That's not quite true... Monday Oct 13th is not a business day in the US. Federal holiday, Columbus Day. So maybe 4 days if you stretch that to Wednesday the 15th. Or if they are going based on when they are open vs. the government.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple to Launch an $800 Laptop?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That's not quite true... Monday Oct 13th is not a business day in the US. Federal holiday, Columbus Day. So maybe 4 days if you stretch that to Wednesday the 15th. Or if they are going based on when they are open vs. the government.
I don't believe Apple would do that if new macs come with BR. An easy dvd player.app update would do it. No need for betas since BR is around for a while.
and also i dunno about you guys, but my car has an cd player capable of reading mp3 Cd's.....so without one, i'd be mad that i had to buy a external
ATi, nVidia, and now finally Intel have decoding support on their IGP solutions.
I find it highly doubtful that Apple would release an $800 laptop. Maybe $899 but most likely $999. If they do release an $800 macbook, they better do something about the mini, because that has been a poor value for quite some time and with a laptop at the same price point, no one in their right mind would buy one of those things.
I really hope Apple gets into the "netbook" market. I'd like to see a MacBook Air type machine, but drop all the expensive internals in favor of a very basic Intel Atom board. Priced around $500 to replace/add to the mini like. MacBook mini? Even smaller than the Air would be good - 10" or 12" would be fine. Whatever it takes to get to that <$500 price. The idea of the mini was to get a second computer or a replacement for an older Windows machine so that people could "try it out" cheaply... I don't think that's worked all that well. Seems more like the mini buyers are Mac owners looking for a cheap second system.
These netbooks, even with Linux, another unfamiliar OS, seem to be selling well to people who are either first time laptop buyers or looking for a second machine, etc. That's a good "halo" market.
Actually maybe Apple should put out a netbook in the iPod family. Have it run a combination of OSX from the computer line, iPhone, and AppleTV. Not sure where they could go with that, but it could be a better branding choice for a very low end machine. Call it an iPod so there's a larger distinction between that and the Mac models which are much more expensive.
These netbooks, even with Linux, another unfamiliar OS, seem to be selling well to people who are either first time laptop buyers or looking for a second machine, etc. That's a good "halo" market.
Actually maybe Apple should put out a netbook in the iPod family. Have it run a combination of OSX from the computer line, iPhone, and AppleTV. Not sure where they could go with that, but it could be a better branding choice for a very low end machine. Call it an iPod so there's a larger distinction between that and the Mac models which are much more expensive.
Actually, looks like Apple will now try for the K-12 market with the lower pricing.
The schools I visit for work are mainly PC's (except for a few on Mac - and they're in high-class neighborhoods) since PC's are "cheaper".
An $800 MacBook will make many schools start to think twice about getting PC's, as a half-decent PC for the classroom would cost not much less (another division got 10 HP Laptops for training purposes and those for $749 for something decent enough to run our corporate apps).
Most schools I know of use Macs. Because Macs are cheaper. Institutional discounts are absurdly steep. If the schools you visit are paying full price for Macs, you should show them where the institutional button is on the Education store.
This is rather a moot point since the article said that they don't get the price listing 10 days in advance but 4 days or less in advance, shervieux is saying that if they're going off business days they fall within that 4 day supposed limit, which you further prove his point because it's 3 business days looking at it your way
Nope, the GMA X4500HD is supposed to be as good as or better than a 8400M. So integrated graphics should be fine. As it is when Mobile Nehalem does come out the cheaper variants of it will have the GPU included on package/die with the same TDP as the units that won't have it included at all.
Everything has a solution but my PB. H264 over 3Mb/s and this laptop cries. Lame...would it be so hard to ship a new driver with hardware acceleration support?
Your last point is something I noted (on an other forum) recently. I am wondering if this was the stop gap in providing BluRay support on the Mac. It could be that Apple was waiting to bring out BluRay on the entire line and with Intel supporting it now, we may see some modified integrated GMA graphics systems with BluRay support. I am hoping new combo drives will at least allow reading of BluRay disks on lower end systems.
Who knows.
The GeForce 8400M G which isn't terribly amazing in its own right.
The jury is out on the GMA 4500MHD's decoding abilities. Then again that's more of a driver issue on the Windows side. There's some hope for the GMA X4500HD though.
