(Image courtesy of MacRumors)

The rumors about a new MacBook Air to be announced on Wednesday are heating up -- and now it appears that the diminutive laptop hasn’t shrunk from a 13-inch display to 11 inches, but rather there will be two different models available.

MacRumors is reporting that more details have surfaced in the wake of an early leak for a new MacBook Air which uses proprietary SSD Card storage instead of a hard drive or even a traditional removable SSD. Initial rumors indicated that the new laptop would get a size reduction, replacing the current 13.3-inch model with a smaller 11.6-inch version, but now it seems that they will co-exist, with the 11.6-inch version available as a cheaper option.

If true, an even smaller MacBook Air would seem to be Apple’s attempt to offer something more akin to a netbook, although it remains to be seen if a dramatic price drop will also be part of that plan.

A MacRumors forum user named diddl14 took last week’s leaked spy shot of the MacBook Air’s innards and added image labels to identify the components, as shown above. Forum users there also came up with a list of possibilities for the new Air:

- Despite the labeling above, the source of the image reports it is a 13" model, not an 11".
- The chips above do represent an SSD controller/interface
- The silver components are believed to be off-the-shelf batteries which may be replaced with a custom form-fitting battery in the final production
- The prototype was using the same Core 2 Duo processor as the current MacBook Air
- The port on the right is not believed to be another USB port
- The prototype has 2GB of memory
- The source of the leaked image reports a 1440x900 resolution to the 13" model.

Finally, AppleInsider added a couple of final notes. Both MacBook Air models will be unibody designs with single button trackpads, and the laptops will be “slightly thicker” than a standard USB port at the tallest point -- the only way Apple could possibly reduce it more would be to eschew the standard USB port for a Mini or even Micro USB, which would then require a dongle to get any use out of it with traditional USB devices.

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