Apple To Release Intel Sandy Bridge MacBook Air

Apple's MacBook Air is slated for an update in the coming few months. The 2011 refesh will feature the much delayed addition of Intel's latest Sandy Bridge line of processors. Intel's processors sport a smaller 32nm fabrication process that leads to a smaller die size and hence an even more petite MacBook Air. Any thinner and these puppies will slice off fingers. The new range is widely speculated to be clocked at clock speeds of 1.7 to 1.8 GHz, which can then be souped-up to 2.9 GHz with the turbo boost feature. While Apple has updated its MacBook Pro and iMac range with Sandy Bridge versions of Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors in dual and quad-core configurations, the MacBook Airs will most likely be dual-core. The Sandy Bridge line is also expected to carry over its remote wipe feature to the Apple platform.

We had previously reported how Intel's embarrassing flaw in its Sandy Bridge line of processors had put a spoke in the wheels of Apple's plan to upgrade its MacBook range. While Apple isn't a stickler for delivering value to its customers, it's still embarrassing to demand the price of a healthy kidney for something that wheezes along on previous generation Core 2 Duo processors. The flaw affecting SATA based regular as well as SSD hard drives and optical drives has been corrected in the newer batch of Sandy Bridge motherboards, but the recalls had hit the MacBook Pro release schedule badly, which eventually released after some delay. There may be no official word out on the impending MacBook Air release, but the Sandy Bridge versions are expected to hit sometime around this June or July.