MacBook Air Teardown: It's Different & the Same

iFixit broke out its pentalobe screwdrivers and cracked open the freshly updated MacBook Air. Inside they found some new components mixed in with plenty of what was already there in the model it replaced.

The new MacBook Air looks a lot like the old one insideThe new MacBook Air looks a lot like the old one inside

Inside the updated MacBook Air, they found a redesigned SSD that uses PCIe instead of SATA for faster file storage access, Intel's Haswell processor, a new AirPort card that supports 802.11ac, and a slightly higher capacity battery for longer run time. The laptop now sports dual microphones which means audio quality should be better thanks to noise cancellation.

Apple touts that the new MacBook Air has "all day battery life" with up to 12 hours of run time, which is possible thanks to the higher battery capacity and Intel's low power consumption Haswell Core i5 and i7 processors. It also includes the Intel HD Graphics 5000 processor, a Thunderbolt port, two USB 3.0 ports, a built-in FaceTime HS camera, stereo speakers, and Bluetooth -- in other words, the inside of the new MacBook Air doesn't look all that different.

The 11-inch model is priced starting at US$999, and the 13-inch model starts at $1.099. It was introduced during the keynote event at Apple's annual World Wide Developer Conference on Monday.

iFixit gave the new MacBook Air a 4 out of 10 repairability score (10 being the best) because it requires custom tools to open and uses proprietary RAM and SSD components.