New MacBook Airs with OS X Lion, Thunderbolt and Sandy Bridge In Mid-July?

9To5Mac’s Mark Gurman deduces that diminishing MacBook Air at global retailers, most recently at major Apple reseller BestBuy.com means an update of Apple’s smallest laptops is imminent, and that the scuttlebutt he’s hearing is that Apple is gearing up to launch a new revision of the ultra thin notebooks in mid-July.

Gurman also reports that according to insider intelligence from a person who has seen the new MacBook Air, exterior changes (if any) were so subtle as to be unnoticable except for a Thunderbolt logo displacing the current model’s Mini Display port logo, so significant changes will all be internal, notably a switch from 2008 vintage Core 2 Duo Intel processors to Sandy Bridge Core “i” silicon likely Core i7 and Core i5 at clock speeds of 1.7-1.8 GHz with turbo boost of 2.7 to 2.9 GHz and a thermal footprint of 17 watts across the board, plus addition of the Thunderbolt ultra high speed data interface.

Presumably, release of these new machine is being held up until mid-July so they can ship with OS X 10.7 Lion pre-installed, and with rumors suggesting Thursday, July 14th as a likely date, handily preceding Apple’s next financial results conference call slated for Tuesday, July 19th. Gurman notes that Apple typically releases new products during days leading up to financial results announcements.
On the ohter hand, if Apple were to stick to their traditional product launch day of Tuesday, the new Air would be July 12th or possibly the 19th.

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