Notebook Hunter

A 10% discount used to be the best you could get for Apple notebooks, but this Saturday only Dick Smith’s offering a 15% discount instead. This means that the MacBook Air 13in (128GB) will be selling for only $1,231.65, a fine price for such a sleek ultraportable. Underneath the aluminium unibody exterior the Air sports a low-voltage 2nd Gen Intel Core i5-2557M, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid state drive, a combination that ensures some snappy performance.

There are a few other features worth noting too. First is a backlit keyboard, which is a handy addition in case you'll be using the Air in sub-par lighting, and secondly the Thunderbolt port, a new standard developed by Intel that should allow for faster data transfer rates than USB 3.0 (an already very fast port).

See the special online here.

See a summary of the specs below.

Processor
The Air features a 2nd Gen Intel Core i5-2557M (1.7GHz), which is one of the better mid-range low-voltage processors that can run productivity applications and some intensive software. It can burst up to 2.7GHz using Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology if a particularly demanding program is running.

Graphics
It comes with an integrated graphics solution called Intel HD Graphics 3000. It’s on par with a low-end dedicated graphics card, and is sufficient for modern games at the lowest settings.

RAM
4GB of RAM is enough to run several programs at once smoothly. It’s more than enough to ensure fluid overall system performance with Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Storage
A128GB solid state drive is about mid-range by SSD standards, but it does have very rapid response for both reading and writing data.

Screen
The Air sports a 13.3in (1,440 x 900 resolution) gloss screen. This is higher resolution than what’s typical for this size of screen.

Portability
The Air has exceptional portability, because it weighs 1.35kg and measures 17mm thick. It’s light enough to be taken anywhere without any problems whatsoever.