Apple Drops Price Of MacBook Air

Tag : Power Core

As early as last week, the faster notebook was priced at $3,098,according to a blurb found on Google's search cache. The item wasuncovered by the Apple-enthusiast site MacRumors.com. The processor upgrade was cut to $200 from $300 and thesolid-state drive to $599 from $999.

It's not unusual for computer makers to drop prices as componentprices fall over time. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs unveiled the Air in January at the Macworld conference in San Francisco.

The size and weight of the Air, which has a 13.3-inch display andfull-size keyboard, placed the machine in a class of its own. Thenotebook weights 3 pounds and is three-quarters of an inch thick atthe hinge, tapering to 0.16 of an inch at the opposite side.

The thinness of the notebook was achieved in part by a miniaturized 65-nanometer Core 2 Duo processor that came from Intel's older Merom line. The processor is 60%smaller than the typical Merom chip and uses less power whiledelivering comparable speeds. The processor, however, issignificantly slower than the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processorsused in other new notebooks. Performance is not necessarily anissue with Apple as it customizes its operating system to maximizeperformance out of any processor it uses.

Apple also was able to shave off inches from the MacBook Air byrelying on a slimmer solid-state hard drive and eliminating itsCD/DVD optical SuperDrive altogether.