13″ flash Drive Mac.
AppleInsider reports that Macworld San Francisco 2008 will be the launching ground for Apple’s long-rumored ultra-portable laptop.
The new 13″ aluminum sub-notebook is described to be 50% lighter and “strikingly slimmer” than the existing 15″ MacBook Pros. To achieve this small form factor, Apple is said to have removed an optical drive from the design of the new laptop. As well, Apple will incorporate NAND flash-based storage as well as LED backlights to improve power efficiency.
Appleinsider posted their belief that a sub-notebook is coming from Apple back in February of 2007. Rumors of an ultra-portable Mac, however, have been ongoing for months with talk of a NAND-based ultra-portable Mac dating as far back as June 2006.
This new description of an aluminum case corresponds to a recent report by 9to5 indicating that slim aluminum MacBooks had been spotted with “something strange” about the touchpad.
Macworld Expo takes place from January 15-18th, 2008 in San Francisco, California.
For what its worth, Apple 2.0 Blog reports that Piper Jaffrey’s Gene Munster is 75% certain that an ultralight MacBook “or possibly an entirely new product” will be coming in January at Macworld. They also point to photos and video of Engadget editor, Ryan Block, successfully transplanting a pre-release Samsung 64GB solid-state drive into his MacBook Pro.
full article from the insider:
The 13-inch portable, which AppleInsider first detailed back in February, will mark the Cupertino-based Mac maker’s re-entry into the sub-notebook market — arriving in a form-factor that’s approximately 50 percent lighter and strikingly slimmer than the company’s current 15-inch professional MacBook Pro offering.
In achieving this smaller notebook footprint, Apple has reportedly adopted design cues that fall in line with the minimalist nature of its chief executive, including a bold move to omit a traditional optical disc drive from the aluminum-clad systems.
The thickness of today’s optical disc drive components are one of the primary factors limiting the ability of PC manufacturers to slim down their next-generation notebook designs. Although Apple had originally made attempts to build in a drive through unconventional means, it’s reported that the plan faced both obstacles and opposition, and upon last check appeared to have been scrapped.
At the same time, the new sub-notebook will mark the advent of features not yet available with Apple’s existing portable offerings, such as onboard NAND flash. The system will represent the first Mac to utilize the solid-state memory in order to improve power efficiency and facilitate near instantaneous boot times, among other advantages.
Also helping with power efficiency will be the adoption of a new breed of 13-inch LCD display panels, which, like those used in the current iteration of the 15-inch MacBook Pro, feature LED backlights rather than cold cathode fluorescent backlights (CCFLs).
While pricer than CCFLs, LED-backlit panels offer increased color saturation and are more efficient at distributing light evenly across the entire display surface. They also consume less power, run cooler, and last longer than CCFL-backlit displays. When combined with on-board NAND flash drives — which contain no moving parts and therefore also draw less power — the technology is expected to translate into significant improvements in battery performance as employed in the new notebook design.
