If everything goes true to schedule, Apple may finally roll out its vaunted MacBook Air Retina on the second quarter of 2015.
Regarded as the next-generation Apple laptop, the 12-inch MacBook Air with Retina display promises to become the next flagship laptop of the American tech giant.
Apple Insider let loose of speculations that the MacBook Air with high-resolution Retina display will go into mass production in the first quarter of 2015, which actually coincides with the availability of Intel’s next-generation low power Broadwell processors.
The existing MacBook Air uses Haswell processors and Apple initially wanted to use Intel’s Core M chips for the ultrathin laptop but decided against it when it did not meet the company’s standards and performance, cites Crossmap.
That’s when Apple opted for Intel’s Broadwell processors composed of 14-nanometer chips. However, Broadwell processors have not received favorable reviews in 2014 and the consumer techno-geeks would rather prefer that the company use the Skylake chip which is still in development at this time.
Skylake chip provides support for wireless charging and data transfer technologies, something that is very common these days in smartphones and mobile devices, notes Crossmap.
A number of tech and gadget buffs believe that Apple should just wait for the Skylake chip instead of using the under-achieving Broadwell processors.
The chassis of the portable device is expected to be thinner and lighter than any MacBook Air in the past. Intended for the high-end market, the Apple notebook shall be built by Quanta computer, according to Apple Insider.
The next generation MacBook Air Retina will also feature a scaled down 12-inch form factor, a fan-less design, fewer inputs and outputs, and a click-less TrackPad.
Edge lies on the screen
With a processor that hardly offers much compared to its predecessor used in the MacBook Air, Apple is actually banking on the Retina display as its main dish or selling point for the next-generation MacBook Air.
Retina display has become Apple’s favorite screen feature for its current mobile devices including the iPhone 6 Plus, the iPad Air, the iPad mini, and the iMac.
These screens exude the highest pixel density of up to 401 pixels per inch which is the closest it can get in matching the output of the human retina.
However, the higher resolution on a 12-inch screen and extreme portability of the MacBook Air Retina has put Apple on a quandary as to which of the two features should be sacrificed on behalf of the other.
Apple is reportedly looking at coming up with a slightly smaller screen of 11.8 inches that shall boast of a resolution of 2732 x 1536, which would be four times better than the ones on current MacBook Air, notes Crossmap.
But all these remain as speculations and will only become official once Apple makes a public announcement about its next-generation ultrathin portable laptop.