the corner office : MacBook

MacBook

The big news this week is the fact that Apple will be flogging their new Intel-powered laptops, rather unfetchingly (imho) named MacBooks, in the next month or two.

The excitement is two-fold, I imagine. The first is that Intel CPUs will make Macs a lot faster (well, Apple's own site says '4 times faster'). I'm sure that G4 owners are really chuffed knowing that.

The other (more important) thing, I think, is that people believe that this will make Macs a lot cheaper and more accessible. Is this a fair assumption? I'm sceptical, but it would be awesome if I was wrong.

I took a look at the apple.co.za site, and they don't mention any prices (yet), and the online store doesn't have any MacBooks listed (yet). The US site says 'starting from' $1999, which equates to about 14+ grand here. Now, looking at the specs and blurb at the Apple site, these really are beautiful pieces of equipment, but as always, the question is going to be whether it's worth the premium?

{2006.01.12 10:56}

Comments:

1. Ben Poole (2006.01.12 - 02:23) #

Agreed re the name, though I can understand why they don't want to use the better PowerBook moniker any more.

As for price / features etc., this will only change as more models come out, issues are resolved, and Apple have clawed back some of the upfront investment I reckon.

They're never going to be the cheapest machines, although Apple have certainly become far better on price in the last few years.

2. Colin (2006.01.12 - 03:29) #

Yup, it'll be fun to see where things go from here :)