Keep in mind that the ATI X1600 could do decoding work as well. Apple has just been terribly slow to adopt GPU hardware accelerated decoding in OS X.
I agree, but $700 would be better...
But seriously, my worship pastor needs a mac (he has 2 dead Windows laptops, an aging dekstop (HP with only 512mb ram)), but can't afford one. He is borrowing a laptop from someone just to get through the last few months of school. He is not saavy by any means, he just does the basics.All he wants it for is:
Itunes, Garageband/Logic, and office (school requires office 2003 - they are having too many compatibility issues with 2007), to burn music CD's, and internet - without all the hassles he has with his Windows machines. and to be able to put it in his gig bag to take to worship practices. this way he could just bring up the song for people to hear, rather than waiting on the sound technician and then the slow CD player to get to the track. the CD player also does not allow fast forwarding to a particular spot on the song. Itunes; just drag the slider, play, pause, drag the slider bag, play, pause.
I handle all the video aspects for him, thus my higher end macbook (do not need a MBP - yet
).I always told him, I wish I had the money or apple had a $500 range machine, cause I would just buy him one..
If this rumor is true, and I can squeeze a litte extra out of the budget this year (plus I should be getting a huge check back for all my flexible spending submissions), I might just be able to do it for him.
and before anyone cracks a joke on his dead macines - his IBM is 4-5 years old. his Dell is 1 yr old, and the LCD went - typical of Dells, and his HP is 4 years old, same as the one I just retired; just a smaller hard drive. He used a desktop I built for him for 7 years, but back then it was an old 486-DX2 - pretty top of the line for what I put in it.
Doh! - got me there. I forgot because none of the companies I worked for in the past 12 years considered it a holiday. Most companies only consider:
New Years
Memorial
4th of July
Labor
Thanksgiving (if your lucky, your company will fgive you Friday too)
Christmas Day
Some companies consider Good Friday also. I long for the days when I worked at a company that had every Federal Holiday off. Having 13 1/2 was nice.
But then again, I worked for some companies where you had to save your vacation time for the days that were company holidays - if you expect to get paid.
If it comes with the nvidia chipset and apple have it optomised for dvd player and opengl gfx we should see great media performance.
gaming performance well no mac apart from a mac pro gives windows gaming quality, infact unless the new macbook pro's can come close to these then they just aint Pro.
I hear ya. My current company because I'm a "contractor" I don't get any paid holidays, which is rubbish. I got paid holidays at other places while I was a "contractor."
But does Apple consider it a holiday? My company doesn't but they only consider the same days shervieux listed as holidays. I'd assume the higher ups in Apple get it off but that's just a guess.
I have no idea. I'm just going based on business days as not being federal holidays. Of course this entire conversation is worthless to those outside of the US... But, in case anyone feels like complaining, Apple is based in Cupertino, California, USA.
You've missed the point of this forum. Apple absolutely must release a laptop with more power than the top-end MacBook Pro, with a Blu-Ray burner, but smaller than the MacBook Air, for $800. If not, they're shameful rip-off merchants, their entire product line is worthless, and we're all moving to Dell.
The same goes for the Mac Mini. Until we can buy the equivalent of a Mac Pro in a box the size of an Apple TV, we're all going to moan about awful the iMac is, and how Apple just aren't meeting the needs of consumers.
Do try to keep up.
Am I the only one who will be missing the white plastics?
Aluminum is cool.
But it is the current white MB that really states "Apple"
Aluminum is cool.
But it is the current white MB that really states "Apple"
I personally can't stand the white plastic. Feels and looks cheap. At least my 14" ibook G4 did.
Well then if they were to do a silent release next week it should be Wed the 15th rather than Tues the 14th eh?
Indeed, I am fully aware of that sad aspect (that and the ATI's capabilities). My hope lies in the fact that Apple is more in bed with Intel and their technology, and the other point being that they currently utilize intel chipsets on the low end of their hardware offerings. If Apple intended to release BluRay technology in any of their systems, it wouldn't surprise me if they wanted to do it in their full model range with regards to read capability. And on the higher end, I wouldn't be shocked if they simultaneously released a new superdrive capable of reading and burning BluRay disks.
Still, With their previous track record of adopting new technology quickly (USB, Firewire, CD/CDRW/DVD/DVD-RW, 802.11b & 802.11n), I am amazed that we still have no true BluRay offering, especially considering Apple is part of the consortium!