Mid-2012 MacBook Airs offer improved performance and connectivity

22.06.2012
Believe it or not, it's been nearly four and a half years since Apple released the original --. At the time, it was revolutionary in terms of its size and weight, but it also was slow, had little storage, had only a single USB port for expansion, and was very expensive--it started at $1799, and if you wanted solid-state storage, the price increased dramatically (by $999!). As Jason Snell , "laptop design has always been about compromise," and the original Air required .l--

But that Air also gave us a glimpse at the future of Mac laptops: incredibly thin, blissfully light, and surprisingly sturdy, with reliable, fast, flash storage--attributes that have made their way into Apple's Pro laptop line with the new ( Macworld rated 4.5 out of 5 mice ). It's safe to say that before long, all of Apple's laptops will be direct descendants of the Air.

The Air itself has also evolved: The gained some speed, better video capabilities, and more storage. The got faster and cheaper. In 2010, by adding a second USB port, improving performance, standardizing on flash storage, lowering prices, and--in the biggest move of all--releasing a road-warrior-dream 11-inch model priced at just $999. The company by upgrading to Intel Core i5 and i7 processors and adding a Thunderbolt port.

In a few short years, the Air has gone from an expensive technology demonstration to a successful product firmly established as the heart of Apple's laptop line. improve the appeal of the Air by increasing performance, enhancing expansion capabilities, and lowering prices. In fact, the new models might just be making the MacBook Pro line a little nervous.

Through the Air's now-six iterations, the laptop's external design has remained essentially the same. Both the 11-inch and 13-inch Airs are thin wedges of unibody aluminum--just under 0.7 inch thick in the back and just over 0.1 inch thick in the front--though obviously with different footprints: The 13-inch model is 12.8 inches wide and 8.9 inches deep, while the 11-inch Air is just 11.8 inches wide and 7.6 inches deep. The 13-inch Air weighs just under 3 pounds, with the 11-inch version weighing in at just under 2.4 pounds.