2011 MacBook Air Refresh Shortly Rumored for Next Wednesday

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In case you’re thinking about finally getting your cash together to pay for a MacBook Air, then you should stop immediatelly. The next-gen 2011 MacBook Air models are right around the corner, so you shouldn’t hurry to purchase last year’s versions just yet.

Today’s rumor says the 2011 MacBook Air laptops, which should pack Sandy Bridge CPUs and Thunderbolt I/O on board, may hit Apple stores as soon as this Wednesday and while I agree the next-gen Airs should be available soon, I don’t think they’ll be released just yet. Why not? Well just earlier this week we covered this year’s WWDC edition and one of the products launched at Apple’s event was Mac OS X Lion. The new computer OS has not been made available to consumers yet, although developers did get to play with it for a while now, and I for one would be surprised to see the new Airs get official with anything but Mac OS X Lion on board.

Sure, in case you purchase a Mac OS X computer with Snow Leopard on board in the following period of time you will be entitled to a free Lion upgrade, but considering the fact the MacBook Airs are best-selling products, at least the 2010 models, I’d be surprised to see Apple launch the next Air versions running an “older” Mac OS X version.

In other words, while I’m expecting the MacBook Air refresh soon, I don’t think the new tablets will be available without Apple’s flagship computer operating system on board, so therefore a late June / early July launch window sounds a lot more believable. But we’ll be back with more details on the Air refresh as soon as we have them, so stick around folks! And while we’re waiting for the Airs, let’s see, by show of hands comments, who’s buying one as soon as they hit shelves and why.

Update: It would appear that it’s not the new Air that’s coming to Apple stores on Wednesday, but the unlocked iPhone 4.