Gadgetory

the 2012 MacBook Air looks nearly identical to last year's model on the outside but what about on the inside let's crack the case on this year's air and find out I'm Bill Detweiler and this is cracking open although it's basic wedge-shaped design has remained constant the MacBook Air has undergone some pretty significant changes over the years in 2010 Apple dropped the traditional hard drive in favor of solid-state storage in 2011 they ditched the Nvidia graphics chip for an integrated Intel HD graphics processor and there have been lots of other changes from the cases designed to the use of pentalobe screws on the bottom cover and while Apple didn't make any big design changes to the 2012 air they did make a few very important hardware improvements for starters Intel's third generation Ivy Bridge processors now power the air our test machine has a 1.8 gigahertz Core i5 processor but a 2 gigahertz core i7 is also available and thanks to these new processors the 2012 airs also come with Intel's HD Graphics 4000 a step up from the older machines HD graphics 3000 system in addition to the more powerful processor and graphics apple also beefed up the ram and available storage the 2012 air can support up to 8 gigs of RAM compared to the 2011 s4 and the chips are also faster 1600 megahertz compared to the old models 1333 mega Hertz memory as for storage the new air can be configured with up to 512 gigs which is twice the capacity of last year's air Apple also claims that the new airs flash storage is faster than previous models rounding out the upgrades are a new 720p FaceTime camera a pair of USB 3 ports and Apple's new MagSafe 2 power connector now despite all these Hardware updates the 2011 and 2012 airs have identical internal hardware layouts there's a large battery two speakers on either side a small IO board a single cooling fan and of course a motherboard Apple even used the exact same battery on both airs which is impressive given the newer machines better battery life overall the 2012 MacBook Air is a solid update to apples line of ultra-thin laptops that said just remember you can't upgrade this machine you'll want to get all the RAM storage and processing power you'll need when you buy it now for more information on the 2012 air including battery life and benchmark tests check out Scott Stein's full CNET review and to see more teardown photos and read my full Hardware analysis go to TechRepublic comm forward slash cracking open i'm build that Weiler thanks for watching