[Rumour] Apple to get rid of 11" MacBook Air in favor of a 15" variant

[Sauron]

6 minutes ago, KWelz said:

Do you have number on Macbook sales?  I have seen you claim the sales were bad a few times but never seen any solid numbers backing that up. 

I don't have any numbers, I was just speculating. I do know a guy who works in a store that sells them though and he told me they haven't had a lot of success there.

1 minute ago, bobhays said:

I'm pretty sure it's MB<MBA<MBP

Not when the cheapest MB is 50% more expensive than the entry level MBA

[Trixanity]

2 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

I know all of this. Yeah the iGPU is better and all that, but it is still not a powerful GPU, so on that part I could not really give less fucks, if I saw some iris pro graphics I would be more excited about the iGPU part and trust me I can push a CPU to it's limet.

Yeah the formfactor is the limet that is why I would only use this type of laptop for light work like school work and maybe some simple google sketchup, not any of my CAD work, I stream my desktop to my laptop for that even though my laptop has a quadro.

And the cooling design for macbooks is just plain bad, some vents on the bottom would really help.

It's Iris graphics. Iris Pro is 72 EUs and 128 MB eDRAM. Iris is 48 EUs and 64 MB eDRAM (which the 6260U uses). Iris Pro is for higher TDPs, so it's not gonna happen in that form factor. There are advantages and disadvantages to everything. For what it is, it's actually pretty good. And what I would consider the ideal setup in a 15W chip (considering the market we have right now)

And yes, the cooling is poor on MacBooks but does the job for the most part. Most MacBook users probably don't do much else than use Safari, iTunes and Office, so Apple probably axes any cooling R&D in favor of design R&D.

 

Citing workloads that an ultrabook has no business doing is a bit silly.

[dtaflorida]

4 minutes ago, bobhays said:

I'm pretty sure it's MB<MBA<MBP

That's what I understood as well, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Apple was repositioning where their 'Air' products fit in. Maybe that was only in relation to their iPads tho.. 

[bobhays]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I don't have any numbers, I was just speculating. I do know a guy who works in a store that sells them though and he told me they haven't had a lot of success there.

Not when the cheapest MB is 50% more expensive than the entry level MBA

Oh I thought you were talking about performance wise, nvm.

 

EDIT: MBA 128GB is 899 and 256GB is 1099. That 128GB increase has a HUGE markup. (making it closer to MB in terms of pricing since MB have 256GB base.)

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, bobhays said:

Oh I thought you were talking about performance wise, nvm.

That would make sense, wouldn't it? Too bad apple doesn't think that way

[bobhays]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

That would make sense, wouldn't it? Too bad apple doesn't think that way

I think it's because they haven't properly updated MBA in a while. It's still 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and 720p screen base. The MB has 256gb SSD, 8GB Ram, and 1440p screen.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, bobhays said:

I think it's because they haven't properly updated MBA in a while. It's still 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and 720p screen base. The MB has 256gb SSD, 8GB Ram, and 1440p screen.

It's because they are greedy and know they can mostly get away with it. There's no excuse for a 720p screen on a 1000$ laptop

[bobhays]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

It's because they are greedy and know they can mostly get away with it. There's no excuse for a 720p screen on a 1000$ laptop

That and a 480p webcam on a $1300 laptop 

[Trixanity]

6 minutes ago, bobhays said:

I think it's because they haven't properly updated MBA in a while. It's still 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, and 720p screen base. The MB has 256gb SSD, 8GB Ram, and 1440p screen.

That's wrong. It's 8 GB RAM base now and the screen has always been 900p or 1440x900 to be exact. That's a 16:10 aspect ratio which is, despite the otherwise awful display, awesome.

[mikat]

56 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

Yeah they have better iGPUs, but they are still pretty crappy. Given the cooling I have seen on macbooks through the years, I don't think that it will be able to run the CPU at that boost clock for longer periodes.

the macbook air isn't very good at cooling
if you can link me a program that will tell me the temps, ill stresstest

[KWelz]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I don't have any numbers, I was just speculating. I do know a guy who works in a store that sells them though and he told me they haven't had a lot of success there.

Not when the cheapest MB is 50% more expensive than the entry level MBA

I haven't seen any numbers either.   I do know that they had huge increases in sales in the quarter after they released the new Macbooks.   And they were hard to find for a while around here.   Could be a regional thing too.  

 

I am torn on them.  I am fine with the size and performance.  But I want an SD card reader or one more port.  

[KWelz]

Just now, mikat said:

the macbook air isn't very good at cooling
if you can link me a program that will tell me the temps, ill stresstest

http://smcfancontrol.en.softonic.com/mac

[bobhays]

3 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

That's wrong. It's 8 GB RAM base now and the screen has always been 900p or 1440x900 to be exact. That's a 16:10 aspect ratio which is, despite the otherwise awful display, awesome.

