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   2014 MacBook Air Offers Better Performance for $100 Less

   Josh Centers

   While the just-released new models of the [1]MacBook Air don't boast
   changes along the lines of dramatic battery life improvements of last
   year's models (see '[2]Apple Releases Longer-lasting MacBook Air,
   Faster AirPort,' 10 June 2013), or much-desired Retina displays, they
   do feature small performance improvements and a $100 price drop across
   the board.

   [3][tn_MacBook-Air.jpg]

   Both the 11- and 13-inch models have replaced last year's 1.3 GHz Intel
   Core i5 processor with a 1.4 GHz Intel Core i5 (which jumps to 2.7 GHz
   via Turbo Boost). As far as we can tell, that's the only functional
   change.

   Interestingly, Apple now rates the 11-inch MacBook Air as being capable
   of up to 9 hours of iTunes movie playback (up from 8), and the 13-model
   as having up to 12 hours (up from 10). Those numbers are higher than in
   last year's models despite the battery technology remaining the same;
   the change is likely due to how Mavericks offloads more video
   processing to the graphics processing unit (see '[4]Apple Previews OS X
   10.9 Mavericks,' 10 June 2013)

   Optional improvements remain the same as before, so the [5]MacBook Air
   models can be configured with more storage (512 GB for $300 ' available
   only for 256 GB base models), a faster 1.7 GHz dual-core Intel Core i7
   processor (for $150, which Turbo Boost can kick up to 3.3 GHz), and 4
   GB more RAM to bring the total to 8 GB (for $100). Also remaining the
   same as last year's models are the form factor, connectors, and Intel
   HD Graphics 5000 graphics processors.

   But prices have dropped by $100, so the 11-inch MacBook Air now starts
   at $899 for 128 GB of flash storage and $1,099 for 256 GB of storage,
   while the 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $999 for 128 GB and goes to
   $1,199 for 256 GB.

References

   1. http://www.apple.com/macbook-air/
   2. http://tidbits.com/article/13832
   3. http://tidbits.com/resources/2014-04/MacBook-Air.png
   4. http://tidbits.com/article/13835
   5. http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/macbook-air

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