The latest MacBook Air masks a lot of new electronics under an old skin.
To me, the new MacBook Air (MBA) is truly a second-generation product despite its unchanged appearance. But before I explain why, let me clarify where I am coming from.
I have been using an MBA for the last eight months. Why the over-priced Air? I am a minimalist when it comes to computers (though not necessarily when it comes to spending money on computers). The more spartan the laptop is, the better. In a well-executed design this translates to more portability, which, for me, takes priority over performance and ports.
And this is especially true for the Air. The economy of design dictates lower performance and fewer connectors than mainstream laptops.
Updated MacBook Air has new processor, chipset, graphics, and solid state drive
(Credit: Apple)Having said that, the new Air seems to have made significant gains in performance. (Again, this is a preview, so only benchmarks will bear this out.) The Air uses Intel's newest Penryn-architecture low-power mobile processors, not the older Merom processors--which were, let's be honest, already dated even way back in January when Apple launched the Air.
Penryn-class processors come with 6MB (versus the Merom's 4MB in the previous Air) of cache memory and faster front-side bus speeds (1066MHz versus 667MHz). Of course, other MacBooks use Penryn chips too but it is significant that these powerful mobile processors are now being squeezed into the Air's form factor.
The widely reported use of Nvidia's GeForce 9400M graphics is another big plus. This is a step up from Intel's integrated graphics, which for too long has really been the only choice for subnotebooks and ultraportables. Better game playing and the ability to drive Apple's new 24-inch LED Cinema Display as well as the 30-inch Cinema HD Display are other benefits. (More on the GeForce 9400M here.)
And let's not forget memory. The Air uses DDR3 memory versus the DDR2-specified chips of the previous Air. DDR3 delivers better bandwidth and lower power consumption than DDR2.
Storage. Generally speaking, solid-state drives are faster than hard disk drives, especially when reading data. The Air and the ThinkPad X300 legitimized SSDs. The new Air takes this to the next level with a larger 128GB solid-state drive (versus the previous model's 64GB SSD). The newer 128GB (and larger-capacity) solid-state drives are based on multilevel cell technology. MLC allows larger capacities at lower cost. But MLC-based drives typically don't deliver the performance of single-level cell (SLC) drives. Dell, for example, offers its Latitude E4200 ultraportable with both high-performance SLC drives and lower-performance MLC SSDs.
Last but not least is price. OK, so $2,499 is not a steal (for the 1.86GHz model with a 128GB SSD). But look at it this way, you get a lot more for the same price as the previous Air. You get a faster processor, better graphics, speedier memory, and a larger solid state drive. Though I wouldn't call this a great deal by any means, Apple could have priced it higher. (Apple has been known to push the envelope on pricing.)
Longstanding Issues
Let me also address some longstanding issues I've had with the Air. I currently use one of the original models--launched back in January--that comes with a 1.8GHz processor and 64GB solid state drive. The Air's aluminum body is wonderful, but it hasn't maintained the tolerances that it had at first. Specifically, the seams just below the keyboard sometimes creak (for lack of a better word) and, at times, noticeably expand and contract. Let me be clear: this is not a big issue and is noticeable only occasionally. Most users probably wouldn't notice this.
Heat. I hesitate to cite heat as an issue because every laptop I have ever owned has had heat issues--some much worse than the Air's. It's a little like complaining about your car's engine block getting warm. But because the aluminum body itself acts as a heat sink of sorts, excessive heat can become an issue when the Air is pushed to its limits. That is, a lot of open applications and a heavy workload.
Screen response time. This could be subjective to some extent but the LCD's response times seem to be slower than, for example, the response times I get from my other laptop: the 3.3-pound HP 2510p. In other words, whenever I go back to working on the 2510p after working on the Air for a while, I feel that the screen response times are better on the 2510p.
But overall the Air is an amazing piece of engineering and a delight to use.
(For another MacBook review, go here.)
