The 2012 MacBook Air looks nearly identical to last year's model on the outside.
What about on the inside. Let's crack the case on this year's air and find out.
-- -- a -- and this is cracking open.
Although basic wedge -- 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 -- -- Nvidia graphics chip.
For an integrated Intel HD graphics processor.
And there have been lots of other changes from the -- is designed.
That use of -- to -- screws on the bottom cover.
And why 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 one point eight gigahertz core I five processor but a two gigahertz core I seven is also available.
And thanks to these new processors the 2012 players 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 eight gigs of ram compared to the twenty eleven's four.
And the chips are also faster 16100 megahertz compared to the old models thirteen 133 megahertz memory.
Asked for storage the new air can be configured with up to 512. -- which is twice the capacity of last year's fair.
Apple also claims that new layers flash storage is faster than previous models.
Rounding out the upgrades are new 720.
Pair of USB three ports and Apple's new MagSafe. Power connector.
Now despite all these hardware updates the 2011 and 2012 -- have identical internal harbor layouts.
There's a large battery to speakers on either side a small Ohio board a single cooling fan and of course a motherboard.
Apple even used the exact same battery on both layers which is impressive given the newer machines better battery life.
Overall look 2012 MacBook Air is a solid update to Apple's line of ultra thin laptops. -- said just remember you can upgrade this machine.
You'll want to get all the ram storage and processing power you'll need when you buy.
For more information on the 2012 here including battery life and benchmark tests check out Scott Stein's full CNET review.
And this morning tear down photos and read my old hardware analysis to go to tech republic dot com forward slash cracking open --
I believe that -- and thanks for watching. And and content.