Though five out of the six MacBook Pro notebooks currently offered by Apple wear high-resolution Retina displays, with the 13-inchers sporting a native resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 and the 15-inch models running on 2,880 x 1,800, the MacBook Air line is still without a model whose displays even approach 1080p. However, one analyst muses that that could change as soon as this year.
Daniel Matte, an analyst with market research firm Canalys, wrote on his personal blog that Apple could very well choose to introduce a 12-inch (11.88-inch, to be exact) MacBook Air this year with a Retina-like resolution of 2,732 x 1,536. Why these dimensions and this particular screen resolution? Matte notes that an 11.88-inch Retina MacBook Air packing a 2,732 x 1,536 display resolution would have the same exact pixel density of the 9.7-inch 2048 x 1536 Retina iPad, which amounts to 264 pixels per inch, or ppi.
Matte suggests that Apple could simply use the same tech they used to give the iPad Retina its display and cut the 2014 MacBook Air’s screen to accommodate the larger 11.88-inch size.
It remains to be seen whether this year’s version of the MacBook Air, assuming there’s a refreshed version introduced, will sport the features that Matte is describing. Will Apple release a Retina MacBook Air? Probably. Will they include the exact specs that Matte talks about? That’s a whole other question, as is the issue of price, which could travel northward if Apple decides to stuff an ultra high-resolution display into one of its wafer-thin notebooks.
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