Apple refreshes its Macbook Pro and MacBook Air models with Broadwell

MacBook Air
MacBook Air

Apple might have just blown the lid off its most advanced MacBook yet, but it's sharing plenty of upgrades to MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models, both of which have been refreshed with Intel's latest Broadwell CPU.

The Cupertino-based company just announced it's bringing 5th generation Intel Broadwell processors to the MacBook Pro along with flash storage that's two times faster. What's more, battery life on the 13-inch MacBook Pro has been extended to 10 hours.

Like the new Retina Macbook Air, the refreshed MacBook Pro's also come equipped with Apple's new touch pad. Unlike the older touch pad, the new part depresses with a uniform click, haptic feedback and force click action for analog control in applications like QuickTime X.

The newly minted 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is available now for a starting price of $1,299 (£999, AU$1,799). The base configuration comes with a 2.7GHz Intel Core i5 processor coupled with Intel Iris Graphics 6100, 8GB or RAM and an 128GB SSD.

A fresh breath of (MacBook) Air

Apple has also given its MacBook Air the 5th generation Intel Broadwell bump. The still ultra-thin notebook will come rocking Intel Core i5 and i7 processors paired with Intel HD Graphics 6000.

Another Apple has added to the MacBook Air is a Thunderbolt 2 port for linking up an external display or daisy chaining multiple screens.

Updated models of the MacBook Air also start shipping today with the 11-inch model starting at $899 (£749, AUS$1,249) and $999 (£849, AU$1,399) for the 13-inch variant. Either models comes standard with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor, Intel HD Graphics 6000, 4GB of memory and an 128GB SSD.

The only differences between the two options is the 13-inch MacBook Air comes with a sharper 1400 x 900 resolution screen, where as 11-inch users will be stuck with a pixel-resolution of 1366 x 768.

Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee was a former computing reporter at TechRadar. Kevin is now the SEO Updates Editor at IGN based in New York. He handles all of the best of tech buying guides while also dipping his hand in the entertainment and games evergreen content. Kevin has over eight years of experience in the tech and games publications with previous bylines at Polygon, PC World, and more. Outside of work, Kevin is major movie buff of cult and bad films. He also regularly plays flight & space sim and racing games. IRL he's a fan of archery, axe throwing, and board games.

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