Apple considering carbon-fibre MacBook Air?

Apple may be searching for ways to make the MacBook Air even lighter. AppleInsider reports that the company is investigating using materials enhanced with carbon fibre in some of the parts on a future MacBook Air.

Given the time and energy Apple poured into the latest redesign of its laptops, developing a new unibody chassis milled from a single block of aluminium, it's unlikely that the entire chassis would be replaced anytime soon.

But AppleInsider thinks the company could shave 100g off the overall 1.3kg weight of the Air if it used some sort of carbon-fibre material for the bottom cover of the laptop. That may not sound like much, but it's within shouting distance of 10 per cent, and could make for a really smart marketing slogan at some point in the future.

Apple considers the MacBook Air a sort of halo product for the Mac lineup, a demonstration of its engineering prowess that it knows won't be adopted by the mass market. Given the weight-loss formula could increase the production costs of the system, any future carbon-fibre MacBook Air would almost certainly stay in that category.