Two long years after Apple first introduced the original Macbook Air, it appears as though the company has made up for lost time.
The redesigned Macbook Air will ship with two different screen sizes– an 11.6″ and a 13″. If you’re looking for a stepping stone between the atypical Macbook and the iPad, the 11.6 Air model is for you. However, if you’d like a ‘netbook’ experience, the 13″ might be a better fit. Apple’s certainly differentiated the two according to size.
The smaller Air won’t have an SSD or an HDD. Instead, it’s got an SSD card that a bit like a stick of RAM. Of course, most users would think that doesn’t matter, but it does. Rather than experience that blackout or instant lag whenever you pull open your laptop screen, the 11″ Air will instantly turn on. The keyword being ‘instant’. Because the Air relies on flash memory, the boot times are nearly zero. Other specs include an Intel Core2Duo processors along with Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics.
Both MacBook Airs will come with a FaceTime camera—notably not an iSight camera—along with a full-size keyboard and multitouch trackpad. The 11-incher has a 1366×768 display, while the 13-inch rocks 1440×900. They weigh just 2.3 and 2.9 pounds, respectively, and both thankfully include stereo speakers.
Apple’s thinnest new notebooks are available today starting at $1000. That will get you the smaller Air with a 1.4GHz Core2Duo and 64GB of storage, while $1200 will upgrade you to 128GB with the same processor. The 13.3-inch Macbook Air includes a 1.86GHz processor and 128GB of storage for $1300, and opting for 256GB bumps the price to $1600. The base models start at 2GB of RAM but are upgradeable to 4GB and it looks as though they provide you with a USB stick with the OS.
