Apple Announces New $999 MacBook Air and Updated Mac Mini

By AppleVis, 18 March, 2020

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Apple has today announced the launch of a new MacBook Air featuring the Magic Keyboard, up to two times faster CPU performance, twice the storage, and a new lower starting price of $999.

The new MacBook Air features the latest 10th-generation Intel CPUs, which Apple says allows the new MacBook Air to deliver faster everyday performance:

Offering quad-core processors for the first time, MacBook Air now delivers even more speed across everyday activities, from organizing photos and creating presentations to editing videos. Featuring the latest 10th-generation Intel Core processors up to 1.2GHz quad-core Core i7 with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.8GHz, MacBook Air delivers up to two times faster performance when compared to the previous generation. And with Intel Iris Plus Graphics, MacBook Air now delivers up to 80 percent faster graphics performance, so graphics-intensive activities like playing games and editing video are faster than ever.

The MacBook Air now features the new Magic Keyboard, first introduced on the 16-inch MacBook Pro last year. Its redesigned scissor mechanism delivers 1mm of key travel, and the new inverted-T arrangement for the arrow keys. Apple has also doubled the base storage from 128GB to 256GB. You can spec the storage up to 2TB.

The new MacBook Air comes with the Apple T2 Security Chip, which checks that software loaded during the boot process has not been tampered with and provides on-the-fly data encryption for everything stored on the SSD. The T2 chip also protects Touch ID information.

Additional features of the new MacBook Air include:

  • A three-mic array for more clear voice capture for FaceTime calls with friends and family.
  • The industry-best Force Touch trackpad for precise cursor control and multi-touch navigation.
  • Thunderbolt 3 ports for data transfer, charging and video output in a single connector.
  • Support for up to a 6K external display, a first for MacBook Air.
  • Advanced stereo speakers for immersive, wide stereo sound for activities like watching Apple TV+ content or playing games in Apple Arcade.

The $999 MacBook Air model ships with a 1.1Ghz i3 processor with turbo speeds up to 3.2GHz, and 256GB of flash storage. A $1299 model comes with a quad-core i5 processor with turbo speeds up to 3.5 GHz. and 512GB of flash storage. The i7 model with 512GB of flash storage retails for $1449.

The new MacBook Air is available to order starting today on apple.com and in the Apple Store app. Apple says that all configurations will arrive between March 23 and March 25.

In addition to the new MacBook Air, Apple has also updated the Mac Mini today:

The standard configurations of Mac mini now come with double the storage capacity. The $799 configuration now comes standard with 256GB, while the $1,099 configuration features 512GB of storage, and every Mac mini is made from 100 percent recycled aluminum.

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Comments

By Greg Wocher on Sunday, March 22, 2020 - 02:34

Hello all,
I am hoping to purchase the quad core I7 with 16 gigs of ram version of this new MacBook Air. It is something I have been hoping to see for a while. I do not need the power of the MacBook pros but I do want something a little more powerful than my current 2015 MacBook Air. with 8 gigs of ram. The only thing I will miss with the new one is that it does not have an SD card slot.