Apple’s new notebooks, which were unveiled earlier today, are absolutely spot on. While some are claiming the new notebooks still to be too expensive, the new technology unveiled today has far surpassed our expectations. From the unibody enclosure to the built-to-order SSD options across the board, Apple’s new line of notebooks is clearly in a league of its own.
Apple has always been good at listening to its customer base. Devotion and brand loyalty are something that Apple prides itself on as a company. The fact that thousands, if not millions of us will be plunking down over $1,000 within the next few months, in the face of an economic catastrophe is what separates Apple from its competitors. With its new notebook line unveiled earlier today, Apple has set an immensely large gap between its new products and the rest of what the marketplace has to offer.
At an entry level price point of $999, Apple’s intention of delivering these things to the masses holds true. And at a $1,299 price-point, Apple’s first level aluminum Macbook is nearly impossible for the competition to stack up against. Apple is delivering aluminum enclosures, LED screens, a superior backlit keyboard, and custom upgradeable options that other PC makers simply do not offer. Not to mention an integrated NVIDIA graphics processor aimed directly at increasing the gaming experience.
In late July, Macblogz heard information, regarding the possibility of Apple including a built-to-order, solid state drive option in all of its upcoming notebooks. This turned out to be accurate. Apple is now offering consumers extremely high-end machines, with even more expandable options than ever before. If somebody has a smaller budget, but has really been itching for that lightning fast SSD experience, Apple is set to deliver that with their new notebooks. Allowing built-to-order solid state drives in their consumer level Macbooks is a major step forward. Overall, Apple is not holding out on features with their entry level notebooks.
Apple explains that “the internal architecture has been reengineered from the silicon up. There’s a new logic board. A new chipset. And a new graphics architecture — a feat of engineering in itself.” The large, smooth multi-touch glass trackpad was in development for months before Apple was able to perfect the sensitivity and pressure triggers. By eliminating the physical button, Apple has made the entire trackpad one large button. They’ve added more multi-touch gestures, and increased user input from two finger gestures, to new four finger gestures.
Many analysts were clamoring about the introduction of a new notebook model specifically priced at $899 or lower. Many pundits went on record prior to the event as having detailed information about Apple’s unreleased inexpensive notebooks. They were all wrong. The major pricing move Apple made today was slashing its entry level Macbook from $1,099 to $999. “This could very well be an integral move in the face of today’s sluggish economic, despite recent upward movement. Offering a sub $1,000 MacBook will help Apple reach a larger demographic, while more affluent consumers will still have higher end models with great configuration options,” MacBlogz previously explained.
By offering the market a notebook as feature-rich as the entry level Macbook, consumers will react to the sub-$1,000 pricetag extremely positively. The play to seduce consumers over to the $1,299 Macbook, which sports a new striking metal enclosure and more professional features, with a mere $300 price increase, is a highly strategic one. Early statements and predictions about Apple releasing extremely competitive products at highly aggressive price-points turned out to be true.
The new Macbook and Macbook Pro exteriors are far beyond what any of the competition can offer. Apple is using a new manufacturing process to craft a unibody enclosure for the new notebooks out of one piece of high quality aluminum. They are eliminating the need to combine many parts into one piece of machinery, thus increasing the overall performance an stability of the machine and its parts.
Apple’s new notebooks are sleeker, sexier and even more high quality. Major inspiration has been taken from the Macbook Air and iMac, with two tone black glass and sleek aluminum. The Macbook Air remains the thinnest notebook on the market, and is priced accordingly. But by spreading design aesthetics from the Macbook Air across both the Macbook and Macbook Pro, Apple has taken the next, natural step in their notebook family’s evolution process. It just so happens that nearly everything consumers wanted to see, Apple was able to deliver. The new Macbook and Macbook Pro’s are thinner, lighter, more durable, robust and overall more stable.
Apple’s new family of notebooks has begun shipping today, with the exception of the Macbook Air, which will be shipping in early November. Most of the pre-configured notebook setups should be available at Apple retail stores tomorrow. MacBlogz will be providing in depth coverage of all of Apple’s new products in the following days.
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32 Comments to “Apple Nails It: New Notebooks Spot On”
Brand New 15″ Macbook Pro — ORDERED
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Pricing seems to be a pretty debated upon issue. People just want to see them as cheap as possible. Don’t they know that Apple won’t please that crowd. I mean, jeez…
$999 for the entry level Macbook. That is pretty fair if u ask me.
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Agreed. I think an entry level Macbook at $999 is a highly strategic move by Apple. After all, it’s only $300 more to get a lot of the high-end features many people lust after.
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Apple Nailed it for the GOUCHIE GOUCH. Im loving the new macbook, and the pro is cool but not worth it in my opinion. The fucking public(stock market) wont love it because there wasnt a fricking tablet or something a step forward. Right now using the Black MacBook, probably going to switch to the new metal one.
