Apple is set to update its MacBook Air series in the next few months. Rumors suggesting that the MacBook Air 2011 model will pack specs to match that of the current MacBook Pro. With an upgrade to Sandy Bridge, benchmarks suggest that performance will be close to that of the MacBook Pro.
Recent benchmarks on the comparable Samsung Series 9 thin and light notebook computer suggests that an upgrade to the Sandy Bridge architecture will give the MacBook Air a significant performance boost, which might be comparable to the 13-inch MacBook Pro (particularly with the MBP’s use of Intel HD 3000 graphics instead of a discrete AMD Radeon chip).
However what is unknown is whether Apple will choose the 25W Intel Core i7-2649M running at 2.3 GHz or the 17W Core i5-2537 for the MacBook Air 2011. Whichever it may be, it will certainly blow the current Intel Core 2 Duo out of the water.
The MacBook Air 2011 model is also expected to incorporate 4GB RAM instead of 2GB and may possibly borrow other features from the new MacBook Pro. On a side note, the recently released developers build of Mac OS X Lion hints that the OS is being setup for much higher resolutions (closer to Retina Display), speculating the new MacBook Air may have an update in the screen department as well.