A back order of MacBooks at Best Buy could be yet another sign that Apple has new notebooks around the corner.
Best Buy is showing a one- to two-week delay on both 15.4-inch $1,999 MacBook Pros--the exact configuration that was rumored to be on tap earlier this month--as well as 13.3-inch MacBooks. AppleInsider has also heard from a reseller who claims orders are "trickling in" in preparation for a new launch.
Signs that new MacBook Pros are around the corner continue to trickle out.
(Credit: Apple)Rumors of new notebooks have been swirling for weeks as a confluence of different events point to the possibility of new MacBook Pros. Intel has new Penryn-class notebook chips out, which are starting to be adopted in larger numbers by PC companies. And Apple hasn't updated the basic design of the MacBook Pro in an awfully long time.
That doesn't necessarily mean that a new design is forthcoming with the next revision to the notebook lineup, but the new Penryn chips are almost a certainty to help boost the performance of the MacBook and MacBook Pro. There have also been rumors that Apple will bring the iPhone-like touchpad capabilities introduced on the MacBook Air to the rest of the MacBook lineup, which would require the inclusion of a new controller chip in the systems.
Apple tends to like Tuesdays as "new product days," a tradition that was recently upheld with the higher-capacity iPhone and iPod models introduced a few weeks back. Something is clearly brewing for the end of this month, with details on the iPhone software developers kit expected to arrive any day now, and now evidence that Best Buy is running low on MacBooks during a quarter that's almost always seasonally slower than the fourth.
CES is not exactly a chip-maker's show, since chips look sort of lame next to flashy cell phones and 100-inch plasma televisions.
Still, Intel and AMD both plan to descend on the desert this week and each company is making some news. Intel has more than a dozen new chips to announce, and AMD has a new logo.
First off, Intel plans to unveil 16 chips on Monday, the same day CEO Paul Otellini delivers an afternoon keynote address at The Venetian Hotel. The five Penryn-class Core 2 Duo notebook processors are probably the highlight, the first of Intel's notebook chips to use the company's 45-nanometer manufacturing technology.
The notebook chips are available immediately, setting the stage for next week's Macworld, when Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to unveil one or more Macbooks based on Intel's chips. The rest of the new processors are for servers and desktops; the server chips are available immediately, while desktop chips will follow later. Intel is closing in on shipment totals of 1 million 45-nanometer chips after launching its first such processors last November.
Otellini is expected to focus more on
AMD has much less to say, given that right now, its priorities center on fixing its Barcelona and Phenom processors and getting those ready for prime time. Still, the company plans to discuss its upcoming Puma notebook platform during the show.
Turion Ultra is going to be the processor brand delivered with the Puma platform, which will also incorporate ATI Mobility Radeon graphics chipsets from AMD's graphics division, said Bahr Mahony, director of mobile business for AMD.
One interesting feature on certain Turion Ultra notebooks will be the ability to turn the discrete graphics on or off, depending on the need for graphics performance or battery life. Some of the platforms will include the Mobilty Radeon HD 3400 graphics chipset, which can toggle between the two modes.
View complete CES 2008 coverage from CNET.
The planned launch of Intel's Penryn processors on Monday is the first blow in a one-two punch that might stagger AMD heading into 2008.
Just a few months after the launch of AMD's quad-core Barcelona chips, Intel is hitting back with Penryn, now known as the Xeon 5400 family of processors. A total of 15 server chips are set to launch Monday as well as a new Core 2 Extreme desktop processor, with Penryn chips for mainstream desktops and notebooks scheduled to launch in the first quarter of next year.
Penryn is essentially a shrink of the Core architecture that brought Intel out of the woods in 2006. But these are also the company's first chips to use Intel's 45-nanometer manufacturing technology, and they will usher in the first change to the basic properties of the transistor since the 1960s.
For the first time, Intel plans to use a metal gate and a new material for the oxide layer around the gate in its transistor designs. This fundamental part of the transistor provides the foundation for computing as the part that determines whether a transistor is off or on, a "0" or a "1."
