there are very few signs pointing to a MBA refresh before Macworld 2009. mostly likely it will be CPU change, new HDD & SDD options. possibly x4500 chipset, no new ports.
Hmmm...guess it depends on how liberally one defines "few", and whether or not one believes "few" also means "insignificant". I, like many others, have been waiting for a Rev B in the next 3 or so months (not sure if that means the same as a refresh in the minds of others).
I've seen a "few" signs that make me a bit more hopeful this will be the case:
- Some analysts think Apple appears to be clearing out inventory by way of the recent price drop in its SSD upgrade
- Rumor (read this on Barrons) has it that STEC signed a contract with AAPL back in April to deliver SSDs, and speculation is that these will replace Samsung in MBA. Who knows...but my direct and indirect experience with working with contracts and vendors in similar situations is that you would typically hope to start benefiting from those types of contracts within a few months, not a year later. Analysts raised STEC's revenue estimates for this year after that news came out, so I would make a guess that Apple is taking delivery of some units this year...and they don't like to have parts just sitting around...so maybe they're planning to ship them this year?
- Competitors who are clearly taking aim at the MBA have recently announced 128MB SSD upgrades for approx the same cost as Apple's 64MB SSD upgrade (for example, Dell offers 128MB for about $650 US).
- Avg. time to refresh on previous laptops (and desktops) is around 200 days. That held true of the first refresh for the new products, too, FWIW.
- The most common problem discussed (core shutdowns) may be something that Apple will want to address in the very near term. I'm not an engineer, but they have some smart people working for them, and there are probably a few things they could do without making a significant change to the manufacturing line/process.
So, those things give me some hope that we'll see something in the Sept/Oct timeframe.
What will we see? I don't know enough to offer an informed opinion, and I'm not going to spit out a wish list, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some fix to the fan/core shutdown problem, a slight processor bump (see one of the previous posts, 5-10%) and an upgrade to a 128MB MLC SSD drive, all at the same price of the original MBA.
I don't think, however, that in the next couple of months we'll see anything like additional USB ports, jump to a new CPU line, etc...those things would require some potentially significant retooling, and that's the kind of stuff I would expect to see in a major refresh during 1Q of 2009.
Like I said...I'm not representing myself as being an expert or as being tremendously informed, I'm just putting together a few pieces of news that seem to fit logically to me. And, it's a comforting rationalization for me fighting off the ravening "instant gratification monster" that keeps screaming for me to buy it NOW.
