Apple Unveils 15-Inch MacBook Air, Slashes Price On 13-Inch Model
MacBook Air lovers have a completely new, larger model to choose from starting today. At Apple's ongoing WWDC 2023 conference, the company introduced a 15-inch edition of the MacBook Air that sits above the standard 13-inch model. Apple touts this new MacBook Air as the world's thinnest 15-inch laptop, a claim made possible on account of its 11.5mm frame. As expected of a MacBook Air, the new model is also quite lightweight, weighing just 3.3 pounds. The 15-inch MacBook has a fanless design that aids in keeping the weight low while also allowing the machine to perform silently, even under heavy loads. The larger size of the machine allows Apple to pack in a brand new six-speaker system on the 15-inch MacBook Air, which claims better spatial audio with Dolby Atmos support. The Liquid Retina display on the 15-inch MacBook Air claims 500 nits of brightness and supports 1 billion colors.
The new 15-inch MacBook Air comes powered by the same M2 chip that powers the current lineup of 13-inch Air models. This chip features an 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores in addition to a powerful 10-core GPU as well as a 16-core neural engine. This power-efficient chip, combined with the larger battery, lets Apple claim an incredible 18 hours of battery life for the notebook on a single charge. In addition, the 15-inch MacBook Air can be configured with up to 24GB of unified memory and up to 2TB of SSD storage.
15-inch MacBook Air: Pricing, availability, and the rest of the features
The 15-inch MacBook Air features two thunderbolt ports that give consumers the option to connect a 6K external display. While a dedicated SD card slot is missing, Apple has retained a 3.5mm audio jack on the device. The machine also uses a MagSafe connector for charging. For security, the 15-inch MacBook Air also supports TouchID. At launch, the 15-inch MacBook Air comes with macOS Ventura. It will be updated to macOS Sonoma in the coming months with all the new features made possible on the upcoming operating system.
Apple is wasting no time in bringing the 15-inch MacBook Air to the market, with the device available for order starting today, June 5, 2023. Shipments for the machine start Tuesday, June 13. Pricing for the 15-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,299 in the U.S. The machine will be available in four color options: midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray. The arrival of the 15-inch MacBook Pro has also led to a $100 drop in the price of the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air, which now starts at $1099.