Apple announced two newMacbook Airson Wednesday — and they ’re way more than upper - bumps . Think of them instead as a interbreeding between the last - generation of the company ’s radical - thin laptop and the iPad .
Wednesday saw the going of an update 13.3 - inch melodic phrase , which superficially resemble its predecessor . But there ’s also an entirely newfangled 11.6 - in model . And none of the revamp MacBook Air models comes with a hard drive : They rely instead on flash storage build into the motherboard .
Both MacBook models are slender than what Apple offer before : 0.68 inches at their thick , taper to 0.11 inch . ( The last propagation ran from 0.76 inches to 0.16 . ) They ’re also easy : The 11.6 - inch model weighs 2.3 pounds , the 13 - inch 2.9 ; the old 13 - in model consider in at 3 pound even .
The MacBook Air sport a full - size keyboard as well as the glass trackpad found on other Apple portables . “ These are areas where you do n’t want to sacrifice , ” Jobs said .
In excuse Apple ’s decision to absent a built - in hard drive in favor of flashbulb store , Jobs pointed out that solid - res publica drive perform faster and more faithfully , making them ideal for portable computers . They also allow Apple to make a diminished and lighter notebook computer . “ We know the welfare , ” Jobs state reporters .
What ’s more , because the flash storage takes up less way than a heavy movement , that leaves place for a fully grown battery . A bigger electric battery means better electric battery life : The company claims the new 13 - inch model will give you 7 minute of wireless productivity on a single commission , compared to 5 hours before . ( The 11.6 - inch model tests out at 5 hours , presumably because its battery is n’t as large . )
The flash storage also imply these young Airs are “ instant - on ” : you could leave the machine in standby mode for up to 30 Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , Apple says , yet they ’ll revive instantly and have you resume working where you pull up stakes off .
Among the other differences : computer graphic are now handled by NVIDIA GeForce 320 M processor ( the same chip as in the current MacBook ) ; the graphic C.P.U. shares its 256 megabyte of DDR3 retention with the system RAM . or else of one USB 2.0 port , both newfangled models have two ; both have the same single Mini DisplayPort , and the 13 - inch model has an South Dakota card slot too . Instead of a single mono speaker , the new Airs have two-channel .
The primary difference of opinion between the two MacBook Air configurations comes in the size and resoluteness of their LED - backlit sieve . The 11.6 - inch MacBook Air features 1366 - by-768 resolution , while the 13 - inch poser offers 1440 - by-900 resolution . All MacBook Airs come with a built - in photographic camera , which Apple has rebranded as a FaceTime Camera to tie - it in with thedesktop translation of the video - conferencing applicationreleased Wednesday .
The new 13.3 - inch example , with a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo central processing unit , will be $ 1299 for a model with 128 GB of flare storage and $ 1599 for one with 256 Gi . ( As with the last genesis , you could also dictate it in a 2.13GHz built - to - orderliness contour . ) The 11.6 - in model , which has a 1.4GHz CPU standard , will be $ 999 for a 64 GB model and $ 1199 for 128 GB . ( There ’s a 1.6GHz upgrade option . ) Both come up with 2 GB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM standard , expandable to 4 GB .
Updated at 1:25 p.m. PT with more information on the MacBook Air and quote from Steve Jobs .
