MacBook Air
The MacBook Air is a subnotebook of the Californian company Apple. It was introduced on January 15, 2008 by Steve Jobs at Macworld San Francisco. By the company it was advertised as " the thinnest laptop in the world ". According to CNET, however, developed by Mitsubishi and Hewlett -Packard 1997 pedion 18.4 millimeters height was the most thinnest laptop in the world. Accordingly, the MacBook Air was the time of publication the zweitdünnste notebook in the world, closely followed by a special edition of the Sony Vaio X505 from 2004, which is about 1 millimeter thicker than the MacBook Air. In 2009 ( 14 mm height) ( 9.9 mm height ) or Sony Vaio X have been Dell and Sony are still thinner laptops Dell Adamo and Adamo XPS presented.
On 20 October 2010, Steve Jobs presented a keynote on the theme "Back to the Mac " the new MacBook Air before, which has been completely revised and available in a 11.6 "variant is.
The updated version was published on 20 July 2011. This version is a 11.6 " - and 13.3 " variant available, with the largest changes in the use of the latest Intel Sandy Bridge processors and the keyboard lights are.
On June 11, 2012 Phil Schiller published an updated MacBook Air, which differs mainly by the new Intel Ivy Bridge processors. In the best model 4 GB of RAM is installed now as standard, the maximum flash memory size is 512 GB. In addition, the USB 2 ports were exchanged by the new USB 3, which was called by critics a long time. In addition, the MacBook Air now has a MagSafe 2 adapter, which is thinner and wider.
On June 10, 2013, a new MacBook Air was introduced with the new Intel Haswell processors. This allowed the battery life can be increased to 9 or 12 hours.
Design
The device, the outer shell is made of aluminum passes into the front wedge-shaped. It is 2 to 17 millimeters high and weighs approximately 1.08 and 1.35 kg. For this design, Apple was in early June 2012, a design patent (corresponding essentially to a design ) awarded.
The display of the MacBook Air measures 13.3 " and is therefore as large as that of the MacBook models. The 13.3 " MacBook Air offers a native resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels (16:10 ) compared to the 11.6 " display with a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels (16:9). Both displays are illuminated with LEDs. The keyboard has a backlight again. Above the screen is the now built into all Apple notebooks iSight camera, Apple's FaceTime camera has been called. The microphone is moved to the left side of the lower part next to the headphone jack.
As an innovation, the trackpad offers some of the iPhone and the iPod touch known multi-touch functions. Thus, it is possible to directly and simplifies perform gestures with one or more fingers controls or functions when programs support this.
The new device has more connections than its predecessor. In addition to the magnetic DC connector ( MagSafe 2) on the left side are a USB 3.0 port, headphone jack and built-in omnidirectional microphone. The Thunderbolt port is attached to the right side, next to another USB 3.0 port. In the 13.3 " option, the device also has a SD card reader. In addition, the device has Wi-Fi (802.11n ) and Bluetooth 4.0 radios. A USB or Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter is available separately.
An optical drive is not present. For the MacBook Air is able to access the CD / DVD drives other Macs or Windows computer via Wi-Fi. The operating system can be restored on a recovery partition. Alternatively, an external drive can be acquired, which is powered via the USB port with power. This drive can be operated with a single USB port on the MacBook Air, as the USB port on the MacBook Air is designed for higher current output, as provided for in the USB specification. Since the drive has no additional power connector, the use of a special Y- USB cable is necessary for safe operation on other computer systems, which uses a second USB port of the computer to secure the power supply. A housing opening for connecting a Kensington Lock, as is customary in many notebooks, is missing.
The MacBook Air has installed in its current version in stereo speakers.
Technical details
The first revision of the device offered in the standard version, a 1.60 GHz processor, 2GB of on-board permanently integrated memory and a 80GB hard drive, the 1.8 "is the same format as disks of iPod models However, with 4.200/min rotates faster than the 3.400/min rotating disks to iPods. On request, there was a version with 1.8 GHz processor and a 64 GB flash memory ( solid state drive ) instead of a hard disk. The mass storage device was connected via the now obsolete Parallel ATA interface.
The processor was special in that he form factor package from Intel has been made in the so-called small and with an area of 22 mm × 22 mm about 60 percent smaller than a normal processor. Technically, based both processor models on the Intel Core 2 Duo Merom core, which is why they had all the features including 4 MB shared L2 cache.
In October 2008, an improved version of the MacBook Air was introduced " MacBook Air (late 2008) ."
The chipset ( motherboard ) was now no longer supplied by Intel, but Nvidia. This also slow Intel chipset graphics processor has been replaced by up to four times faster Nvidia 9400M chipset graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM ( shared memory), which supports a resolution of up to 2560 × 1600 pixels on an external display. The timing of further supplied by Intel Core 2 Duo processor was unchanged at 1.60 GHz at the entry level, beyond a clocked with 1.86 GHz processor was available. The special design of a scaled- Intel Merom processor described above was replaced by standard processors with 6 MB Level 2 cache from the new "Penryn " series from Intel.
The Systembusgeschwindigkeit was raised from 800 to 1066 MHz, the memory now corresponded to the faster DDR3 standard. The internal volume was henceforth connected via the widespread SATA interface. By default, a 120 GB comprehensive 1.8 " hard drive with 4.200/min was installed; the solid- state drive variant had 128 GB instead of 64 GB.
