Sandy Bridge's GPU makes room for Thunderbolt in new MacBook Air
Apple's latest MacBook Air has already made its way to iFixit's labs, and it's currently in 12 pieces. Though its insides and outsides are barely different from the last-generation Air released last October, a couple internal changes were necessary to add support for the backlit keyboard, Bluetooth 4.0, and Thunderbolt.
iFixit noted that the only identifiable change in the exterior is the "lightning bolt" that denotes the new MacBook Air's Thunderbolt port. The same ten pentalobe screws hold the bottom plate on the carved aluminum unibody, so with the right screwdriver it's as easy to access the internals as the previous models.
Inside, things are largely the same as well. The new Airs use the same small, blade-type SSDs as last year's model, so it's possible to upgrade on your own if you like. And RAM remains soldered directly to the motherboard. Speaker enclosures, battery, cooling, and the overall logic board are also the same.
