Apple has introduced an all-new MacBook Air, bringing a 13-inch Retina display, Touch ID, the latest processors and an even more portable design.
Delivering all-day battery life, the new MacBook Air is available in three finishes — gold, space gray, and silver. The most affordable Retina-display Mac ever also includes an Apple-designed keyboard, a spacious Force Touch trackpad, faster SSDs, wide stereo sound, the Apple T2 Security Chip and Thunderbolt 3, making the new MacBook Air the perfect notebook to take with you everywhere you go.
“The first MacBook Air revolutionized Mac with its thin wedge-shaped aluminum design. It forever changed the entire industry for portable computers and became the world’s most loved notebook,” says Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Redesigning MacBook Air started with a stunning Retina display and all-day battery life, and then we added Touch ID and the Apple T2 Security Chip, the latest processors, incredible sound, the third-generation keyboard and Force Touch trackpad, high speed Thunderbolt 3 ports, and of course macOS Mojave in a beautiful, thinner, lighter, all-aluminum design that a whole new generation of MacBook Air customers are going to love.”
The new MacBook Air features a 13.3-inch Retina display with over 4 million pixels of resolution and 48% more color than the previous generation. The new laptop also includes a built-in FaceTime HD camera as well as a three microphone array for better sound quality when making calls and improved voice recognition for Siri.
The MacBook Air now includes Touch ID — a fingerprint sensor built right into the keyboard — which allows you to unlock your MacBook Air, authenticate your identity, and make fast, simple and secure purchases using Apple Pay. To support Touch ID, MacBook Air comes with the Apple T2 Security Chip, which makes your notebook far more secure.
The T2’s Secure Enclave protects Touch ID information and also ensures that software loaded during the boot process has not been tampered with. The T2 also features an SSD controller with on-the-fly data encryption for everything stored on the SSD. These allow MacBook Air to offer the most secure boot process and most secure storage of any notebook. T2 also features an always-on processor that enables “Hey Siri,” which lets you make requests to Siri with just your voice for things like finding files or opening an app.
MacBook Air also features the third-generation Apple-designed keyboard for more precise and responsive typing. Each key is individually backlit using low-power LEDs for more accurate illumination. The new MacBook Air also includes the industry-best Force Touch trackpad, which delivers pressure-sensing capabilities and haptic feedback, and is 20% larger than on the previous generation MacBook Air, offering a quieter and more capable trackpad experience.
With more advanced speakers and audio processing technology, MacBook Air delivers a higher quality audio experience and wide stereo playback that makes watching movies and listening to music more immersive than ever, according to Schiller. The speakers are 25% louder with two times more bass than the previous generation for more dynamic range and fuller sound.
The new MacBook Air features an 8th generation Intel Core i5 processor, Intel UHD Graphics and faster 2133 MHz system memory up to 16GB, delivering the performance you need for everyday activities like organizing your photos, browsing the web, creating presentations or viewing and editing videos. MacBook Air also features SSDs up to 1.5TB in capacity, that are up to 60% faster than the previous generation.
The MacBook Air now comes with two Thunderbolt 3 ports which allow you to charge your notebook, quickly transfer data via USB and Thunderbolt, output video in three formats and connect to a whole host of devices including external storage, docks for additional ports, 4K and 5K displays, and eGPUs for faster graphics.
The new MacBook Air packs all of these features in a wedge-shaped design that Apple says is even more compact and portable, and delivers up to 12 hours of battery life during wireless web use and up to 13 hours of iTunes movie playback. Featuring a significantly smaller footprint, the new MacBook Air takes up 17% less volume, is 10% thinner measuring just .61 inches at its thickest point, and at just 2.75 pounds is a quarter pound lighter than the previous generation.
In addition, the new MacBook Air enclosure is made from a custom, Apple-designed aluminum alloy that enables the use of 100% recycled aluminum for the first time, which has the same strength, durability and beautiful finish as the aluminum in all Apple products. Using this custom aluminum alloy helps reduce MacBook Air’s carbon footprint by nearly 50%, making it the greenest Mac ever.
Apple also today announced new MacBook Pro graphics options that will bring powerful Radeon Pro Vega graphics to MacBook Pro for the first time. These new graphics options deliver up to 60% faster graphics performance.
Starting at $1,199, the new MacBook Air is available to order today on apple.com. It will be available in Apple retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers starting Wednesday, Nov. 7. Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available online at apple.com/mac.
The new graphics configuration option for MacBook Pro will be available to order on apple.com and in Apple retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers starting Wednesday, Nov. 14.