"We needed the scaling and power/performance, and it would be very hard to do it on the previous technology," said Dadi Perlmutter, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Mobility Group.
Intel and other chipmakers were running into problems making the gates smaller and smaller. The gates were getting down to the point where the gate dielectric--an insulating layer that sits between the gate and the rest of the transistor--was only a few atoms thick. The chipmaking industry has figured out lots of amazing things, but it hasn't figured out how to split an atom without causing a bit of an energy problem.
The new materials allowed Intel to build thicker gates with the same switching properties as the older ones, which helps control current leakage and also buys the industry a few more generations of scaling. IBM and AMD plan to release chips based on similar technology in 2008.
And the combination of the new transistors and some design tweaks appears to have been enough to give Intel a performance lead with the Penryn generation of chips. The company said some of its partners set world records for scores on well-known benchmarks such as TPC-C and SPECint_rate2006 with the basic Xeon chips. When paired with the 1600MHz front-side bus available on some chips, Intel said it also set records on SPECfp_2006rate, long a stronghold of AMD's. SPECint_rate is a general measure of transactional performance that's important to business customers, while SPECfp_rate measures floating-point performance and is important to high-performance computing customers.
Intel avoided making direct comparisons to AMD's chips in briefing materials distributed ahead of the announcement. It plans to have a Web site up and running on Monday with more detailed performance information.
Intel did say that the new Xeons will be about 28 percent faster than their older brothers on SPECint_rate2006, and 30 percent faster on SPECfp_rate2006. Barcelona barely edged out the older generation of Xeon chips on SPECint_rate2006, so it looks like Intel will have an edge in that area.
If you make a server-buying decision based solely on these numbers, however, you're making a mistake. There are some truths to benchmarks, but companies like Intel and AMD spend millions of dollars trying to get an edge on benchmark results, which don't always mirror real-world performance. Still, they're the best comparison vehicles we've got, though those who are contemplating a serious server purchase test their applications on a system before making the leap.
Penryn marks the second generation of Intel's quad-core designs. Around this time last year, Intel packaged its dual-core Core generation processors into quad-core chips that enjoyed several months free from competition from AMD.
That free ride ended with the Barcelona launch. AMD gained back some market share in the third quarter, as Barcelona systems trickled into the market. Still, going into the launch the company didn't expect Barcelona to contribute meaningful revenue until the fourth quarter.
And it seems that AMD is having a little trouble getting Barcelona into the market. Reports surfaced last week in the run-up to the Penryn launch that some server vendors are quoting 2008 as the time frame for Barcelona's availability, even though AMD executives said they plan to ship "hundreds of thousands" of Barcelona chips this quarter.
That, of course, is exactly when Intel will fire back with the Penryn chips. The new Xeons will arrive in the same pricing bands that Intel's current lineup of Xeon chips occupy, and Intel plans to have systems available right away from the usual suspects in the server market.
And next year, it will get even tougher for AMD. The company has two new designs for desktops and notebooks (known as Spider and Puma) that are set to arrive over the next few months. But Intel isn't sitting still, either: the first quarter of next year will see Penryn chips arriving for desktops and notebooks, as well as an extremely low-power chip called Silverthorne that could open new markets for Intel that AMD can't touch until 2009.
To top it all off, Intel's main plan for 2008 is to release chips called Nehalem that borrow many of the same design techniques, such as an integrated memory controller and point-to-point connections, that made AMD's Opteron chips a winner for several years. AMD would say it's a sign that it was right all along, but it doesn't really matter: Intel has managed to stay very competitive without those techniques, and when it adopts them, AMD could be in more trouble next year.
The smaller chip company is clearly pinning its hopes on 2009, when it aims to release "Fusion" chips that integrate a high-powered GPU with a PC and server processor. The "Bulldozer" chips will also be assembled from smaller building blocks, which could let the chipmaker target specific customers with designs tailored for their needs.
