Though Apple may not have scheduled a March hardware event, the Cupertino giant is delivering goodness via press releases this week. After launching the new Powerbeats 4 earlier this week, the company has today surprised us with the launch of the refreshed MacBook Air, alongside a new iPad Pro.
So, you must be wondering – what’s new in the new MacBook Air? First of all, Apple has updated the internals. the MacBook Air is now powered by the latest 10th-Gen Intel Core chips. The top-end variant packs the 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 chip with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.8GHz. Apple states that the new MacBook Air “delivers up to two times faster performance when compared to the previous generation” in the official blog post.
The updated CPU is coupled with Intel Iris Plus Graphics, which brings along substantial gains over the chip maker’s previous HD graphics. It helps the MacBook Air deliver up to 80% gaming performance gains, says Apple.
The next upgrade is one that we have all been waiting for with bated breath. MacBook Air is now equipped with the new Magic Keyboard that we saw make its debut with the 16-inch MacBook Pro last year. It replaces the finicky butterfly keys with a new scissor mechanism that has 1mm key travel and allows for a more natural typing experience.
“We’re giving [the MacBook Air] a huge update, with two times faster performance, the new Magic Keyboard, double the storage, a new lower price of $999 and an even lower price of $899 for education,” mentioned Tom Boger, Apple’s senior director of Mac and iPad Product Marketing.
Apple hasn’t changed the 13-inch Retina display and uses a unibody wedge design made from 100 percent recycled aluminum, adds the blog post. The storage options now start at 256GB SSD, which is double the previous Air, and goes up to 2TB of SSD storage.
Mac Mini Grabs an Upgrade As Well
With today’s announcement, Apple has also shown some love to the Mac Mini. Not much has been changed, except for that you will now get more storage for the money you shell out. You now get 256GB storage in the $799 variant while the new $1,099 variant will get you 512GB of storage.
Price and Availability
To pick up the new MacBook Air, you’ll now have to shell out under $1,000 ($999 for the base variant, to be exact) in the United States. It is now up for pre-order and goes on sale sometime next week. So, are you excited to grab the new MacBook Air or will you be waiting for the 14-inch MacBook Pro? Let us know in the comments below.
