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MacBook: Update or Bust

May 27, 2011 07:58 by: Karl Johnson   0 Comments

Categories: MacBook

The polycarbonate MacBook was last updated in May 2010, which was a minor speed improvement. The last major update for the standard Macbook was the move to a polycarbonate unibody case back in October of 2009.

Up until last fall, this MacBook was the cheapest laptop Apple offered. That ended when Apple released the 11-inch MacBook Air in the fall of 2010. Will Apple keep two laptops in this price range or get rid of one?

The chart below shows the release cycle for the standard MacBooks.

As the chart shows, the standard MacBook usually gets updated about every six month or so. The current MacBook has not been updated in over a year and should have been updated last November. Is Apple still planning to update the MacBook soon or is it replacing the MacBook with the MacBook Air? The chart below compares the 11-inch MacBook air with the MacBook.

The MacBook Air’s lack of a SuperDrive can be both a weakness and a strength. Most People already have an old computer to extract data from a CD or DVD and after that the drive is not needed. The MacBook does have a bigger screen, but the MacBook Air has about the same resolution, making screen size a non-issue.

The two key weaknesses for the base model Macbook Air are the storage capacity and processor speed. The MacBook Air is a third slower and has a quarter of the storage capacity compared with the MacBook. These two weakness leave room in Apple’s lineup for the MacBook.

If rumors are correct, Apple is expected to update the MacBook Air in June or July. It is also expected that Apple will upgrade the processor to an Intel Sandy Bridge i5, which would greatly increase the performance of both the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs. If Apple does not update the MacBook before then, the MacBook Air would be faster, which would eliminate one of those weaknesses.

Apple also could easily eliminate the other weakness by upgrading the base MacBook Air storage capacity from 64GB to 128GB. The MacBook would still have more storage, but 128GB is plenty for most users. The extra speed of a solid state drive would more than make up for the lack of capacity turning this weakness into a strength.

The MacBook Air is only a few upgrades away from replacing the plastic MacBook. Those upgrades could come as soon as June or July. If Apple does not update the polycarbonate MacBook before the MacBook Air, look for them to discontinue it.

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