“Back To The Mac” Event : 11.6 or 13.3 Inch MacBook Air?

The MacBook Air you can find in stores right now, one of the slimmest, lightest laptops on the market

Some people can’t wait for October 20. That’s because on that specific date Apple will be holding a “Back to the Mac”. While the new features of the following Mac OS X version are quite interesting, people are eagerly expecting new computers to be released. They believe that an 11.6 inch MacBook Air might make its debut during the event. AppleInsider claims that it was able to confirm the smaller version of Apple’s extremely slim and light laptop. Allegedly, the computers are rolling off factory lines as we speak, in preparation for near immediate delivery. Whatever it is that Apple is cooking, we can be sure that we’ll be able to buy it as soon as it’s released. That’s one thing you have to love about the Cupertino-based company. You rarely have to wait for months between the debut of a certain device and the actual shipping date.

In any case, the 11.6 inch Macbook Air is said to feature a new storage system called “SSD card” that resembles a stick of RAM. Because it’s extremely small, it is said to allow the new Air to be lighter and slimmer than ever before, and possibly boast instant-on wake times as well. CNET has also contributed to the set of rumors prior to the event by mentioning that the new Air will have a considerably lower price than current models. Today’s MacBook Air has a $1,499. Needless to say, that’s a bit hefty for most people. The only problem is that the hardware inside, especially the processor, might be older generation, in which case we might not appreciate the lower price point after all.

An early prototype of what seems to be a new Macbook Air; photo : Engadget

The last to come up with some news regarding the new MacBook Air was Engadget, who received a photo of what’s supposed to be under the bonnet of the laptop. Contrary to all rumors that circulated up to this point, the device appears to be the same size as the “original”, which is 13.3 inches. The main changes include: extra room for battery cells and no room (oddly enough) for a hard drive. Since this is only one SKU, it’s quite hard to tell what Apple plans to do with the actual laptop. As for the design of the laptop, Apple seems to have included USB ports on the left and right side, a Mini DisplayPort and an SD Card reader on the left side.

Engadget also mentions that the rest of the machine is restyled in modern unibody style, with the large single mouse button but a screen that’s like the one found in the current MacBook Air instead of an edge-to-edge glass with black edges. Inside the same Core 2 Duo SL9400 processor appears to reside, instead of a newer generation Intel one that most people were hoping to see. The reasoning here is that the laptop in the phone is a very early prototype that might date back to at least April this year. In this case, the only info you might be getting out of this is that we might get to see a 13.3 updated model. A 11.6 one might be present as well. For a long time, Apple has only had the Macbook, the MacBook Pro in three possible dimensions and the MacBook Air. It’s about time the company offered more options to fit the needs of all its different types of consumers. Since MacBook laptops are starting to sell extremely well, especially amongst college students, it would be a great idea to make the line more appealing and place the same focus that has been placed on improving and developing iPod music players or the iPhone handsets.

We probably won’t find out until next week what the Cupertino-based company has in store for us. Most people seem to believe that a new MacBook Air will be presented during the event, so we could take that for granted already. But more details regarding it or other products Apple might reveal remain unknown for the time being.11