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Apple Unveils New MacBook Air and Mac Mini; MacBook Disappears

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Apple upgrades the MacBook Air and Mac Mini with Sandy Bridge CPUs, but the white plastic Macbook is nowhere to be found.

Apple’s online store has reopened, and inside are some new MacBook Airs and Mac Minis. However, the original white plastic MacBook is nowhere to be found.

The new MacBook Air again comes in either an 11 inch or 13 inch variant, but both sizes offer updated features and components. Both models once again come with a backlit keyboard, although they now include Apple's new Thunderbolt port which promises transfer speeds up to 10 Gb/s. Unique to the 13 inch model is a SD card slot and a second USB 2.0 port.

Intel’s Sandy Bridge CPUs have made their way to the MacBook Air in the form of dual-core mobile Core i5 and i7 CPUs. The 11 inch model features the 1.6 GHz Core i5-2467M, while the 13 inch model has the 1.7 GHz i5-2557M. Both models can be upgraded to the 1.8GHz mobile Core i7-2677M. These mobile CPUs feature Intel’s Turbo Boost 2.0 technology and HD Graphics 3000 onboard. All models except the least expensive 11 inch MacBook Air come with 4 GB of RAM standard.

Like the previous MacBook Air, the only storage option is a flash-based Solid State Drive. Sizes range from 64 GB on the least expensive 11 inch model to 256 GB on the most expensive 13 inch model.

The LED backlit displays have not changed. The 11 inch model has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels while the 13 inch model retains its 1440 x 900 pixels.

Apple has also dropped the price of the least expensive MacBook Air to just $999. In addition to this, the company seemed to have completely dropped the original white plastic MacBook from its store.

For more information on the MacBook Air, see Apple’s product page.

 

New Mac Mini

Apple has also updated its Mac Mini line with Sandy Bridge CPUs and AMD graphics. The company has added a Thunderbolt port but has omitted the optical drive all together.

More information on the new Mac Mini can be found at Apple’s site.

Both the new MacBook Air and Mac Mini ship with Mac OSX Lion.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2011 07 > Apple Unveils New MacBook Air and Mac Mini; MacBook Disappears
Adam Sperling, 2011-07-20 (Update: 2012-05-26)