From the WWDC: Apple still sticking to expensive laptops in this economy

New Macbook Lineup promises cheapest/greenest ever.

Today, at the Worldwide Developers conference, Apple introduced their latest lines of MacBooks with the typical, high price tag and cool, formfitting features and upgrades.

First on the list was a new 15″ MacBook with a brand new display that has a higher “gamut” of colors and a very long improved battery life of 7 hours and 1,000 charges. It also comes with it’s fastest processor to date – a 3.06 Dual Core CPU and up to 8GB or RAM. The 15″ Macbook also comes with a new SD card slot and the option of up to a 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive or a 256GB SSD drive. Price range – a stunning $1700 to just over $2200, IN THIS ECONOMY.

Next came the 17″ MacBook Pro, updated to 2.8 Ghz with 500 gig HD. Just your standard updgrade.The 13″ Macbook Pro chimes in at $1200 – cheaper than the current MacBook Pro of similar size. There’s also the new MacBook Air, which goes up to 2.13 GHz up to $1800. IN THIS ECONOMY.

No Netbooks for Cupertino, it seems.

According to Apple, these new laptops are the greenest laptops ever and will be running OSX Snow Leopard.

But seriously. A $2200 laptop when you can get a PC for as low as $300 which performs as fast? Cupertino would’ve done better jumping on the netbook bandwagon and setting a higher standard.

Photo/Live Blog Hat Tip – MacRumors

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3 Comments on “From the WWDC: Apple still sticking to expensive laptops in this economy”

Jeffrey Engel Says:

An interesting thing about prestige and luxury brands is that during recessive economies, they usually increase in value amongst those consumers that have an affinity with those brands. For this reason, you won’t see Apple dropping too many prices while HP and Dell might do so. I’m not saying Apple is a luxury brand but it is definitely moreso than other PC manufacturers. A good example of this is in the camera and guitar industries. In the ’80s, Gibson Guitars significantly raised its prices in the middle of a tough recession. People thought they were crazy, and yet the move proved successful. Fender Guitars just did the same thing, increasing their prices about 30% across the board. Camera manufacturer Nikon just increased the price of one of its best selling cameras, the D700, back in March if I recall correctly.

The idea, I suppose, is that nobody NEEDS to buy a Nikon or Fender or Gibson or Apple. Only the people that really WANT these things will shell out the cash to purchase them. Otherwise, most people will buy the cheaper brands. Companies like Nikon, Apple, Fender and Gibson sell products to people who will buy those products regardless of price (within reason).

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Roy Mattison Says:

I went into an Apple store in the Sacramento, CA area just last week. That store is located in a mall that was almost empty of people shopping, EXCEPT for the Apple Store which was packed and as I was picking out my items (15 minutes) 3 computers walked out the door with cheers and applause from the employees. When a company is experiencing sales like that, there is no reason to lower prices. I recently purchased my second macbook pro in 3 years myself. I’ve had way too many problems with the Sony Vaios I purchased in the past to go that route ever again! Trust me when I tell you it is worth every penny I paid for the lack of trouble!

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