Comments on: Tuesday: new Apple notebooks

By: Chris Fabri

Chris Fabri — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:41:09 +0000

Peter Winkler said:
“When did GM ever offer a bargain priced Cadillac?”

Back in the ’80′s, Cadillac attempted some badge engineering with the Cimarron, a gussied up Cavalier. And when I say gussied up, I’m being charitable. It was a complete disaster.

It’s a fair point. A perceived “premium” brand has a hard time selling “inexpensive” cars. BMW failed with the 316ti. And while BMW has started selling the 1-series here in the US, they only offer the highest priced versions. And the bar doesn’t even have to be that low. You can’t buy a $50K Porsche Boxter without getting some grief for owning the “poor man’s” Porsche.

What they did, then was buy the rights to the Mini name, and sell their cheap (that being relative) BMW’s as a different brand.

That being said, a computer is hardly a car, and it’s a different sort of status symbol to have a Mac (or iPhone). It doesn’t necessarily say I have money, so a cheap one doesn’t come with a stigma. A cheap high-class car looks like reaching, an attempt to appear as something you aren’t.

By: mark

mark — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:41:49 +0000

Okay give me right click or don't bother. It's just plain stupid. They could afford to drop MacBooks down a ways their overpriced for the specs.

By: Peter L. Winkler

Peter L. Winkler — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:09:13 +0000

Apple will never offer anything less expensive than a premium priced computer. It’s an essential part of their brand identity. When did GM ever offer a bargain priced Cadillac?

BTW, I own a MacBook Pro and a four-year-old Fujitsu Lifebook P2120, before anyone starts saying I’m an anti-Apple fanatic or some such label.

By: John D

John D — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:02:05 +0000

What would be better about an $800 Apple Netbook than an $800 Apple MacBook? Not trying to be a troll, but doesn’t a “full Mac” for $800 seem better than a more limited “netbook?”

Maybe my confusion is over the floating definition of what makes a netbook…

By: Taxman

Taxman — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:56:40 +0000

My unlikely theory is that the $800 Mac netbook will come with Linux and Apple will say that it violates their EULA to install OSX on it. This will insure that everyone will buy it, plus spend another $129 to buy OSX, and have hours of fun installing it themselves. To make it even more interesting the $800 netbook will come with a 4GB SSD but you can upgrade to the 64GB SSD for $600. I may be joking or I may be onto something. Oct 14 will tell.

By: turn.self.off

turn.self.off — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:00:37 +0000

and the apple hype machine goes into high gear...

By: Nate

Nate — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:44:08 +0000

I’ll believe the 800 dollar Mac story when I see it.

These seems like wishful thinking, to me.