Those that have been asking for a MacBook Air refresh should be happy that Apple has heard their prayers, well sort of at least. Apple has quietly updated its MabBook Air lineup with a new CPU as well as shaved US $100 off the starting price.

While it retained practically all other components, including the rather mediocre 1440x900 screen, the MacBook Air lineup now has a new Core i5 CPU clocked at 1.4GHz. It still comes with the same Intel HD 5000 IGP, so it is basically just a 100MHz speed bump compared to one offered before. The Turbo Boost speed got a bump from 2.6GHz to 2.7GHz as well.

The MacBook Air comes in 11-inch and 13-inch flavors, packs 4GB of RAM, 128 or 256GB of SSD storage, Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 ports and SDXC card reader. The new CPU is thankfully not the only update as Apple has dropped the starting price on both models by US $100 so the 11-inch starts at US $899 (£749) while the 13-inch starts at US $999 (£849).

Sadly though, it appears that Retina screen will still be exclusive to MacBook Pro and the Macbook Air lineup is not going it to get it anytime soon. With the price of high resolution tablets tumbling, Apple and other notebook makers are facing a lot of pressure to offer higher resolution screens on mid-range gear, but for the time being Apple is not budging.



You can check the "new" MacBook Air here.