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Totally right on dude. Everyone is expecting some dreamed up touch tablet netbook mac or something. It’s just not happening anytime soon. Apple is much more methodical than that.
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You people are CLUELESS. Apple has NO CHANCE unless they released a notebook priced at $799 today. You might as well sell all your stock in Apple and invest in Dell, as soon, Apple will be out of business.
Nobody can afford their fancy, elite computers anymore.
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Smoking crack is bad for you.
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It would be nice to have some screen-size choice. There is no 15″ consumer portable. Older eyes could use a bigger screen.
Notebooks have plenty of power now for most users. They could bring Nvidia graphics and slower/older processors to a quality low end for $899 and keep the bells and whistles on the high end.
I’m sure the new machines are beautiful and functional, but it seems to me that they’ve compressed the lineup not broadened it. There missing some important segments to get customers on board.
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@Michael: “There missing some important segments to get customers on board.”
You’re totally right here. Apple could’ve swayed TONS of people with a $799 or even $899 laptop. The psychological impact of a notebook like that would surely play into gaining market share. Especially during this week economic time.
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Responding to all of you on how it should have been cheaper. When people are investing in a mac they are investing in a user friendly-green, fun, stable and long term computer. The problems other companies have with their consumer are immense other than apples. I have owned three pcs and one mac in my life. And by far the mac beat them. When a person is dumping so much on a laptop 1 houndred$ wont stop them from buying it. Everyeone should be buying apples stock because they are simply the most technology advanced company on the market right now. I promise sometime in the next couple of years we will see apple get into the television market, and will make an extradionary tablet. There are websites like this because simply apple is just a dominant and popular company. Apple also sells a ton of computers to schools and businesses. They are simply easier and better to use than a pc. When a company comes out with a new software, people buy it, and then switch back to the old one, you have to know that company obviously has some issues. Why will people pay an extra 200$ for a laptop from apple? BECAUSE STEVE SAYS SO
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Kind of off topic: But, Steve looked really healthy, confident and with it today. He looked like he had a plan and was on a mission.
People seem to forget the significance of Apple’s notebook line, and get caught up in speculation. Nutty.
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it’s only a matter of time before people realize the SSD options are completley worth the extra bucks.
just so much faster. soooooo much faster.
if you’re into performance, opt for SSD.
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Compare the entry-level Macbook to what HP offers for a hundred bucks less (dv3500t at $899):
* 3GB of RAM and 250 GB HD with the current special offer. That’s [b]three[/b] times the RAM and over [b]two[/b] times the diskspace.
* A 512 MB GeForce 9300 M
That’s a completely different shelf in terms of performance. And you can get a backlit keyboard for an extra $25.00. And it has metallic finish. And it weights less (1.86 kg).
If you start comparing dv3500t to the $1599 MacBook, the HP still has the edge — for slightly over half the price.
‘And at a $1,299 price-point, Apple’s first level aluminum Macbook is nearly impossible for the competition to stack up against.’ Please
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I looked for this on HP’s site and could only come up with an model (buried in the notebooks section) for $1500 with the OPTION to add on the features found in the new MacBook’s.
While it wasn’t a totally clean comparison you ended up with a machine for $1800.00 that had all the features offered in the MacBook’s and a few extra’s that they include by default (finger print reader, etc..).
One big stumbling block is how you compare the OS. Do you equate Vista Home Premium to OS X or Ultimate? I use Ultimate cause Mac’s only have one option for OS that comes with everything included and Vista Ultimate is the one with everything included from MS.
(Why on earth MS splits it’s development teams to come up with the jumbled mess that are the differnt flavors of Vista I really can’t tell. You would think they would use one team to produce a single polished product. That might solve allot of their problems with Windows…but I digress.)
In conclusion: yes you can get more bang for your buck in a PC; internal hardware wise. But what do you sacrifice? Sturdy, recyclable aluminum case for cheap plastic. The ability to run OS X.
No dice. I’ll pay more for my Mac any day.
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Let me clarify: the laptop I described does cost $899 + the optional $25 for the backlit keyboard. As to how you managed to obtain the $1800 figure, I’ve no idea and I’m not going to explain to you how to use google to find a specific model of a laptop.
As for the OS comparison, it is slightly more complicated than you describe — you’ll probably have to pay extra in January, when Snow Leopard comes out and SPs are for free, it’s also a matter of taste which OS one prefers etc. My point still stands: other vendors provide *vastly* superior hardware and comparable craftsmanship for less money.
Also, the entry level MacBook (which is still more expensive than the machine I mentioned) doesn’t have aluminium casing but tacky plastic one.
From yesterday’s presentation it became clear to me that Macbooks are, and will be, poor value for money; from this blog entry and subsequent comments — that it’s pointless to argue with fanboys.
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I totally disagree with “vastly superior hardware and craftsmanship”. Are you smoking crack?
