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Hey guys,

I am patiently waiting the launch of the iMac 27" which I will mostly max out.

Currently running everything from a 10" Asus Eee PC and can't wait for an upgrade. I will however keep the Eee for the daily surfing on the web in the living room while my wife will enjoy her iPad. I don't want to sit in the bedroom with the iMac while my wife will be in the living room, therefore I am thinking about an MBA for next year.

I won't need it now, so I think about waiting for the updated 2013 MBA, but wonder how the update will look like!

What do you guys expect?

Thx

Well i hope to see 16GB of ram as an upgrade option on 2013's MBA! :D
Intel's haswell architecture involves:
Compared to Ivy Bridge:
Expected at least 10% CPU performance increase.
Expected double the performance of the integrated GPU

OP, what are you uses for the macbook air? looking at the improvements, i reckon whatever you do, you can do it on the macbook air! :)
 
With the current battery config, a retina display would significantly reduce the battery life.

The MBA would need to be engineered for a retina display. Apple would need to offer users at least the same (approx) 7 hours use.
 
With the current battery config, a retina display would significantly reduce the battery life.

The MBA would need to be engineered for a retina display. Apple would need to offer users at least the same (approx) 7 hours use.

Honestly the current pixel density on the Air is pretty good. If they were IPS displays I think that they would be great for a lot of people.

I'm sure they will go retina eventually, but I don't think that they're in a rush to do so. I think that they'd rather keep that for the more expensive notebooks and keep the Macbook Air at it's current price and form factor.
 
wishful thinking

I currently have the 2010 Air so I will probably upgrade in 2013 just for the processor speed and the USB 3 and thunderbolt ports. The extra speed would be handy for the few occasions when I want to render video.

The processor speed bump is all I am really expecting. We may see something like the rumoured graphite cases to reduce weight and some slight reduction in thickness (because of the ports there is not much scope to reduce the edge thickness but there may be some small gains possible by reducing some of the curves).

What I would like them to do (but don't really expect) is to upgrade the display to 1920 by 1080 so that the screen will display at full res on a TV when shared with Airplay. Not really fussed about retina but mirroring to the TV would be good.
 
Honestly the current pixel density on the Air is pretty good. If they were IPS displays I think that they would be great for a lot of people.

The MBA screen is ok, but it's not in the same league as my Vaio Z's premium panel with 95% Adobe RGB colour reproduction. I think the Air's is around the 40% mark.
 
The MBA screen is ok, but it's not in the same league as my Vaio Z's premium panel with 95% Adobe RGB colour reproduction. I think the Air's is around the 40% mark.

Right. If they made it a high quality panel (IPS, good color reproduction, good viewing angles) at the current pixel density that would be great.

I don't think that increasing the pixel density slightly (say going to 1920x1080 on the 13") would work well for most people, since that would just make text smaller.
 
It will just be a processor update. We will see a big design change (or retina) a few years down the road.

Agreed. Apple need to make the Air their new best seller as the cMBP. By making the retina more expensive the air seems cheap, and will be selling more than before the existence of Retina 13". They won't change anything before a couple of years.
 
I hope there will be an discrete GPU for graphics performance. The HD4000 just sometimes isn't enough. There may be a chance of a redesign but I don't think thats gonna happen.

What do you do that the 4000 isn't enough on the Air? I game on my 3000.


I plan to get the 2013 just to upgrade to 8GB of RAM.
 
Agreed. Apple need to make the Air their new best seller as the cMBP. By making the retina more expensive the air seems cheap, and will be selling more than before the existence of Retina 13". They won't change anything before a couple of years.

Yep. If anything I could see the 13" Air getting even cheaper. They already chopped $100 off for the 2012 model. If they keep everything the same (128GB SSD, 1440x900 non-IPS display) I could see it eventually dropping down to match the old white Macbook's $999 pricepoint.

Or possibly they will continue to improve the base model with a bigger SSD, more RAM, and slightly better display to hold the $1200-$1300 pricepoint.
 
Yep. If anything I could see the 13" Air getting even cheaper. They already chopped $100 off for the 2012 model. If they keep everything the same (128GB SSD, 1440x900 non-IPS display) I could see it eventually dropping down to match the old white Macbook's $999 pricepoint.

