Apple Debuts New MacBook Air Laptops, Updates Mac Mini

Apple also unveiled a new display incorporating the Thunderbolt technology and refreshed the Mac Mini, the company's smallest desktop computer.

While Apple has drawn the most attention in recent years for its widely successful iPhone and iPad products, the refresh of the MacBook Air and Mac Mini lines show that Apple isn't ignoring the laptop or desktop PC markets.

"MacBook Air features our most advanced technology and is an ideal match for Lion, especially with its new multi-touch gestures, full-screen apps, Mission Control and Mac App Store," said Philip Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, in a statement.

Lion is the new release of the Mac OS X operating system that became available today.

The new MacBook Air line includes an 11-inch model that weighs 2.38 pounds and provides up to five hours of battery life, and a 13-inch model that weighs 2.96 pounds and runs on batteries for up to seven hours.

The smaller laptop, which starts at $999, runs the 1.6-GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processor with 2 GB of memory and a 64 GB of flash storage. That model can be upgraded to 4 GB of memory and 128 GB of flash storage for $1,199.

The 13-inch laptop starts at $1,299 with the 1.7-GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB of memory and 128 GB of flash storage. A model with a $1,599 price tag comes with 4 GB of memory and 256 GB of flash storage.

The laptops also can be configured-to-order with the Core i7 dual-core microprocessor.

The laptops come with a full-size backlit keyboard and the glass Multi-Touch trackpad -- the latter supporting Lion's new Multi-Touch gestures capabilities that lets users zoom in on a Web page or image by tapping or pinching their fingers, and swiping left or right to turn a page or switch between full-screen apps.

The laptops incorporate Apple's next-generation Thunderbolt I/O technology that connects to high-performance peripherals, including the new 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt display. Apple said that with a single cable users could connect Thunderbolt-enabled Macs to the display and its FaceTime camera, audio, and Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire 800, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt ports.

Apple first used the Thunderbolt technology in a MacBook Pro the company debuted in February.

The updated Mac Mini uses the Core i5 processor, with an option to move up to the Core i7, and a Thunderbolt port. Starting price is $599.

The new $999 MacBook Air is now Apple's entry-level laptop after the company decided to discontinue the white, polycarbonate MacBook laptop that debuted in 2006.