How to preorder the new MacBook Air, Mac Mini and iPad Pro

Apple's just-announced Mac computers and iPad Pro tablets are already up for preorder.

Matt Elliott Senior Editor

Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.

Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms

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Matt Elliott

Oct. 30, 2018 9:08 a.m. PT

3 min read

apple-macbook-air-2018-group-shot — Apple gave its MacBook Air and iPad Pro lines a makeover.
Sarah Tew/CNET

The death of the MacBook Air was greatly exaggerated. Instead of folding the MacBook Air into its MacBook line or MacBook Pro line, Apple kept the MacBook Air name and introduced a redesigned MacBook Air on Tuesday at its late October product announcement event in Brooklyn, New York. In addition, Apple introduced a long-overdue update to the Mac Mini and new iPad Pro models.

You can order the new Macs and iPads Tuesday direct from Apple, and they will be start shipping and showing up in stores by Wednesday, Nov. 7.

Apple's iPad and MacBook event from Brooklyn, in photos

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New MacBook Air

Apple October event: Complete coverage

The new MacBook Air ditches the thick, aluminum bezel of the old MacBook Air and delivers a 13.3-inch Retina display framed by thin bezels. You also get Touch ID but without the Touch Bar found on some MacBook Pro laptops. It has a butterfly keyboard, a Force Touch trackpad and two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Inside, the new MacBook Air features eighth-generation dual-core Intel Core processors with integrated graphics and up to 1.5TB solid-state storage. It's thinner, lighter and greener than the previous model. The redesigned laptop is now 15.6mm thick, 2.75 pounds and -- in a first for a Mac -- made from 100 percent recycled aluminum.

Price: Starts at $1,199, £1,199 and AU$1,849 for a model with a 1.6GHz Core i5 processor, 8GB memory and a 128GB SSD.

How to buy: It's available on Apple's website and will ship Nov. 7.

By the way, the new Air is only $100, £50 and AU$50 less than the $1,299, £1,249 and AU$1,899 12-inch MacBook, which features a 1.2GHz dual-core Intel Core m3, 8GB of and a 256GB SSD. The old MacBook Air is still available for $999, £949 and AU$1,499.

Here's what the new MacBook Air looks like

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New Mac Mini

The Mac Mini desktop received its first update in four years. The new Mac Mini features four- and six-core eighth-generation Intel processors, up to 64GB of RAM and up to 2TB of solid-state storage. It sports a new space gray look along with four USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports, HDMI and Ethernet ports. Like the new MacBook Air, it uses 100 percent recycled aluminum.

The base model features a quad-core Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD storage.

Price: Starts at $799, £799 and AU$1,249 for the quad-core model; $1,099, £1,099 and AU$1,699 for the six-core model.

How to buy: It's now available on Apple's website and it will ship Nov. 7.

Mac Mini announced

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New iPad Pro

Apple introduced two new iPad Pro tablets, an 11-inch model and a 12.9-inch model. Both models ditch the home button in favor of Face ID (but without the notch!). The display bezels are thinner and the corners are rounded. The Lightning port is out and a USB-C port is in instead. The new models feature Apple's A12X Bionic chip and up to 1TB of storage. The Apple Pencil has been updated and can be connected magnetically for both pairing and charging.

Price: The new 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $799, £769, AU$1,229, and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro starts at $999, £969 and AU$1,529.

How to buy: It's now available on Apple's website and will ship Nov. 7.