Apple’s notebooks - outdated?

There’s no doubt that the world we’re living in today is usually about “more” than “better”, but from here to saying that “Apple is behind the market” and using the price of its laptops as main argument, it’s a long road. I said it before and I am saying it again now - I am not an Apple fan, and while using a Mac, I disable or simply ignore all the goodies, such as Spotlight, Expose or the Dashboard, but after having the chance to play with them, I can’t say that Apple’s computers are too expensive. Now, let me explain…

Yesterday, Kent Pribbernow wrote on its personal weblog an article called Is MacBook Falling Behind the Crowd?. His post really made me wonder about some things, but also gave me some revelations.

First of all, Kent said that “Dell and other PC vendors are offering portables for as low as $599, which include a 15.4″ widescreen display, while Apple is charging $1,099 for its consumer portable (MacBook) that only offers a confined 13.3″ widescreen.”. Two years ago, it would have been a good answer to say that a PowerPC-based computer is not the same with one using an x86 processor, but now Apple is using the same Intel processors as its competitors. I know that the price gap may seem huge at first sight, but while Microsoft can lower Windows prices when it comes to high volume OEM sales, Apple has to make up for Mac OS X’s development costs while in control of a really small market share.

I am not going to say that Mac OS X is better or not, that’s for the users to decide, but the fact that MacBooks are selling now better than ever, accounting for 60 percent of Apple’s computer sales is not something to overlook. Anyway, Kent agrees that Apple’s laptops have always been built using high quality components, but it seems his problem with the entry-level MacBook are its weak specifications, mainly the display size. Hmmm… completely agree with that!

At last, I should say that waiting for the new laptops from Apple, because I am sure we’ll get them this year, and this time the prices over one thousand bucks should include at least new LED displays, and - of course - the long awaited Mac OS X Leopard. I know this is not going to happen in a month or two, but you can be sure that we’ll do our best to be among the first ones to find out about it!

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac Book