Apple rolled out new MacBook Airs today at WWDC in San Francisco. The main upgrade for Apple's thinnest laptops is the move to Intel's Haswell ULT processors.
The bump to the more power-efficient processor means big gains in battery life. The 11-inch MacBook Air goes from 5 hours average use to 9 hours. The 13-inch also sees an increase from 7 hours to 12 hours.
Another benefit going to Haswell is HD Graphics 5000, which Apple says offers 40 percent faster performance over the previous generation.
Also upgraded is the Wi-Fi hardware, which is now 802.11ac. When connected to a compatible access point, Apple says the new MacBook Airs can be up to three times faster than the older model.
Apple has also updated the storage options to something a bit more affordable and realistic for today's users. The baseline configuration for both models is a 128GB SSD, which is a big bump for the 11-inch which previously started at a paltry 64GB.
As rumored, the MacBook Airs now pack dual mics, which can adapt against background noise. This should also improve voice dictation.
Oddly, the MacBook Air was the only Mac portable discussed at WWDC. Most were expecting Apple to reveal refreshed MacBook Pros, but for now, it seems that the MacBook Air has better integrated graphics than its bigger brothers.
