Always keen to give buyers something else to consider, Apple has introduced a new laptop to the MacBook line-up, refreshing the 13 inch MacBook Air and bringing out a smaller brother.
The new 11 inch MacBook Air starts at $1199 RRP and measures a remarkably thin 0.3 cm at the thinnest point and 1.7 cm at the thickest, including a solid state drive. Much like the flash memory used in an iPhone or iPad, the inclusion of these drives helps to reduce power consumption and overall computer size.
“MacBook Air is the first of a new generation of notebooks that leaves behind mechanical rotating storage in favour of solid state flash storage,” said Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs. “We’ve taken what we have learned with the iPad: solid state storage, instant-on, amazing battery standby time, miniaturisation and lightweight construction, to create the new MacBook Air.”
The new computer includes a camera compatible with Apple’s FaceTime service, microphone, stereo speakers, full-sized keyboard, and the multi-touch glass trackpad seen on the Magic Trackpad and MacBook Pro computers for the past year.
Couple this with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, WiFi 802.11n, and Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics under the hood, as well as either a 64GB or 128GB solid state drive and you’ll find it sits in the next generation of laptop computers.
The 13 inch is still around (starting from $1599 RRP), and with the introduction of the smaller MacBook Air, the now larger brother has been updated to the new design with both computers being made using Apple’s aluminium unibody design.
