Apple's manufacturing process for the new MacBook Air may have inadvertently given its competitors an avenue for copying the design, notebook industry tips claimed Monday night. Acer, ASUS and Lenovo are reportedly building 13.3- and 14-inch ultraportables that would use a combination of Intel's Sandy Bridge chips with the Mac's display assembly technique. After Apple separated the manufacturing of the main display cell from the backlight and back frame, shaving 3-5mm from the display thickness, Digitimes was told others now had access to the same process and could use it to slim down their own notebooks.
Many of the details of the systems still aren't known, but the Acer model would replace the TimelineX series that itself was originally intended partly to undercut the MacBook Air. The first systems would most likely use LM-series Core i5 and i7 chips that strike a balance between the slower ultra-low voltage processors and the full speed but much more demanding regular parts.
At least some if not all of the Windows-based challengers would ship sometime before the end of March and would present the first known direct response to the current generation of Air models. The advantage may not necessarily last as Apple is rumored to be using Sandy Bridge in future MacBooks and would get a major leap in processor power without necessarily sacrificing graphics performance.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario