Analyst believes that Apple will be able to revive the name “MacBook”, with new models of 13 and 15 inches; the 17 would be discontinued

The alleged 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro cases “leaked” in the past few days [1, 2] left some confused, mainly because the smaller model still has an optical drive and the larger one does not. Soon it was thought that one of the two would be false, but information brought today by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, from KGI Securities, may explain the reason for this difference.

According to Kuo, Apple will take advantage of next week’s event to revive the name “MacBook”, with new models of 13 and 15 inches which will have a design similar to that of Air, without optical drive, with Retina screens and comparable processing power with the Pro line.

MacBooks preview

While the 11 and 13 inch MacBooks Air are also expected to gain upgrades, the interesting thing is that the current Pro line would also be maintained with some updates – except for the 17 inch model, which is said to be discontinued. Depending on the success of the new line of MacBooks, the Pros may be discontinued for good in 2013.

The bet is somewhat curious, since it would make the line too big and the only real advantage of keeping the Pros for a while longer would be to still have a laptop with a built-in optical drive. Does Apple, or rather, does the market really need this? The trend towards their end is clear and evident, and those who really need it can simply use an external drive for that.

As the owner of some 17-inch MacBooks Pro (since the time of the PowerBooks G4, by the way), I am very saddened by the possibility of the end of the line – but I hope that the new 15-inch MacBook really incorporates a Retina display with such a resolution that compensates for this change. It would be difficult to adapt to something more “compact”, after so long. The move makes sense for Apple, however, as sales of these 17-inch models would only represent about 1% of the total.

All of this is still in the field of speculation, of course. We should know for sure in three days. ?

[via[viaAppleInsider: 1, 2]