Quietly introduced without a formal announcement, the MacBook Air "Core i5" 1.6 13" (Mid-2011/Education Only)—available exclusively to educational institutions in quantities of five or more—is powered by a 32-nm "Sandy Bridge" 1.6 GHz Intel "Core i5" processor (2467M) with two independent processor "cores" on a single chip and a 3 MB shared level 3 cache.
It comes configured with 2 GB of onboard 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (which cannot be upgraded after purchase), 64 GB of flash storage, and an Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 256 MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with the system memory.
All of this is housed in a slim (0.11-0.68 inch), 2.96-pound aluminum case that includes an integrated "FaceTime" video camera, a backlit full-size keyboard, and a 13.3-inch widescreen TFT LED-backlit active-matrix "glossy" display (1440x900 native resolution).
Connectivity features include 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, dual USB 2.0 ports, and analog audio out, as well as an SDXC card slot and a "Thunderbolt" port. This port is backward compatible with Mini DisplayPort and supports an external display at 2560x1600 while also passing an audio signal. Thunderbolt also supports other peripherals that use the Thunderbolt standard, providing up to 10 Gbps of bandwidth in both directions. It lacks internal Ethernet (an external USB adapter was offered as a US$29 upgrade) and also omits Firewire and optical audio in/out.
Compared to the standard MacBook Air "Core i5" 1.7 13" (Mid-2011), this model is externally identical but features a slower processor, less memory (which, again, is not upgradable), and less storage. However, it was also offered at a lower price per unit.