The new macbook air

Macbook Air

The MacBook Air is a line of Apple ultraportable Macintosh notebook computers that introduced Apple's aluminum unibody enclosure.

The first MacBook Air was a 13.3" model, promoted as the 'World's Thinnest Notebook', that was introduced at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 15, 2008.  The original MacBook Air featured custom Intel Merom CPU plus Intel GMA graphics that was updated to faster non-custom intel i7 CPU and Nvidia GeForce graphics in late 2008. In addition, the hard drive capacity was increased and the mini-DVI port was replaced with a Mini DisplayPort. A mid-2009 refresh, introduced alongside the MacBook Pro family, featured a slightly higher-capacity battery, etc.

On October 20, 2010, Apple released a redesigned 13.3" model, with a new lighter enclosure, higher resolution screen, higher capacity battery and an SSD instead of a hard drive. In addition, an 11.6" model was released for the first time, offering reduced cost, weight, battery life, and performance relative to the 13.3" model, but better performance than typical netbooks. 

The MacBook Air is designed for thinness; it is also lighter than most competing models. It was the first MacBook produced using a single sheet of aluminum with Apple's unibody technique. The computer features a glossy LED backlit display and a full-size keyboard, as well as a large trackpad that responds to iPhone-like Multi-Touch gestures such as pinching, swiping, and rotating. With the release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, the Air's multi-touch trackpad also supports handwriting recognition of Chinese characters. 

On the 11-inch MacBook Air, the left side of the computer has a MagSafe power connector, a USB port, a headphone jack, and a microphone.  The right side of the computer has a USB port and a Mini DisplayPort. On top of the screen bezel there is an iSight webcam, which has now been dubbed the FaceTime camera. 

The MacBook Air was the first subcompact laptop offered by Apple since the full-featured 12" PowerBook G4 was discontinued in 2006. It was also Apple's first computer with an optional solid-state storage drive.  ArsTechnica found "moderate" performance improvements of the 64 GB  solid-state drive of the first generation Air over the standard 80 GB hard drive in tests. On October 14, 2008, new models were announced with improved capacities of 128 GB (solid-state) and 120 GB (hard drive). For the late 2010 MacBook Air, only SSD storage is available, in 64 or 128GB capacities on the 11" model, and 128 or 256GB on the 13".