As many had predicted Apple has released a whole host of refreshed products today; including new MacBook Air’s, Mac Mini, Cinema Display and have surprisingly done away with original MacBook – all of which to coincide with the launch of Mac OS X.
The new Air is now equipped with Intel's Sandy Bridge processors and a high speed Thunderbolt ports for super fast file transfers.
The 11.6-inch base models keeps the the £849 price tag and now includes a 1.6 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB of cache, a 64GB solid state hard drive, and 3GB of 1,333Mhz DDR3 memory - with the ability to upgrade to 4GB at a later date.
If you're looking for a little more bang for you buck the next option is £999 version, which doubles the storage to 128GB - with 256GB available as upgrade option. It comes with 4GB of ram as standard. You will also be able to up the power with a 1.8Ghz dual-core Intel Core i7 with 4MB of cache.
There’s also a larger 13.3-inch model which starts at £1,099 and comes with 128GB of storage, a 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB of cache, and 4GB of DDR3 memory. £1,349 gets you 256GB of SSD storage, while still more cash will upgrade you to a 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 chip.
Both sizes now include two USB 2.0 ports, a single Thunderbolt port, and a headphone socket. The 13.3-inch model adds in an SD card reader, for which there wasn’t any room in the 11.6-inch version. Battery life for the 11.6-inch version is 5 hours and has 30 days standby time and the 13.3-inch version has a battery life of 7 hours.
The new MacBook Air is joined by a refreshed Mac Mini, which includes either a 2.3GHz or 2.5GHz Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 – or a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7, if you’re feeling flush and buying online – along with a Thunderbolt port of its very own.
The Mac mini now ships without an optical drive. Apple says this allowed for faster processors, better graphics chips and a lower price.
Interestingly Apple has removed the sale of old plastic MacBook’s, which were the budget laptop for Apple enthusiasts. It seems that Apple thinks its cheapest option is no longer necessary -- or it simply didn't sell as many "regular" MacBooks as it wanted to.
Apple also launched a new Thunderbolt Display, as it's called, is a 27-inch glossy widescreen LED-backlit display with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a 2560×1440 pixel resolution. It comes with a FaceTime HD camera and audio speakers as well as FireWire 800 and Gigabit Ethernet ports.
And finally Mac OS X Lion is now available for £20.99 and is now available from the App store and is 3.49 GB to download. It will grant you a license for all of you Mac’s.