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Apple adds Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt to MacBook Air

by Scott Bicheno on 20 July 2011, 17:08

Tags: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)

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Air cut

Apple has rounded off a busy couple of days with an update of the MacBook Air thin-and-light notebook family.

The headline changes are: Intel Sandy Bridge processors, featuring integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics; Thunderbolt I/O technology, a back-lit keyboard and running the newly-released Mac OS X Lion operating system.

"Portable, affordable and powerful, MacBook Air is the ultimate everyday notebook," said Philip Schiller, Apple's SVP of worldwide product marketing. "MacBook Air features our most advanced technology and is an ideal match for Lion, especially with its new Multi-Touch gestures, full-screen apps, Mission Control and Mac App Store."

As you can see from the quote above, Apple is positioning the new MacBook air as an ‘everyday' notebook. This is presumably as opposed to the previous positioning of the MacBook Air as a high-end, flashy product. The price starts at $999, which translates to £849 over here. The general consensus is that the old, white MacBook is no more.

The 11 inch, 1.6 GHz, Core i5 Air costs £849 with 2 GB memory and 64 GB flash storage, £150 doubles both, and creates the option to upgrade to a Core i7. The 13 inch one starts at £1,099, with a 1.7 GHz Core i5, 4 GB memory and 128 GB flash. Doubling the flash storage will cost you £250, and opens up the Core i7 upgrade option. They're available from tomorrow.

 

 



HEXUS Forums :: 35 Comments

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The cheapest 11.6“ model is better value than Samsung Series 9 11.6” which is the same price in the US:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Samsung-11-6-Inch-Series-9-Notebook-Available-for-Pre-Order-Now-210513.shtml

The pricing is actually quite decent for a high end ultralight laptop TBH.

It will be interesting to see how much the Asus UX21 and rumoured HP Ultrabook will cost.
Very tempted by the £999 11“ model, higher res than my 2008 13” machine, faster (Slower clock speed but has HT, is what 3 gens ahead and will turbo up) has a 128gb SSD and is smaller / lighter and better battery life.
Still I will try my best to hold off for Ivy bridge and see if the rumours of air like Macbook pros come true.
I can see it happening, as I predicted the Superdrive is going the way of the Dodo (new mini doesn't have it)
Good point about Ivy Bridge and the GPU will be better too. OTH,there might be some good deals on the current model MacBook Air when the Ivy Bridge based ones are released.
I can't stand Apple marketing, I really hate the whole brand image, the styling is rather kitchen appliance (I prefer black)… but… if they made an Air with Windows 7 and a Windows Keyboard then I'd maybe buy one.

As it is, with OS-X (no I tried, I did, but I don't like it) and the corresponding keyboard it's a dud. Shame!
kingpotnoodle
if they made an Air with Windows 7 and a Windows Keyboard then I'd maybe buy one.

Er, you do realise that you can simply install/dual boot Windows 7 on any Mac ?

Order using an education link, and the cheapest Air is £729