sandy

Apple has hit the order button for new MacBook Air laptops based on Intel's latest processors, according to a report from AppleInsider today.

As CNET reported in February, the new MacBook Airs will get Intel's Sandy Bridge silicon and finally drop the older Core 2 Duo chip, used since the line's inception in January 2008.

Citing a Concord Securities analyst, AppleInsider reported that the new MacBook Airs are expected to go into mass production this month, with orders from Apple totaling 380,000 for the 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch models. The same report said that Apple will wind down production of current versions of the Air.

The update will bring the Intel chip in Apple's lightest laptop up to par with existing MacBook Pros, which use Intel's speedy Core i5 and Core i7 Sandy Bridge processors.

And the Intel chip refresh would follow the update to the 13-inch MacBook Pro in February. Like the existing MacBook Air, the 13-inch MacBooks had been on an old Intel chip diet… Read more

Dell tomorrow plans to announce what the company is positioning as the successor to its ultrathin Adamo line.

The 0.97-inch thick XPS 15z can be configured with Intel "Sandy Bridge" Core i5 (2.9GHz) and Core i7 (3.4GHz) processors, a 15.6-inch 1920-by-1080 resolution display (300-nit), and a 750GB 7200RPM hard disk drive.

Constructed from anodized aluminum, it will also be offered with Nvidia GT 525M graphics, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and Mini DisplayPort ports, a slot-load optical drive, a "spill resistant" back-lit keyboard, Ethernet port, media card reader, and a 1.3MP Webcam with dual array microphones.

As a bonus, the 15z qualifies for the free Xbox 360 4GB console promotional offer. Orders can arrive the next day with Dell's "fast ship" option, the company said.

As CNET reported earlier, the 15z is expected to start at $999 with Windows 7 Home Premium.

The Dell Adamo was discontinued in February. Launched in March 2009, it competed with Apple's MacBook Air. … Read more

Apple's smallest notebook could soon be getting the company's fastest input/output technology, along with a notable processing boost.

Digitimes reports that Apple is ramping up for a manufacturing run of 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch MacBook Airs that sport Intel's "Sandy Bridge" processors, as well as Thunderbolt, the I/O technology that's now available on the MacBook Pro and the iMac. The new Air models are said to be shipping in June or July, according to the report.

CNET reported a similar timeframe for an update to Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt back in February.

Thunderbolt is the I/O technology resulting from a collaboration between Intel and Apple. It boasts considerable speed advantages over USB 3.0, which is available on a number of PCs but not on Mac computers. Thunderbolt remains a nascent technology in terms of adoption across the computing industry, with only Apple's computers currently sporting a Thunderbolt port. Other manufacturers are slated to gain access to Thunderbolt next year.

As for Sandy Bridge, the extra processing boost could make a big impact on the Air's computing prowess. Apple's two Air models currently top out with a Core 2 Duo chip, which is Intel's previous generation chipset. Sandy Bridge represents the second iteration of Intel's "i" line of processors and brings with it both a boost in processing power and graphics capabilities. PC ultra-portables, including Samsung's 9 series laptops, have sported the chips since March.

Questions still remain about whether there's room inside the Air's jam-packed enclosure for the Thunderbolt's controller. Considering the graphics boost that Sandy Bridge's chips bring, Apple could be trading out the NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU for Intel's integrated graphics to free up space.

Apple's MacBook Air was completely relaunched back in October as part of Apple's "Back to the Mac" event. That was also where Apple took the wraps off OS X 10.7 "Lion," which is due this summer. … Read more

The iconic iMac aluminum enclosure houses a bevy of noteworthy upgrades, including Intel's and Advanced Micro Devices' latest silicon and the latest Intel-Apple interface, as iFixit's teardown of the 21.5-inch iMac ably reveals.

Let's look at a below-the-radar item first since there's already been plenty of ink devoted to the marquee features.

Intel Z68 chipset: This is Intel's freshly minted chipset. New enough that you won't find it--at least not prominently--on Intel's Website because it hasn't been officially released. The Z68 supports SSD caching: that is, using a relatively small-capacity, solid-state drive as a "cache" for a larger magnetic hard disk drive (see photo below). Interestingly, this SSD-HDD configuration is widely used in transaction-heavy businesses such as banks, where the top of the storage pyramid is composed of SSDs that act as a cache for the larger-capacity, and slower, magnetic drives.

Intel, in fact, is expected to bring out SSDs targeted specially at this kind of application.

Intel desktop-class Sandy Bridge processors: In the model torn down by iFixit, the processor is a 2.5GHz quad-core Sandy Bridge Intel Core i5-2400S. This is a pure 32-nanometer processor (previous-generation Intel silicon with graphics integrated into the same chip package was a 50-50 split, the processor was 32nm but the graphics was 45nm). … Read more

We're several days into May, and another Mac has gotten upgraded to 2011 Intel processors. MacBook Pros, check. iMacs, check. Now that two of Apple's most popular lines have gotten necessary upgrades, it's time to look at which Macs still haven't gotten updated...and wonder when those updates will occur.

In order of our best guess as to when they'll be refreshed, here are the Macs we're still expecting.

The white MacBook (last updated: mid-April 2010) Apple's lone white laptop has survived for years, and now that white's the new black in … Read more

It's become rare for a developer other than Blizzard to explicitly target PC gamers. Now we have two such PC-centric games on the horizon. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, from Atari and Polish-developer CD Projekt Red, promises visceral, adult-oriented role playing when it launches May 17. Electronic Arts and developer DICE have described this fall's Battlefield 3 as a "love letter" to PC gamers, a claim backed by a Battlefield 3 DirectX 11 presentation at this year's Game Developer's Conference.

With these, and hopefully other graphically modern PC games on the horizon, you … Read more

Now that the Sandy Bridge storage flaw has been resolved, it's back to business for Intel and its desktop partners. The first post-recall tower system we've reviewed, Dell's XPS 8300, makes a reasonable showing, but it seems we have to look to other vendors to really show off what these new "second-generation" Core i7 chips can do.

With Intel's 3.4GHz Core i7 2600 chip, a fast AMD Radeon HD 5870 graphics card, a Blu-ray burner, and other amenities, this Dell offers a well-rounded configuration for just over $1,600.

If we seem lukewarm … Read more

Right now you can have an ultra-portable MacBook or one with up-to-date guts, but you can't have both. But that's apparently changing, if rumors are to be believed.

The latest from parts suppliers in Asia indicates that Apple is set to begin mass production of Thunderbolt- and Sandy Bridge- (with Intel Graphics, natch) equipped MacBook Airs late next month, to debut on sales floors in June (which corroborates reports we made back in February).

The news comes from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, from Concord Securities, who gave his take on the Air production to AppleInsider. In addition to being … Read more

For those waiting patiently on an update of the MacBook Air, the first hints of its potential performance can be found in a Samsung laptop and the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Apple is expected to update the MacBook Air (MBA) this summer with Intel's "Sandy Bridge" processor, as CNET has reported. And there's really only one question on most people's minds: what kind of performance will a new MBA get you? (We already know more or less what the price will be.)

Luckily, there's some circumstantial evidence out there now. Exhibit A is the ultrathin … Read more