Product Description
Apple launched the world's thinnest notebook, a new member of the MacBook family (MacBook, MacBook Pro): the stylish and slim MacBook Air, measuring 0.16 inches (about 4 mm) at its thinnest and 0.76 inches (about 19.4 mm) at its thickest.
On February 19, 2008, Apple released the then world's thinnest laptop, the MacBook Air [1] (MBA for short), a 13.3-inch LED-screen notebook only 4 mm at its thinnest point (average thickness). It was essentially a reprise of Sony's X505 from four years earlier (chiclet keyboard, 1.5 cm average; data from [2]). The visual beauty MBA creates is hard to describe in words. Its thinness mainly comes from the LED screen and a special processor: a custom Intel processor made for Apple, also belonging to the Core 2 family but much smaller in area and lower in power than standard Core 2 chips. This custom Core 2 not only helps MBA's thinness but also supports good heat dissipation, making MBA the coolest-running Mac. The first batch of MBA shipped with the P7500 processor at 1.6 GHz, with 4 MB L2 cache and an 800 MHz front-side bus. It did not use an ultra-low-voltage processor, suggesting Apple wanted respectable performance and did not want it to be a purely portable product.
In October 2010, Apple released the second-generation MBA. This upgrade brought two models: the traditional 13.3-inch and a new 11.6-inch. Their biggest feature was using flash storage instead of hard drives: 64 GB to 256 GB of flash memory embedded directly on the mainboard, saving huge space for the battery and extending the 13.3-inch model's usage time to 7 hours.
MacBook Air notebook (fourth generation). According to the data, the new MacBook Air uses an Intel third-generation Core i5 dual-core processor (22 nm, codenamed Ivy Bridge, 1.7 GHz, shared 3 MB L3); mainboard-integrated low-voltage 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3L memory (upgradable to 8 GB); SSD storage fixed on the mainboard, 64 GB / 128 GB (upgradable to 256 GB or 512 GB), reportedly reaching 500 MB/s, though it is unclear whether it uses a SandForce controller; integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000, two USB 3.0 ports and one Thunderbolt port, Bluetooth 4.0 support, 5 hours of battery life, total weight of only 1.08 kg and a maximum thickness of just 1.7 cm. The new MacBook Air was to be launched in China within the year; Apple China's official site listed the 11-inch MacBook Air from RMB 7,388 and the 13-inch from RMB 8,888.
According to Apple's official introduction, the 11-inch MacBook Air offers up to 9 hours of battery life, nearly double the previous generation, while the 13-inch version reaches 12 hours.
In terms of performance, the MacBook Air with fourth-generation Intel Core series delivers a 40% improvement in image processing performance, and both the 11-inch and 13-inch versions offer 128 GB and 256 GB SSD options.
On pricing, the new 11-inch MacBook Air costs RMB 7,388 (128 GB flash) and RMB 8,888 (256 GB flash) in China; the 13-inch costs RMB 8,888 (128 GB flash) and RMB 9,688 (256 GB flash).
Since the Apple MacBook series launched in 2005, it has been a money-maker for Apple, earning over 47.9% of the company's annual net profit worldwide. The newly released MacBook Air adopts the latest "wedge" design, 1.8 cm at the thickest and 0.3 cm at the thinnest, simple and stylish from wide to narrow. MacBook Air places the mainboard in the thicker rear half, so your arms stay cool even when resting the laptop on them. In addition, for those needing long standby times, MacBook Air is the ideal choice: 7 hours of battery life, 30 days of standby, and a light touch wakes it instantly.
With a new-generation Intel processor, graphics processor and faster flash storage, this everyday notebook performs even more remarkably.