Or possibly they will continue to improve the base model with a bigger SSD, more RAM, and slightly better display to hold the $1200-$1300 pricepoint.

I agree as well on the cMBA pricing etc. However, remember that retina can always go into the premium model while keeping the cMBA price low. Just like they did with the 15" and 13" rMBP. - Adding a premium option like its brothers will merely provide option, not "coersion" so retina is possible I would say.
 
I agree as well on the cMBA pricing etc. However, remember that retina can always go into the premium model while keeping the cMBA price low. Just like they did with the 15" and 13" rMBP. - Adding a premium option like its brothers will merely provide option, not "coersion" so retina is possible I would say.

I'm not sure that there's room for an additional Retina Macbook Air. Right now the battery and CPU/GPU requirements would basically lead to the same form factor as the 13" RMBP. In the future if the requirements of the Retina display get so low that a Macbook Air can easily handle one then the price will probably have come down too at that point.
 
More screen would be nice. But don't go 1600x900 and end up making the screen shorter.
 
I'm not sure that there's room for an additional Retina Macbook Air. Right now the battery and CPU/GPU requirements would basically lead to the same form factor as the 13" RMBP. In the future if the requirements of the Retina display get so low that a Macbook Air can easily handle one then the price will probably have come down too at that point.

Well, I'm not saying for certain Apple will meet the requirements, but I'm sure Haswell will help out a lot in GPU and battery department. Andantech claims vast GPU improvements and Intel claims Haswell brings double the battery (hyped, but with retina - can bring battery back to current states). Also, we DO know that retina can fit into a 13" ultrabook as evinced by the 2560x1440 prototype Samsung Series 9 shown earlier. (Pricing as I said, mentioned in previous post).

With the competition such as the Series 9 Premium model(13" is .5 thick WOW and 2.55 lbs while MBA is about 2.96 lbs. and .55 thick if thickness were to be averaged) and other ultrabooks way thinner, Apple has to redesign soon and somehow come up with a way to wipe them out.
 
I'm not sure. Haswell is due for mid 2013... after the yearly release of the new MBA... so i'm actually quite curious when the 2013 MBA will be released.
 
I think they will make the bezel smaller just like the rMBPs.

If they make the bezel smaller, will they make the form factor smaller? I quite like the size of it. The 13" rMBP seems a bit small.

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What do you do that the 4000 isn't enough on the Air? I game on my 3000.


I plan to get the 2013 just to upgrade to 8GB of RAM.

I just play a bit of Minecraft and it heats up like crazy! What kind of gaming do you do on your MBA? I plan to do more hardcore gaming.
 
If they make the bezel smaller, will they make the form factor smaller? I quite like the size of it. The 13" rMBP seems a bit small.


Yeah.. A smaller bezel will make the footprint smaller as the bezel is the outer edge. I guess they are doing it for aesthetic reasons as the smaller bezel usually looks better (following rMBP line) and for the smaller size as, after all the MBA is marketed as portable.

Actually, I've been to an Apple store and held the rMBP in my hands and yeah.. it does feel too small and my hands while resting on the keyboard/trackpad/palmrest area feel like they have nowhere to go - but I guess that is the only way to make the bezel smaller. Hopefully when I get my hands on the future MBA I'll get used to its smaller footprint (speculation, of course).
 
Yeah.. A smaller bezel will make the footprint smaller as the bezel is the outer edge. I guess they are doing it for aesthetic reasons as the smaller bezel usually looks better (following rMBP line) and for the smaller size as, after all the MBA is marketed as portable.

Actually, I've been to an Apple store and held the rMBP in my hands and yeah.. it does feel too small and my hands while resting on the keyboard/trackpad/palmrest area feel like they have nowhere to go - but I guess that is the only way to make the bezel smaller. Hopefully when I get my hands on the future MBA I'll get used to its smaller footprint (speculation, of course).

Well if they do make the bezel smaller, I hope it would be a slightly bigger screen because I like the current footprint of the MBA. There isn't enough room and everything is a bit more cramped on the rMBP 13".
 
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