JOIN USApple WWDC 2023: New MacBook Air, Mac Studio, Mac Pro unveiled
Apple on Monday (June 5) pulled the wraps off the brand new Macs— MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro with the latest powerful M2 series silicon.
The new MacBook Air 15 features a 15.3-inch (diagonal) display, the biggest Air series notebook to date. It boasts Liquid Retina display with up to 500 nits of peak brightness and support close to one billion colours. It is said to be twice the resolution and 25 percent brighter than a comparable PC laptop in the market.
With just 11.5 thickness, it is touted to be the thinnest 15-inch PC in the industry. It is powered by an M2 processor and is said to be 2x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air. The M2 processor features a powerful 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores, a 10-core GPU for blazing-fast graphics, and a 16-core Neural Engine. The M2 can deliver 100GB/s of memory bandwidth and support up to 24GB of fast unified memory, promising buttery smooth performance.
Like the latest MacBook Pro, the 15-inch MacBook Air features 1080p FaceTime HD camera and a six-speaker sound system.
The new MacBook Air supports MagSafe charging, two Thunderbolt ports for connecting accessories, and up to a 6K external display, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Like most Apple products, the MacBook Air is manufactured using eco-friendly manufacturing practices. It comes with 100 per cent recycled gold plating and tin soldering in multiple printed circuit boards, and 100 per cent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets. MacBook Air also features 100 per cent recycled cobalt in the MagSafe connector and 90 percent recycled steel in the battery tray. And, MacBook Air is also free of mercury, PVC, and beryllium.
The 15-inch MacBook Air costs Rs 134900 and for students, it is available for Rs 124900 via education plan. It comes in four shades — midnight, starlight, space gray, and silver — from June 13 onwards in India.
MacBook Studio (2023) and MacBook Pro(2023)
Like the predecessor, the new Mac Studio is a beefed-up version of the Mac mini. It has a big square brick-like structure but is beautiful.
Whereas the Mac Pro too, retains giant cheese grater-inspired tower design language.
Both the new MacBook Pro and Mac Studio will be available with the new M2 Ultra, the most powerful Apple silicon to date.
M2 Ultra is built using a second-generation 5-nanometer process and uses Apple’s advanced UltraFusion technology to connect the die of two M2 Max chips, which doubles the performance. M2 Ultra contains 134 billion transistors — 20 billion more than M1 Ultra. Its unified memory architecture supports up to a mind-numbing 192GB of memory capacity, which is 50 percent more than M1 Ultra, and supports 800GB/s of memory bandwidth — twice that of M2 Max.
Compared to the M1 Ultra, the successor M2 Ultra is said to be 20 percent faster and comes larger GPU that can deliver up to 30 percent faster, and a Neural Engine that’s up to 40 percent faster. It also features a media engine with twice the capabilities of M2 Max for blazing ProRes acceleration.
The Mac Pro supports demanding real-world pro workflows such as video transcoding and 3D simulations to run up to 3x faster. It can help video engineers to ingest 24 4K camera feeds and encode them to ProRes in real-time, all on a single machine, when using six video I/O cards.
On the other hand, Mac Studio will come in handy for 3D artists using Octane to render up to 3x faster and smoother workflow. It also can help creative artists using DaVinci Resolve to see up to 50 percent faster video processing than ever before.
All three new Apple devices support new the macOS 15 Sonoma, which will be made available later this year in September
Like the new MacBook Air, the 2023 series Mac Studio and Mac Pro too, are eco-friendly. They come with 100 per cent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100 per cent recycled gold plating and tin soldering in multiple printed circuit boards. Also, both the devices use far less energy than the desktops in their class, and over 40 percent less than the ENERGY STAR efficiency requirement. Mac Studio and Mac Pro are free of mercury, PVC, and beryllium, and over 95 percent of the packaging is fiber-based.
Apple’s new Mac Studio starts at Rs 2,09,900 and Rs 1,88,900 for education. Whereas the Mac Pro (Tower Enclosure) starts at Rs 7,29,900 and Rs 6,87,900 for education. Mac Pro (Rack Enclosure) starts at Rs 7,79,900 and Rs 7,27,900 for education. They will be available at Apple-authorised stores from June 13 onwards.
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