I've been holding off on replacing my Dell, hoping Apple would announce a more powerful 13" model of some sort. My Dell has been technically excellent (LED backlit display, SSD, etc), but the build quality is distractingly bad. So, I've been seriously considering biting the bullet and getting a Macbook.
As impressive as the rest of the new Air seems, it's tough to justify buying ~2008 technology two months from 2011. It's hard to believe there's not a single 13" Macbook available with a Core i5 or Core i7 yet.
I would personally place the blame squarely at Intel's feet. They no longer allow nVidia to make chipsets for Nehalem onwards, so instead of having a chipset with integrated graphics, you now have to have an additional chip on the motherboard for standalone graphics. In this form factor, that's just not an option.
I guess Apple could also be faulted for wanting to standardize on decent graphics, but I just can't bring myself to see that as anything but a good thing!
It will be interesting to see how this changes with time. Sandy Bridge, Intel's upcoming CPU release, has graphics on die, but it will still be vastly outclassed by the nVidia 320M that's in the new Air. Unless Intel comes along with vast improvements with their 22nm refresh, Ivy Bridge, Apple's still going to be in the same bind - in 2012.
Comments
The Core 2 Duo is disappointing.
I've been holding off on replacing my Dell, hoping Apple would announce a more powerful 13" model of some sort. My Dell has been technically excellent (LED backlit display, SSD, etc), but the build quality is distractingly bad. So, I've been seriously considering biting the bullet and getting a Macbook.
As impressive as the rest of the new Air seems, it's tough to justify buying ~2008 technology two months from 2011. It's hard to believe there's not a single 13" Macbook available with a Core i5 or Core i7 yet.
I would personally place the blame squarely at Intel's feet. They no longer allow nVidia to make chipsets for Nehalem onwards, so instead of having a chipset with integrated graphics, you now have to have an additional chip on the motherboard for standalone graphics. In this form factor, that's just not an option.
I guess Apple could also be faulted for wanting to standardize on decent graphics, but I just can't bring myself to see that as anything but a good thing!
It will be interesting to see how this changes with time. Sandy Bridge, Intel's upcoming CPU release, has graphics on die, but it will still be vastly outclassed by the nVidia 320M that's in the new Air. Unless Intel comes along with vast improvements with their 22nm refresh, Ivy Bridge, Apple's still going to be in the same bind - in 2012.