Designed especially for the MacBook Air Revision A Micro- DVI port was replaced in Revision B by the new Mini DisplayPort.
Initial tests showed a significant increase in speed of the revision B, despite the nominally almost unchanged processor speeds. Also belong to the frequently reported problem of the past, where the MacBook Air ( Revision A ) overheated in processor-intensive tasks and a processor core shuts down.
The power supply was performed by an internal lithium -polymer battery that can operate the device according to the manufacturer up to 4.5 hours. In various tests with different stress the MBA reached maturity between 2.5 and nearly 5 hours. Furthermore, it had WLAN according to 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1 EDR.
On 8 June 2009, Apple announced with the slogan " thin as ever. Faster than ever. " At WWDC the revision C of the MacBook Air. This version was now available and thus more powerful than before with either a 1.86 GHz or 2.13 GHz Intel processor. At the same time both MacBook Air models declined in price.
A new generation of Macbook Air was on 20 October 2010 under the slogan "Back to the Mac " was published. In addition to the current display format of 13.3 "(with higher pixel resolution) the size was 11.6 " introduced and used exclusively for data storage SSD. The volume was slightly reduced. In addition, a higher -resolution display and two instead of a USB 2.0 port. For the first time could be installed in the MacBook Air 4GB of RAM instead of the previous maximum 2 GB. In the 13.3 "version, an SD card slot is also available with this release. With the first Macbook Air Apple introduced the unibody design for the production of its notebooks and this production has gradually expanded to other product lines. New, in contrast to the normal MacBook and the Pro Series, is that Apple also produces the screen in the unibody design for the first time. The more integrated at presentation 2008 keyboard light was in the following models no longer available until mid-2011.
On July 20, 2011 " The new, faster Macbook Air" was the generation of mid-2011, published jointly with Mac OS X Lion with the motto. Significant changes were faster Intel i5 and i7 ULV processors ( 17W TDP), Thunderbolt port, 4 GB RAM 13.3 "models, keyboard illumination, the Intel HD 3000 graphics and the possibility of an SSD of 256 GB of storage incorporate into the 11.6- inch model can be.
Much like a year ago at the WWDC, inter alia, a new MacBook Air and a new operating system was introduced in 2012. Externally there is little change to the previous model, the interfaces were only adjusted to the sides of the unit and put the two USB ports as USB 3.0. Otherwise, the main differences with the previous model in the inner life are to be found, that is, a 720p FaceTime HD camera is now installed by default, the new processor from Intel Ivy Bridge and the improved graphics card Intel HD Graphics 4000 are used. Apple also offers its customers optional enhanced RAM and a larger hard disk space, both, however, only for a surcharge. Generally, the price has moved slightly upward.
On June 10, 2013, a new MacBook Air was introduced with the new Intel Haswell processors. This allowed the battery life can be increased to 9 or 12 hours. The MacBook Air now supports the latest wireless standard 802.11ac. Also, instead of a two microphones were installed. In initial tests the specified battery life has not only met, but exceeded.
Software
The operating system is 10.9 Mavericks and the multimedia package iLife 11, which is entirely without an external disk over the same time introduced with Lion "Internet Recovery " new for all devices except the first model from early 2008 Mac OS X in the current version can be installed, even if the SSD should be completely formatted. In the previous devices, the system was delivered to a micro USB flash drive to put on new operating system without a DVD drive can. New Remote Disc software is it enables a wireless access optical drives of other Macs or PCs, and from them to install programs. About Boot Camp Windows can be installed on the Macbook Air. The device drivers are cautioned stored by the boot camp program on a USB stick or a CD / DVD so that the driver under Windows can be installed.
Specifications
Legend: predecessor - Current Model.
Micro- DVI output
With Mini DisplayPort
With Mini DisplayPort
WLAN 802.11a/b/g and draft- n Bluetooth 2.1 EDR built-in infrared ( IR) receiver for Apple Remote
WLAN 802.11a/b/g/n Bluetooth 2.1 EDR Apple Remote is not supported
1 × USB 2.0 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack
2 × USB 2.0 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack
2 × USB 2.0 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack 1 x SD card slot
WLAN 802.11a/b/g/n Bluetooth 4.0 Apple Remote is not supported
2 × USB 2.0 1 x Thunderbolt 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack
2 × USB 2.0 1 x Thunderbolt 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack 1 × SDXC card slot
WLAN 802.11a/b/g/n Bluetooth 4.0 Apple Remote is not supported
WLAN IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Bluetooth 4.0
2 × USB 3.0 1 x Thunderbolt 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack
2 × USB 3.0 1 x Thunderbolt 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack 1 × SDXC card slot
2 × USB 3.0 1 x Thunderbolt 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack MagSafe 2
2 × USB 3.0 1 x Thunderbolt 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack 1 × SDXC card slot MagSafe 2
Environmental
After the criticism of the lack of environmental impact, Apple has installed a mercury - and arsenic-free LED - backlit display in the MacBook Air. This had previously been available in the MacBook Pro. Furthermore find PVC - free cables use.
The MacBook Air satisfied in addition to the "Energy Star ", the requirements for " EPEAT Gold".