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Apple Announces New MacBook Airs with Haswell Processors and 'All-Day' Battery Life

Monday June 10, 2013 11:58 am PDT by Juli Clover
At today's WWDC keynote in San Francisco, California, Apple announced new 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs, which have been designed with battery life in mind. As expected, the new Airs use Haswell processors that offer enhanced performance and significantly improved battery life, but feature no cosmetic changes.

With the new Haswell processors, The 11" MacBook Air will now have nine hours of battery life while the 13" MacBook Air will have a stunning 12 hours of battery life.

macbookairs
In addition to Haswell processors, the new MacBooks feature 802.11ac compatibility, with support for the "Gigabit WiFi" 802.11ac specification. Gigabit WiFi offers speeds up to three times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks.

The 11" MacBook Air starts at $999 with a 128GB hard drive and the 13" MacBook Air with a 128GB hard drive starts at $1099. Apple's MacBook Airs are available today from Apple's Online Store and at retail locations.

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[ 214 comments ]


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KylePowers
70 months ago

Very disappointed with such minor updates! :-(

Almost twice the battery life, almost twice the graphics power, and 802.11ac? I wouldn't call that necessarily minor. What were you expecting? Built-in coffee maker?

EDIT: For some reason I considered almost 50% being twice the graphics power; but nonetheless, quite the improvement! Especially compared to my Sandy Bridge GPU.
Rating: 32 Votes
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Saturn1217
70 months ago
So intel wasn't joking about the battery-life

Seriously this is one of the largest single generation jumps in battery-life we've ever seen and on Apple's ultraportable line where you need all the battery-life you can get. I was expecting 10hrs for the 13-inch and that was my optimistic guess. I'm a little disappointed that it appears 8gb is still only a BTO option but considering a redesign was not expected I think this update is fantastic.

Now I'm wondering if I should sell my current MBA while I can still get a good price or just stick with it since I just bought it 6-months ago...hmmm...

Also for all the retina whiners. The fact that apple just dropped the price (again) for the MBAs basically killed any hope of retina coming to this machine as it is currently branded. They will continue to make the rMBPs thinner and lighter and if you want retina buy those machines.
Rating: 12 Votes
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DisplacedMic
70 months ago

Very disappointed with such minor updates! :-(


are you serious? this is one of the largest jumps in battery life i've ever seen.
Rating: 12 Votes
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Chub
70 months ago

Almost twice the battery life, almost twice the graphics power, and 802.11ac? I wouldn't call that necessarily minor. What were you expecting? Built-in coffee maker?


Twice the graphics power I don't think so and who is going to be using that 1GBps wireless connection anytime soon? I was truly looking forward to this and let's be honest it was a let down.
Rating: 9 Votes
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DisplacedMic
70 months ago

What an anti climax.

We knew Haswell would be in, but that is it, better battery life.

tut


that's all many of us wanted. look at the battery size differences between the classic and retina macbooks... it's an ultralight. if you want high-res get the 13" retina.

i don't understand the complaint - seems like a no brainer to me
Rating: 8 Votes
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extradryny
70 months ago

do you think there will be a BTO to upgrade the display to 1080p. This is very sad if it is still the old display resolutions. That is like so ancient by today's terms.


I'll take the battery life over the retina display any day. Great design decision.
Rating: 7 Votes
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robE89
70 months ago
was really hoping for at least 1080p display :( meh.
Rating: 6 Votes
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lbjsong
70 months ago
Darn ...
No retina MacBook Pro update
Rating: 6 Votes
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trip1ex
70 months ago

Battery is nice, but realistically relatively few people are away from power for more than 8 hours. Apple didn't do anything for that update it came free with the new processor. All updates were inline with expectations, hence this was a minor update.


On the contrary battery life is a huge deal. No one wants to have to tether up to an outlet during the day. That's the whole point of a laptop.
Rating: 6 Votes
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blabliblu
70 months ago
Wow that was the most disappointing announcement.

Just new Haswell (low-range btw) processor and GPU and so better battery life, but same SSD size, same screen resolution, same design/size, same RAM...

What a letdown, especially for the SSD and RAM. I'm sorry but 128Go/4GB for a >$1000 13" laptop is super weak.
Rating: 6 Votes

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