Review: The new MacBook Air, now with extra SSD goodness

I really like Apple Inc.'s newly revamped MacBook Air, which got extensive under-the-hood updates last month. And I really, really like the apparent speed boost offered by the larger solid-state drive (SSD) in the Air I've been testing for the past week.

I'll have more to say about that SSD in a bit, but suffice it to say that the drive makes a noticeable difference in how fast the Air boots up, how fast programs launch and how fast this slimmest of Apple laptops feels -- especially in comparison to the stock 4,200-rpm hard drive included in my first-generation Air.

New Core 2 Duo processors

For those who may have missed the changes in the Air's specs unveiled by Apple on Oct. 14, here are the basics. The 3 lb. MacBook Air still comes in two models, both of which now use stock Intel Core 2 Duo processors instead of the custom jobs that powered the first generation announced last January.

The base model has a 1.6-GHz processor, the same speed as before. The top model, the one Apple sent over for review, has a 1.86-GHz chip -- 60 MHz faster than the 1.8-GHz processor that debuted on the top-end model at the start of the year. Both processors now feature 6MB of Level 2 cache RAM, 50% more than the older models.

More important, there's increased room for your files. The base model now comes with a 120GB hard drive, 50% more than the first version did; the pricier, 1.86-GHz iteration sports a 128GB MLC (multilevel cell) SSD, double the amount of space offered originally.

source: www.computerworld.com