

[SR2]

Acer as1551-5448 > 11.6" MBA netbook at 1/4 of the price. Skeletor said himself that Apple couldn't build a netbook that isn't junk. So they eventually do make a netbook and although it isn't junk it's going to be way overpriced.

 

[deconstruct60]

Apple will change the case, bump the graphics with a 320m , shrink the screen. Most of any battery life increase will come from the smaller screen.
The 320m will contribute slightly too.

Ooops my bad. I didn't think of using an even slower chip than previously used with an even slower memory bus. So they punted on the 17W C2D's to jump back to the 10W C2D's which are even more throttled down.

[ Well do get chuckle out of all those who said Zacate was way tooo slow for the update. It is exactly the performance range they targeted. Not as good of a fit because can't reuse/extend the 320m orders. Probably also couldn't deliver on time. Big loss for AMD... at least at Apple. Does validate targeting this market with that kind of performance. ]

 

[63dot]

The much rumored $999 price point was met. No big deal since it makes sense with a smaller screen commanding a smaller price. Now I have to see one and determine if I could stand a screen that small.

UPDATE:

So I go to the Apple Store and they don't have them, but will eventually get them in. I don't know if they are that popular or if Apple didn't make enough of them, or that they simply announced this thing a tad bit early.

Remember back in the G3 iMac/iBook days when SJ would announce the latest in these families weeks in advance?

UPDATE again:

So I finally saw the 11.6" inch MBA. It's pretty much just a slightly smaller version of it's bigger brother. In pictures, it looks quite a bit smaller, but side by side, and also feeling the weight, it's really just slightly smaller and lighter.

I thought 11.6" inches would be too small for the screen, but it really looks pretty good next to the 13" inch screen.

The weight of both MBAs are such that with other stuff in a purse or backpack, the slightly lighter weight of the 11.6" inch MBA won't really be noticed at all. The keyboard is pretty much full sized so typing on this laptop is quite easy, unlike those very small PC netbooks.

The new MBA is most definitely not a netbook and is a laptop in every sense of the world. With it's good display and nice keys, virtually anyone can make this their main laptop.