Monday, May 7th 2012
Apple to Turn Up Heat with $799 MacBook Air
In a bid to turn up the heat in the crucial $500-$1000 market segment, Apple is on the verge of launching a new $799 MacBook Air variant. The new variant's introduction is strategically timed to dampen Intel's Ultrabook platform launch. Despite high material costs, Intel is aggressively pushing for its Ultrabook ecosystem partners to come up with products as low as $799-$699. OEM majors believe that Ultrabook's success could be limited till the launch of Windows 8 operating system. Intel set aside close to $400 million to construct the Ultrabook ecosystem, including $100 million in setting up an application store. With MacBook Air being an already established brand, Apple is looking to capture the $799 price-point.
Source:
DigiTimes
42 Comments on Apple to Turn Up Heat with $799 MacBook Air
Apple would likely simply cut down some of the specs for the entry level MBA for something like educational institutions and drop the price slightly. Or Apple might just introduces a higher end model and drop the price of the entire line under the new model.
There has also been rumors that Apple will introduce an ARM based iOS device in a Mac Book Air form factor.
When will people stop it with the "you can get the same spec for $10 cheaper in plastic" nonsense. Is their ability to argue limited to THAT!?
Im not expecting an 800$ macbook to be capable of anything an ipad cant do and the same as most cheap netbooks, but if you enjoy spending lots of money for the same actual shit + your fellow mans (well some peeps) nod of confirmation the well done to sheep ahem youothers get it but disagree about whats cool;)
Also anyone who is looking for a gaming solution should really be looking at gaming laptops or desktops so the Intel graphics of the Air (and upcoming Ultra-books) is more then enough.
I have an ASUS Eee Pad (Eee Slate) EP121-1A010M Windows 7 Tablet PC. It has an Intel Core i5 470UM (1.33GHz Turbo Boost up to 1.86GHz) CPU, a 12.1" widescreen 16:9 SVGA touch screen, 4GB DDR3 1333 with a 64GB mSATA SSD and Intel HD Graphics. Most other tablets of this class are essentially Intel Atom based as well and are comparatively underpowered. A notable exceptions to this would be the new Samsung 7 series Windows 7 tablet PC line.
A lot of people not taking the time to look or understand would probably assume all such tablets are ARM based or maybe Atom based,...
Also its cheaper and easier to simply lower the specs (slower Core i5 or start using Core i3 and slightly smaller entry level SSD) of the existing baseline Mac Book Air in order to lower the price rather then to redesign a cheaper one. Or release a newer higher-end (Ivy Bridge) model and drop the price of the existing line of Mac Book Air products.
Also, the Intel Atom is often considered to be a low-end or budget chip and since Apple doesn’t market their products as such it is unlikely they would base a product it.
OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 is available to some for testing and if it had support for Intel Atom we would likely know it already.
Last year it was posted that Apple was indeed looking into APUs but wasn't satisfied with Llano. Trinity would be a likely choice. Apple sure isn't going to do a $700 laptop with Intel without really delivering poor performance. Competitors would have a big edge since they already have i7s in the same price bracket.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Trinity make a big debut in Apple machines with a lot of deals between Apple and AMD. If Apple wants it enough, they'll push for it and I don't see AMD saying "no" to Apple right now. A deal like that would also help AMD gain a lot of attention. Both sides would come out winner with a Trinitybook. Heck I'd buy one.