Faster Macbook Air pops out: What, a NEW Apple thing and ZERO fanfare?

Scream if you want to go slightly faster

Apple has sneaked slightly updated Macbook Airs onto its shelves with slightly tweaked price tags.

Without any fanfare yesterday, Cupertino started touting the new super duper lightweight 'puters.

They come complete with a slightly faster processor and, well, not much else. The new Intel Core i5 CPUs clock in at 1.4GHz, rather than the 1.3GHz of the previous models. With Turbo Boost enabled, the i5 chips can reach 2.7GHz, according to Apple.

Discerning fanbois can upgrade to a 1.7GHz Intel Core i7 processor for an extra £130 ($150). These can be Turbo Boosted up to 3.3GHz. RAM remains at 4GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 memory for all models, which can be upgraded to 8GB.

Happily, prices (in the US at least) have come down by $100: the basic, unaltered Macbook Air now starts at £749 ($899) for the 11-inch model with 128GB of flash storage, going up to £999 ($999) for the top-end 13-inch, 128GB edition.

If you install a Core i7, and plump for 512GB of flash memory and 8GB of RAM, the price shoots up to a mere £1,449 ($1,749).

You can mortgage your kidneys buy a new Macbook Air from the Apple website. ®