Apple debuts Sandy Bridge-powered Macbook Airs
Following its record-breaking third quarter earnings report yesterday, Apple on Wednesday took the wraps off of its latest generation of Macbook Air ultraportable notebook computers.
This round of Airs improves the processor speed of last year's generation by a fraction with new Intel Sandy Bridge chips, and replaces the mini DisplayPort jack with the new Thunderbolt I/O port, includes a backlit keyboard, and OS X Lion by default.
The chassis measurements, weight, battery life, screen, webcam, trackpad and pre-configured options all remain the same as last year's models.
2011 Macbook Air options
11" 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache, Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with the main 2GB RAM, 64GB storage- $999
11" 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache, Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with the main 4GB RAM, 128GB storage- $1,199
13" 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache, Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main 4GB RAM, 128GB storage- $1,299
13" 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache, Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 384MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main 4GB RAM, 256GB storage - $1,599
Except for the lowest-price 11", RAM has been bumped up across all versions, and all processors are Intel's dual-core Sandy Bridge Core i5 chips with integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU, Apple also offers the option to upgrade to a 1.8GHz Core i7 processor. Though the clock speed of these processors is only increased slightly, the total package should offer a faster experience for users.
The inclusion of OS X Lion, which Joe Wilcox will be taking a look at today, brings new multi-touch gestures and the new Mission Control and Launchpad task interfaces, as well as a brand new Mail application.