At its event in New York, Cupertino-based tech giant Apple announced the new iPad Pro that comes with an all-new design, Face ID, and ditches the 3.5 mm headphone jack. Well, the new iPad Pro isn’t the only product that the fruit company announced. Alongside the new iPad Pro, Apple also announced the new MacBook Air.
The new MacBook Air does come with new hardware, but it also comes with a slightly different design as compared to the current MacBook Air. For starters, the new MacBook Air doesn’t come with the glowing Apple logo on its lid which is one of the reasons why many people preferred buying a MacBook at first place. Furthermore, while the current MacBook Air is already pretty compact and lightweight, the new MacBook Air now comes with a slightly smaller footprint, making it much more compact and easy to carry around. The new MacBook Air also weighs 0.21 pounds lesser than the current MacBook Air.
Speaking about the build, Apple says the new MacBook Air is made up of a custom “aluminum alloy that enables the use of 100 percent recycled aluminum for the first time, which has the same strength, durability and beautiful finish as the aluminum in all Apple products”. Apple says the use of recycled aluminium makes the new MacBook Air one of the “greenest Mac ever”.
The new MacBook Air also comes with a Retina Display which is one of its biggest highlights. It boasts a 13.3-inch LED-backlit Retina Display that has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels. However, it also supports scaled resolutions of 1680 x 1050 pixels, 1440 x 900 pixels, and 1024 x 640 pixels. The fruit company says that this Retina Display on MacBook Air offers 48% more color than the previous generation.
This new MacBook Air also comes with a third-gen keyboard which has each of its key individually backlit with low-power LEDs. The new MacBook Air also comes with a new trackpad that’s 20% larger than the trackpad on current MacBook Air. The trackpad also comes with Force Touch with support for Multi-Touch gestures.
That said, the new MacBook Air also has Touch ID. This not only lets you unlock your notebook with your fingerprint, but also lets you authenticate payments with Apple Pay, as well as authenticate password-protected documents.
In addition to Touch ID, the new MacBook Air also comes with Apple’s T2 Security Chip which protects the Touch ID’s information, while also preventing the software from being tampered with during the boot-up.
Under the hood, the new MacBook Air has Intel’s 8th generation Core i5 dual-core processor running the show that’s clocked at 1.3 GHz and supports Turbo Boost (kind of overclocking) up to 3.6 GHz. The notebook runs macOS Mojave and comes with 8 or 16 GB of RAM. On the storage front, the new MacBook Air comes with 128 GB or 256 GB of SSD, but, you can have it configured up to 1.5 Terabyte if you want.
While the new MacBook Air does come with some improvements, Apple has cut down on the number of ports. The current MacBook Air comes with two USB 3 ports, one Thunderbolt 2 port, and a MagSafe 2 port for charging. The new MacBook Air, however, only comes with a total of two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports that you have to also use for charging as there’s no MagSafe 2 port on it. Having said that, the new MacBook Air does come with a 3.5 mm headphone jack on its right side.
The new MacBook Air is offered in three colors – Gold, Silver and Space Gray – and, it ships with a 50.3 watt-hour battery that Apple claims to offer up to 12 hours of wireless web usage and up to 13 hours of iTunes movie playback.
Commenting on the launch of new MacBook Air, Philip Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Apple, said, “The first MacBook Air revolutionized Mac with its thin wedge-shaped aluminum design. It forever changed the entire industry for portable computers and became the world’s most loved notebook. Redesigning MacBook Air started with a stunning Retina display and all-day battery life, and then we added Touch ID and the Apple T2 Security Chip, the latest processors, incredible sound, the third-generation keyboard and Force Touch trackpad, high speed Thunderbolt 3 ports, and of course macOS Mojave in a beautiful, thinner, lighter, all-aluminum design that a whole new generation of MacBook Air customers are going to love.”
Apple MacBook Air Specifications
- CPU: 1.6 GHz Intel Core i5 8th generation dual core processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.6 GHz
- RAM: 8 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 (configurable to 16 GB)
- GPU: Intel UHD 617
- Operating System: macOS Mojave
- Display: 13.3-inch LED-backlit IPS Retina Display with 2560 x 1600 resolution, 227 ppi pixel density and 300 nits brightness
- Web Camera: 720p FaceTime HD Camera
- Internal Storage: 128/256 GB PCIe-based SSD (configurable up to 1.5 Terabyte)
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 2x Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port, 3.5 mm headphone jack
- Other: Touch ID, T2 Security Chip, Stereo Speakers, Three Microphones, Force Touch Trackpad, LED-backlit keyboard with Ambient Light Sensor
- Colors: Gold, Silver, Space Gray
- Weight: 1.25 kg
- Battery: 50.3 watt-hour with 30 W USB-C Power Adapter
Apple MacBook Air Price and Availability
- Price of 128 GB storage variant: $1199 (around ₹88,576), priced at ₹1,14,900 in India
- Price of 256 GB storage variant: $1399 (around ₹1,03,350)
- Availability: Goes on sale from November 7
