Apple's MacBook Airs just got faster and £100 cheaper

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As predicted last week, Apple today updated its MacBook Air line of laptops.

On the outside, the changes aren’t particularly significant. The 11in and 13in sizes remain, with neither screen upgraded to Retina display resolutions, and the notebooks sport the same sleek shape as the models they’re replacing.

But beneath the skin, the range’s adoption of Intel’s latest Haswell Core i5 and i7 processors mean they are some minor – but nonetheless notable – improvements to battery life and performance.

The 11in MacBook Air now offers nine hours of on-the-go use, while the 13in model offers 12 (both, Apple claim, have up to 30 days of standby battery life). The graphics power also gets a boost, with Intel HD Graphics 5000 replacing the 4000 GPU.

There are also improvements to the Air’s Wi-Fi thanks to new-found 802.11ac support and all models’ flash storage drives are now 45 percent quicker than before.

The new models are available now, with the 11in MacBook Air starting at £750 and the 13in at £850.

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Tech journalism's answer to The Littlest Hobo, I've written for a host of titles and lived in three different countries in my 15 years-plus as a freelancer. But I've always come back home to Stuff eventually, where I specialise in writing about cameras, streaming services and being tragically addicted to Destiny.