PRICES for new MB/MBPs

is apple getting owned? i don't think so. even with current price, mac notebooks are doing very well, 60% year over year sale increase in Q1 2008. sure HP is selling tons of more laptops than apple due to their low prices, but their profit ratio is low as well, and they have to sell them cheap because of the intense competition in PC market. i don't see apple will match HP or Dell's hardware specs and prices any time soon, because they don't have to.

Apple really like to hang on to their price points for their respective products. Therefore I don't expect them to lower their prices but to add features which make direct comparisons to windows machines difficult. That's getting harder and harder as pc vendors try to catch up to Apple's success.

That said I wish Apple would lower the entry level MB to $899. This could be accomplished by offering the entry level machine with a slower processor and accepting a lower margin on that model. I think that a sub $1000 notebook would sell extremely well and the increase in sales would offset the hit to the margins, IMO. I have no data to back up that assertion, it's just my opinion.

While Mac sales are going like gangbusters currently, eventually they're going to have to start offering models that appeal to buyers that are more price sensitive if they want to continue to grow sales. Again IMO, no hard data to back up claim.

You really can't compare a low-budget HP to a relatively well-built Apple. Those HP's are built so poorly there is no comparison. It's normal for a Mercedes to cost more than a Chevrolet even if both have 180HP, right?

A more valable comparison is Sony Vaio's and Dell XPS's. Look at those and you'll see Apple prices aren't THAT high.

I agree with all of that. Apple is set in its price points and isn't going to change them by more than $100. The one thing they need to do, though, is retire the combo drive for good. That's laughable in an $1100 laptop.

apple also needs a $1500 laptop with a real video card and / or a 15" screen.

I think a $900 laptop with a 15 inch screen has much bigger market potential.

This.

Is there any chance we'll see a high end MacBook Pro eventually? Something with a high end graphics card? I'd pay for it, both in cash and thickness.

Combo drives are definitely silly, as is the use of the "SuperDrive" name for a commodity burner in the age of BRD.

Speaking of pricing, what makes it even more silly is that DVD burners actually cost less to make than "combo" drives because they manufacture so many more of them. True factoid.

So folks pay a premium partly to get a cheaper drive. If I burned DVDs anymore I'd be a little bothered to know that.

So, will the new BRD be called Super-Duper Drives?

I don't know anything about the pricing of the new MB/MBPs or the release date, but one thing that I do know is NEVER EVER buy an HP. Their computer quality is like something you would get out of a cereal box, plastic and flimsy. Talking with their customer service is like trying to talk to your HP, un-responsive. Here's a little horror story for you.

About a year ago I bought an HP desktop computer. It was top of the line with all of the bells and whistles HP offered. Everything ran fine for about a week or two, but then everything started going wrong. It would freeze when I left it idle for over a minute, and then freeze once again when I would reboot to fix the freeze. Applications took minutes to open. Whenever I saved a word document the thing would show that it was saved, but then once I quit the application the file would magically disappear. So, we called their customer service dozens of times. Every single time all they said was "Try rebooting." Finally after weeks of this, they said "Sir, you have two options. You can either: 1. send us your current computer and we will send you a new one. or 2. we will refund your money." I went for the refund and proceeded to send them my computer. 2 days later I return home to find the same box I had sent my computer in sitting on my doorstep. I figured I must have put the wrong address, but no. HP had sent me back my computer saying "Oh. Look. We fixed it." Their idea of fixing it was giving me 18 recovery disks. 18 disks! So we called them again and told them how we diddnt want recovery disks and we wanted a refund. Their reply: "Oh no. We fixed it. You don't apply for a refund anymore." The HP still does not work even after running the recovery disks every other day.

So, yes I'm sure someone else has a great story about HP and loves them. I'm also sure someone has a similar horror story with Apple and with every other brand. But still, the quality of HP is just horrible and they are a pain to work with when things go wrong.

I expect US$ price points to remain the same. That would represent a real price decrease as the US$ continues to fall in value.

I would NEVER buy another PC. I don't care how much lower it is priced than a Mac. I love my Mac and I will not buy an HP ever again anyway. Go with a Mac you won't be disappointed.