New MacBook Air 2017: Apple Makes Minor Update on Laptop's Hardware
Apple has finally updated the MacBook Air. Unfortunately, it is not as drastic of a change as fans of the laptop line would have hoped. In fact, the Cupertino giant only made a small modification.
The upgrade comes in the form of a 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, which should make for faster performance than what the 1.6 GHz dual-core Core i5 on the laptop prior to the update could offer.
The processor remains to be the fifth-generation version from Intel known as Broadwell, making this MacBook Air refresh still a couple of generations behind from the latest MacBook and MacBook Pro as well as other premium laptops out there, which are powered by the seventh-gen chip known as the Kaby Lake.
A jump from Skylake aka the sixth-generation Intel processor to Kaby Lake is not that noticeable, according to Business Insider, but the Broadwell being replaced with a Kaby Lake will definitely allow users to see more discernible improvements. After all, it promises greater performance all around as well longer battery life.
Unfortunately, there is no Kaby Lake for the MacBook Air. Everything about the laptop practically remains the same, which comes as quite a disappointment to fanatics of the notebook.
Media outlets such as Business Insider advise users not to purchase this updated version of the MacBook Air even though it now has the starting price of $999, which is the lowest in what Apple has on offer as far as the Mac line goes.
The site pointed out how the design remains dated, the display is not as good and the lack of USB-C ports, which are becoming all the rage now.
The $999 model of the MacBook Air comes with 8 GB of random-access memory (RAM) and 128 GB solid-state drive (SSD) with the Intel HD Graphics 6000 as the graphics processing unit (GPU). To double that SSD, users will have to shell out an extra $200.
It is believed that the slight upgrade is a sign that Apple is slowly shying away from the MacBook Air lineup and is focusing more on the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, which were recently updated.
