Rumor: Apple entering ultra-portable fray again

AppleInsider is at it again pushing their theory of an ultra-portable MacBook configuration. They first predicted it would come shortly after the release of Leopard, now they are pushing that back to MacWorld in January.

They reckon the ultra-portable will lose its optical drive, be smaller than the 15" MBP and at least 50% lighter than the same. On top of that they say it will utilize NAND flash storage in the form of an SSD drive and it will use and LED backlit LCD, both of those primarily to save battery life and improve boot times.

They do have some support to their claims coming from various financial institutions claiming that Apple making a grand re-entrance into this market would be a good move for them. They might be right, but Apple has a tendency to release products when they want to, not when the press thinks they should, so maybe if people quit saying when it should be released it might actually make it to market.

Ultra-portable Apple notebook to splash down at Macworld Expo [via appleinsider]