Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Apple’s new MacBook Air with Intel’s 8th-gen processors expected this year

Chuong Nguyen
By
cheap macbook deals
Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you’re in the market for a new MacBook Air, you may want to refrain from buying one until Apple refreshes the laptop line. Apple is expected to announce a new model later this year, bringing with it a chip from Intel’s eighth-generation processor family that Apple used on its recent MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro, for example, tops out with a powerful six-core processor, and Apple claims that the new chips deliver up to twice the performance from the chips on its previous generation notebook. In addition to better under-the-hood performance, the updated Mac notebook is also rumored to get a 13-inch Retina display and a sub-$1,000 starting price.

Recommended Videos

At this point, however, it’s still unclear how Apple will position the refreshed notebook. Given its powerful processor and high-resolution display, there are several options Apple could take: The company could either keep the same MacBook Air branding or even move the new notebook as a lower cost option into either the MacBook or MacBook Pro family. The refreshed notebook would be more powerful than the current MacBook Air, which utilizes Intel’s fifth-gen dual-core processors; and the MacBook, which uses a power-conservative processor.

Related

Apple is expected to use Intel’s Kaby Lake Refresh due to Intel’s delays with the newer Cannon Lake architecture, the Economic Daily News reported. While the Coffee Lake platform delivered up to six cores of processing power on the MacBook Pro, relying on Kaby Lake for the MacBook Air means that the notebook will top out with a quad-core Core i5 or Core i7 processor.

“Kaby Lake Refresh chips are already nearly one year old, and Intel will be releasing faster Whiskey Lake processors suitable for Apple’s notebook in the second half of 2018, but they might not be ready in time, as manufacturing needs to begin over the summer for the notebook to launch in the fall,” MacRumors noted.

In addition to the MacBook Air, Apple is also expected to announce a refresh to its Macbook. The 12-inch laptop is rumored to come with Intel’s new Amber Lake processor. It’s widely believed that Apple will launch its iPhones in September, and the refreshed notebooks could arrive in October. Apple’s MacBook Pro refresh happened more quietly without a media event, so it’s unclear if the MacBook Air refresh will also get a similar treatment.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Chuong Nguyen
Chuong Nguyen
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Silicon Valley-based technology reporter and Giants baseball fan who splits his time between Northern California and Southern…
Here’s more confirmation that 2024 will be a slow year for Macs
3nm iphone ipad processors apple silicon imgae

There's some extra reason to believe that Apple could already be working on the M4 chip, but it may not be coming for a while. New research from Canalys, a market analytics firm, shows that the next entry in the Apple Silicon family could come in the first part of 2025 to target offerings from Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD.

Lining up with previous reporting from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Canalys is estimating that Apple could launch the M4 chip in the first quarter of 2025. It's a vague time frame, but it makes a lot of sense. Gurman previously said that Apple already has the M4 MacBook Pro in "formal development." Although this timing lines up with previous Apple Silicon chip refresh cycles, it would leave 2024 looking fairly light in terms of new Mac releases. Apple usually has some kind of October or November release focused on new Macs, but without new chips to launch, that might not happen this year.

Read more
Which color MacBook should you buy? Here’s how to pick
The MacBook Air on a table in front of a window.

Apple’s MacBook laptops come in a range of colors, and selecting which is right for you can be a tricky business. Sure, it’s perhaps not as important as deciding which chip to pick or how much memory you should buy, but it’s still a vital part of the equation. After all, you’re going to see that color every time you reach for your MacBook. You don’t want it to be something that fills you with regret.

But how should you pick a MacBook color? And what do the colors even look like in the first place? We’ve got the answers to those questions in this guide. We’d also advise you to go to an Apple Store to take a look at the MacBook colors in person, as some can be hard to appreciate just by browsing Apple’s website.

Read more
Why you should buy a MacBook Air instead of a MacBook Pro
The MacBook Air on a table in front of a window.

The MacBook Air has officially caught up. Now with the M3 on board, the MacBook Air has gained the benefits of the new chip, which was previously available just on the MacBook Pro and iMac.

Choosing between the M3 15-inch MacBook Air and the 14-inch MacBook Pro is tough, and requires an in-depth look at differences in ports, displays, speakers, and more. It's a legitimately hard decision to make.

Read more