Apple's MacBook Air - still the world's slimmest laptop; VoodooPC's Envy isn't shipping yet - just got cheaper. Well, sort of. Apple's knocked £300/$500 off the price of the solid-state drive model.

Launched at £2028/$3098, the Air with the 64GB SSD now costs £1719/$2598, undoubtedly thanks to tumbling Flash memory prices. The sub-notebook's other specs remain the same.

Apple's MacBook Air: SSD price now less weighty

Essentially, the drive's end-user price has fallen by around 37 per cent in six months. At that rate, by Christmas the SSD Air will be £194 cheaper still. Or offer more storage capacity. We'll surely know early in January 2009 when Apple will almost certainly unveil the second-gen Air at Macworld Expo.

But Britons continue to get a bad deal. In the US, the cost of having a 1.6GHz Air upgraded to a 1.8GHz CPU using Apple's build-to-order option costs $200. Here in the UK, Apple is still charging £130 ($260) for the CPU switch. Even allowing for local sales taxes, that's still a big mark up.

Related Review
Apple MacBook Air

Related stories

• Intel roadmaps hi-speed SSDs (18 August 2008)
• Micron debuts SSD duo (5 August 2008)
• If your SSD sucks, blame Vista, says SSD vendor (22 July 2008)
• Samsung fires up 128GB SSD massive attack (9 July 2008)
• Asus readies iMac attack with all-in-one Eee (2 July 2008)
• Retailer punts MacBook Air-friendly solar charger (27 June 2008)
• HP's VoodooPC challenges MacBook Air on thinness (10 June 2008)
• Intel SSD squeezes into sub-notebook sizes (4 June 2008)
• Computex SanDisk makes sub-SSDs for sub-laptops (3 June 2008)
• Samsung promises 'fastest' 256GB SSD by year's end (3 June 2008)