For now, though, Intel is in excellent shape--assuming it doesn't run into any problems during the first few months of the Penryn launch. In just two years, Intel has managed to get beyond the embarrassment of its abrupt change in course at the hands of AMD to get its server group back on track.
Few of us will ever buy a server based on these chips, but this market is extremely important to both Intel and AMD because it's so much more profitable than cranking out chips for your desktop or notebook. That helps fund the development of other technologies that do have an impact on the rest of us, meaning that the competitive balance between the two companies in this segment has far-reaching implications.
For now, advantage Intel.
From time to time, I'll post a brief summary of some interesting items I come across during the day that I don't have time to call out in more detail. If you see anything interesting out there, drop me a line at tom dot krazit at cnet dot com. Take that, you e-mail harvesters.
LEGAL DEPARTMENT: There's some news about a couple of items that will soon await new Apple General Counsel Daniel Cooperman. Information Week notes that the company has been sued over the iPhone--again--this time by a man claiming that Apple is breaking the law by locking the iPhone to AT&T's network. And AppleInsider spotted Apple's name among defendants in a patent case that appears to claim that companies distributing content with DRM technology are violating patents held by an outfit called Digital Reg.
HACKING DEPARTMENT: Erica Sadun at The Unofficial Apple Weblog reports on the progress of the iPhone Dev Team in coming up with a hack for the latest software update to the iPhone, hoping to once again "jailbreak" the iPhone so outside applications can be run on the device. They've made some progress, but it still sounds like there's a way to go before third-party applications can once again be installed.
IPOD DEPARTMENT: New iPod Nano and iPod Classic owners were sent a software update over the weekend, according to Macrumors.com, that fixed a few bugs and improved the Cover Flow method of navigating through album covers. Apparently it also fixes the video-out on the iPod Nanos but now requires an Apple-approved video cord to watch videos on anything but the small 2-inch screen. Macworld also takes a look at the iPod Nano as a gaming device.
INTEL DEPARTMENT: The Inquirer thinks that Apple is calling shotgun on early shipments of Intel's quad-core Penryn processors for new Mac Pros or other unspecified "mainstream" systems. The chips are supposed to be out next month, which could hint at new Mac Pros using the Xeon version of Penryn that could be introduced at Macworld. I'm not sure what the mainstream systems are that would use a quad-core desktop chip, since the new iMacs use dual-core Intel chips, but perhaps they've figured out a way to put a quad-core Penryn in an iMac.
Intel is telling its resellers to get ready for new server chips in November.
DailyTech spotted a pricing list on an unprotected Web page at Intel's Reseller Center that reveals seven Xeon processors with 12MB of cache memory are scheduled to launch on November 11. The thing is, Intel doesn't have any server chips with 12MB of cache memory right now.
But the chipmaker has already disclosed that its Penryn generation of processors will have up to 12MBs of cache memory, making it pretty clear what to expect in November. All Intel has said is that Penryn chips are expected to arrive in the second half of the year. An Intel representative said he could not comment on rumors, and though the Web page has been pulled from Intel's site, I did see a copy before it died.
Penryn server processors will be Intel's first processors built on its 45-nanometer manufacturing technology, and will arrive a few months after AMD's first quad-core server chip launches in September. Intel already ships quad-core server chips, but they don't have as much cache memory as the Penryn chips will have.
Cache memory stores frequently used data right on the chip next to the CPU, so the CPU doesn't have to leave the chip and reach out to system memory to find that data. The more memory, the more data you can store on-chip and the less often the CPU has to leave the chip, improving performance. This is especially important for Intel given its reliance on a front-side bus to handle that interaction between the CPU and the memory, AMD uses an integrated memory controller that provides a direct link to the memory bank.
A source familiar with Intel's plans said to expect the Penryn chips to arrive before Thanksgiving, but that the November 11 date might not be exact. Desktop and notebook chips based on the same design are expected to arrive in the weeks following that launch.
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