This past week Apple did away with the white, polycarbonate Macbook that was frequently purchased in bulk by schools. The company is now offering a stripped down version of the Macbook Air to educational buyers, filling the gap left behind by the white Macbook.
The new, educational only, Macbook Air is a 13 inch laptop that has the same specs as the entry level 11 inch Macbook Air. That means it has a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 2GB of non-upgradeable RAM, and a 64GB SSD. It does include the 13 inch 1440x900 pixel display.
The machine is being offered in a couple of different bundles. There is a five pack of laptops for $4,995, making each machine effectively $999. Educational customers also have the option of purchasing this specific configuration of the Air in packs of 10 or 20, which include not only the laptops but a cart and an AirPort Extreme base station. Those bundles will go for $11,399 and $21,599, respectively.
The bundles can be purchased via Apple's educational institution online store. As of this writing the educational web page on Apple.com has yet to be updated with the information about these new configurations.
Having a Macbook Air to use in school seems like a pretty sweet deal. It will be interesting to see how well these machines hold up to the abuse of kids using them on a day to day basis.
