Apple updates non-Retina MacBook Airs and the 13” Retina MacBook Pro

SAN FRANCISCO-As expected, Apple has just updated its MacBook Air lineup with new Broadwell-U processors from Intel. Those CPUs were released later than originally scheduled-this is the first time the Airs have gotten a real refresh since June of 2013, though Apple gave them a small CPU clock speed bump and price cut in April of 2014.

The base includes a 1.6GHz (2.7GHz Turbo) dual-core Core i5-5250U and an Intel HD 6000 GPU, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB PCI Express SSDs. We examined this CPU and GPU in depth in our review of Intel's newest NUC mini PC, and we've seen other Broadwell chips in a variety of PC Ultrabooks. Overall, Broadwell provides a small increase in CPU and GPU power while enabling longer battery life.

The laptops stick with standard USB 3.0 ports and 802.11ac Wi-Fi for most of their connectivity, but the Thunderbolt port has been updated to Thunderbolt 2.

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