We’re now only days away from Apple’s Back to the Mac event, and the MacBook Air rumors are now in full effect. It’s a nice change of pace from all of the Verizon iPhone rumors that have flooded the blogosphere as of late. The MacBook Air has not seen a refresh in quite some time. According to Macrumors.com’s Buyer’s Guide, the MacBook Air hasn’t seen a refresh since June 8, 2009. However, since then the MacBook Air has had minor updates, all with little to no fanfare. Well, let the fanfare begin.
According to Engadget, the rumors of a refreshed MacBook Air might actually come to fruition. They have a couple of photos depicting what appears to be a prototype of the soon to be released MacBook Air. If you are not familiar with Apple’s MacBook Air, it is Apple’s lightest and thinnest MacBook sold to date. While it is not a power house, it is definitely a sexy looking device. When it was released in 2008, it defied what a traditional laptop looked like. So much so that it held up blogger Michael Nygard at airport security. The TSA agents thought that the MacBook Air was a fake laptop. Why, you might ask? Well, when they ran it through the security scanner, they didn’t see a hard drive or a DVD drive. Several more agents came along, all looking at the MacBook Air in total confusion, trying to assert if it was a real laptop or a fake. Finally, another more informed TSA agent came by and told them that the MacBook Air was real and not a fake. Tthey somewhat believed him, but questioned the absence of a hard drive and DVD drive. The knowledgeable agent explained the hardware in the MacBook Air, and they finally gave the blogger his laptop back. Unfortunately it was too late — he had missed his flight. But, I digress.
The new MacBook Air looks to employ a 13.3-inch display instead of the 11.6-inch display, with which it debuted. In addition, “…there are USB plugs on the left and right sides, Mini DisplayPort and an SD card reader on the left, and a power plug on the right.” I would have liked to have seen a FireWire 800 port, but it might still make it onto the final MacBook Air. Another thing missing is a DVD drive, but that’s to be expected since it is a thinner laptop. To be honest, I rarely use my DVD drive, so if I had a MacBook Air, I wouldn’t miss it. Plus you can always share out your existing DVD drive from your Mac, or you can purchase the optional external DVD drive.
One last rumor I wanted to talk about was the price. It appears that Apple will be lowering the price point of the MacBook Air. No price point has yet been rumored, but we will find out at the event. When the MacBook Air launched in 2008, it retailed for about $1799.00 with the hard drive option, and I believe with the SSD option it sold for $2799.00. My guess is that with the cost of the parts that make up the MacBook Air costing less, we will see that cost saving passed down to us in the way of a lower priced MacBook Air.
Like I said earlier, it is nice to see a rumor that isn’t related to a Verizon iPhone. It is also good to see that Apple hasn’t forgotten about the Mac, and that it still holds a place in Apple’s ever-growing ecosystem of computing devices. Many feel that Apple has forgotten about the Mac, but with Wednesday’s event coming up, it shows that they have not.
Photo Credit: Is this the new MacBook Air?
Article Via Engadget