I don't know where you got that from, I'm on the apple website and it says 1366x768 and 4gb for the 899 model. (11" one)

EDIT: just saw the specs you quotes were the 13" one.

[Trixanity]

1 minute ago, bobhays said:

I don't know where you got that from, I'm on the apple website and it says 1366x768 and 4gb for the 899 model. (11" one)

Oh. My bad. I was thinking of the 13". The 11" is getting phased out after all.

[mikat]

1 minute ago, KWelz said:

http://smcfancontrol.en.softonic.com/mac

in my book softonic is equal to free virusses  can you link me another source or is it safe?

[Dackzy]

2 minutes ago, mikat said:

the macbook air isn't very good at cooling
if you can link me a program that will tell me the temps, ill stresstest

None of them are good cooled. http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

[bobhays]

1 minute ago, mikat said:

in my book softonic is equal to free virusses  can you link me another source or is it safe?

so is download.com haha unless they offer the download without their own installer thing.

[KWelz]

Just now, mikat said:

in my book softonic is equal to free virusses  can you link me another source or is it safe?

Sorry about that.  At work and just grabbed the first link.   It may be in the app store too.  http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol

 

http://download.cnet.com/smcFanControl/3000-18487_4-102230.html

[mikat]

2 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

None of them are good cooled. http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

it's for windows only

[KWelz]

Just now, bobhays said:

so is download.com haha unless they offer the download without their own installer thing.

Yeah never use those damn downloaders. 

 

[Sauron]

18 minutes ago, KWelz said:

I haven't seen any numbers either.   I do know that they had huge increases in sales in the quarter after they released the new Macbooks.   And they were hard to find for a while around here.   Could be a regional thing too.  

 

I am torn on them.  I am fine with the size and performance.  But I want an SD card reader or one more port.  

I'd never buy a 1400$ computer that overheats to hell and has one port aside from the jack. Asus' ux305 is pretty much better in every way while costing 400$ less.

[Energycore]

We want your devices to get smaller bigger.

[Djole123]

Actually I'm curious how would it look like? I seriously can't imagine a 15" laptop that is about as thick as current MacBook Air.

[KWelz]

13 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I'd never buy a 1400$ computer that overheats to hell and has one port aside from the jack. Asus' ux305 is pretty much better in every way while costing 400$ less.

It only overheats if used for heavy duty applications.  Which isn't really the point of it in my opinion.  

 

Many people, like myself, prefer MacOS to Windows in every use case except gaming.   From a work and productivity point of view I don't see any comparison between the two.   I am getting ready to replace my current laptop and give it to my wife.  Only reason is that I need more storage. So I am debating between another 13 inch MbP, a 15 inch MbP or maybe even a Macbook.   When I need power I have my iMac and PC at home.   I need portable computing.   Something I can pull out in my car in a parking lot and edit an offer or other contract information on.   It has to be reliable, durable and have good performance in those tasks.   It doesn't need an i7, 32Gb of memory and a 4K 17 inch display.   

 

And ports aren't important in that kind of use either.   Everything I do is on cloud storage either through my office Dropbox account, Office, or my home server.   So what do I need a lot of ports for?  As I said.  An SD card reader and the Macbook would be absolutely perfect for my needs.  

[Sauron]

9 minutes ago, KWelz said:

It only overheats if used for heavy duty applications.  Which isn't really the point of it in my opinion.  

 

Many people, like myself, prefer MacOS to Windows in every use case except gaming.   From a work and productivity point of view I don't see any comparison between the two.   I am getting ready to replace my current laptop and give it to my wife.  Only reason is that I need more storage. So I am debating between another 13 inch MbP, a 15 inch MbP or maybe even a Macbook.   When I need power I have my iMac and PC at home.   I need portable computing.   Something I can pull out in my car in a parking lot and edit an offer or other contract information on.   It has to be reliable, durable and have good performance in those tasks.   It doesn't need an i7, 32Gb of memory and a 4K 17 inch display.   

 

And ports aren't important in that kind of use either.   Everything I do is on cloud storage either through my office Dropbox account, Office, or my home server.   So what do I need a lot of ports for?  As I said.  An SD card reader and the Macbook would be absolutely perfect for my needs.  

Have you ever tried a linux distribution? For your usage it should do just fine.

 

Ports to matter a lot in my opinion, just consider that I may want to use a mouse while charging it... why should that be a problem?I'm not saying it shoudl have 15 usb ports and an optical drive, but at least 2 or 3 usb ports are the bare minimum. And cloud storage or not, you don't always have an excellent internet connection wherever you go. Again - the asus is better and cheaper with the only downside being windows.