Apple doesn’t often do price cuts, but today it has given its entire lineup of MacBook Airs a $100 price reduction. The base 11-inch model now starts at $899, while the 13-inch model starts at $999. Stepping up to the $1,099 and $1,199 models (respectively) will get you a 256GB SSD instead of a 128GB one, and upgrading from 4GB to 8GB of RAM still costs $100 across the lineup.
The laptops have also gotten a mild CPU refresh, and they graduate a 1.3GHz (2.6GHz Turbo) Core i5-4250U to a 1.4GHz (2.7GHz Turbo) Core i5-4260U. These CPUs are technically “new” but the architecture that powers them isn’t—they’re part of Intel’s Haswell refresh, a mid-cycle bump that amounts mostly to small clock speed increases and improved overclocking potential on the desktop. Improvements to performance and battery life, especially in the tight quarters of a MacBook Air, will be marginal at best, and the $150 CPU upgrade option remains a 1.7GHz (3.3GHz Turbo) Core i7-4650U.
While this price bump is good news for people on the fence about buying one of Apple’s ultraportables, these laptops have been around since June of 2013 and they’ll be due for an upgrade soon. Apple has updated the MacBook Air at its Worldwide Developers Conference in both 2012 and 2013, and the company’s release calendar is predictable enough that another WWDC launch wouldn’t come as a total surprise.
Two factors could conspire to keep Apple from putting out a larger update in June (hence, the timing of this price cut and spec bump). First, the Intel Broadwell CPUs that would be going into true next-gen Airs are said to be running behind schedule, and Intel has yet to make any major announcements about the lineup or its availability. If Apple can’t get new CPUs from Intel (or if it can’t get them in the quantity it needs), that’s going to hold up the company’s plans.