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A black MacBook Air or just a wish list?

The MacBook rumor of the day is intriguing: a black MacBook as part of the upcoming Intel Sandy Bridge chip refresh.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers

Here's an enticing rumor: a black MacBook Air. But is this a real rumor or simply the manifestation of somebody's wish list masquerading as rumor?

A black MacBook Air as rendered on Colorware's site.
A black MacBook Air as rendered on Colorware's site. Colorware

Apple enthusiast site MacRumors scored the MacBook rumor of the day with this intriguing prospect. However, don't take the rumor too seriously yet as MacRumors throws in more than the usual rumor qualifiers and a report on 9to5Mac states that "a reliable source has told us that they haven't seen any black in the new MacBook Air materials."

Another thing to keep in mind: Be careful what you wish for. Black can be a vexing color on metal. The Dell Adamo--an all-metal ultrathin design that competed with the Air--also came in jet black and was a magnet for fingerprints. I used a black Adamo for a few weeks, and after a day of heavy use its pristine black exterior became a fingerprint mosaic.

And that may be one of the reasons Apple has yet to release a black Air or MacBook Pro. That said, this hasn't stopped Samsung. Its Series 9 is both black and metal. So, Apple could possibly offer this as an option for those with Samsung Series 9 envy, considering the rivalry between the two. And it wouldn't be unprecedented. Remember the black MacBook?