Apple just gave the MacBook Air a major performance boost, alongside with the Mac Mini that they also released today with Lion.
The new MacBook Air is surprisingly beautiful looking as usual. The new upgrades just make this little package hard to resist. Apple updated the Air with Thunderbolt, Core i5 and i7 processors, as well as a back-lit keyboard. Here’s a rundown of the specs:
CPU: Both the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air now feature the Intel Core i5 and i7 processor. With speeds up to 1.8GHz This is nearly a 2.5x’s in speed increase vs. the previous version.
GPU: Both Airs feature the Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor, which includes an on-chip engine for video encoding and decoding with 256mb – 384mb shared memory.
RAM: The base 11” comes with 2gb of ram with the option to go up to 4gb. The 13” comes with 4gb standard.
Apple has also included Thunderbolt I/O, their flagship lightpeak expansion port, this port allows you to run multiple displays, use external storage, etc. It’s much faster that USB 3.0 with the maximum throughput of around 10gbps – This is 12 times faster than Firewire 800. So you know it’s awesome!
Amongst those other features, Apple also decided to include a back-lit keyboard this time around. The same great battery life of about 5-7 hours of operation time and 30 days of standby time is all there as well. The usual multi-touch trackpad is still there as well as the FaceTime camera.
The price has gone up by $100 for the 11”, it’s up from it’s $899 price tag from last year. This isn’t such a big deal if you ask me. The faster processor and Thunderbolt makes up for the cost in my opinion.
The new MacBook air will start at $999 for the 11” with 64gb of storage and $1299 for the 13” with 128gb of storage. Of course you can configure all of the models to the specs of your choosing. You can purchase one of these badboys right now.