That is completely delusional thinking, or just outright lying.
I would also call you a PC fanboy. It works both ways Sparky. Enjoy your “vastly inferior platform”.
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Yeah, but it’s limited to the worst OS on the planet. How is that value? I can run any OS I want on my Mac, which means I have more software available to me than you do. PC’s don’t run iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, Final Cul Pro, etc, etc. I also don’t need virus protection software or subscriptions and I don’t need to reinstall my OS every 6 months because the computer slows to a crawl.
I’ve owned plenty of PC’s over the years and now I am fully Mac based. Until you own a Mac, you really are in no position to make comparisons.
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@Mike
I compared the hardware in an objective way, quoting specs of a specific PC (which you seem to be unable to find despite it being the first Google result for ‘dv3500t’: http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&series_name=dv3500t_series&a1=Category&v1=Mobility ) You can ‘totally disagree’ all the way you like, but the facts stand against you.
As for the craftsmanship, I know about 10 people with standard Macbooks and most of them have cracks on their ‘durable polycarbonate shell’. The MBP owners I know get the odd electric shock thanks to the aluminium casing and ruptures. Oh, and there’s one guy who’s Mac shut down forever just after the warranty ended. He duly got another one.
@Sean
No, it’s not limited to Windows — you seem to forget Linux and less popular brands like various flavours of BSD (on which, while we’re at it, OS X is based).
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@Jergosh -in part, people buy macs for the same reason they buy porsches. They look cool, they give a sense of status, and they have all of the little intangibles that set them apart from PCs and make them “user friendly”. In summary, mac buyers pay extra for things that do not show up in your “objective” comparison.
Until 4 years ago, I was a PC user that dissed on mac users and how much they spent. As it turns out, Mac users are not stupid or bad people….I was just cheap and envious.
I just went to the HP site and your full of shit. Here is the link to a comparably equipped HP with Vista ultimate. Total cost $1246.99. Right in line with the “vastly” superior Aluminum Macbook.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/cto.do;HHOJSID=J2plL2pQnhBkGBppyrnvb7mTvD7VZsrn1q1X4nGSQxwLsc5VKQBx!-1573200413
I chose Ultimate because the is the closest thing to Leopard (the OS that doesn’t limit your features).
Try again Sparky.
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The link doesn’t work, you’ll be devastated to know. I honestly have no idea how you’ve come with the figure, sorry.
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Howdy,
@Sean, Not sure why you cannot find the link to the dv3500t. I searched on google and came up with the following link:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&series_name=dv3500t_series&a1=Category&v1=Mobility
I also tested the link in another browser and it worked.
The price was $899.
I’m about to buy the MBP cuz of durability of equipment and what I think may a better OS for a simple user like me. Perhaps Windows 7 will leapfrog OSX when it arrives in a couple years. I don’t know.
Personally, I don’t think either a PC or a MBP is the ultimate answer to all and be all. Both have their places and we could debate for years on end. I have XP, Vista, Ubuntu, and Red Hat running on older desk top machines in my home. However, I want a laptop that I can hand to my son when heads off to college in 3 years, and I think the MBP will still be more than sufficient to meet his needs at that time. The Dell XPS for my oldest who will be headed off to college next year is showing signs of aging. We may end up buying another laptop for him in 2 years or so (it is almost 2 years old now). BTW – the XPS is a nice machine, but the machining of the new MBPs really intrigues me and currently has my vote to buy. However, if I get to the Mac Store and it feels flimsy I probably wont buy it.
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Strange blog…
The updates were as expected, not hugely interesting – watching the willy waving keynote made me sad.
Was hoping for a massive price cut across the board – instead, in many countries the prices went up a little…
I’m not sure what dream world the blogger is living in, but other manufacturers offer more hardware for a fraction of the price.
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Can someone give me a reasonable explanation for the absence of firewire 400 on the macbooks?
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Firewire 400 was dropped because otherwise the MacBook would heavily cannibalize MacBook Pro sales.
BTW, there is no backlit keyboard on the $1299 MacBook.
And SSD’s advantage is shock resistance, NOT battery life or performance.
With a SSD, your data will survive, but since Apple has no “ruggedized” models, the rest of the notebook won’t.
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Apple should have simply given the Pro version both FireWire 400 and 800, while keeping FireWire 400 in the MacBook. If they weren’t prepared to do that, then they could have somehow fit an express card adapter in the MacBook so that a FireWire card could be bought separately.
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Firewire 800 and 400 are both compatible with eachother. Unless I’m totally wrong, but I think that’s the case.
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Apple remove choice from the consumer even further.
Want firewire? Spend more.
Greedy bastards.
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pile of shite
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I am getting a new Apple portable, but I am deciding between the former low-end 15.4″ MacBook Pro which has the FireWire that I desire and has been significantly reduced in price, or a new high-end MacBook without FireWire. One thing is certain regarding this review, and that is that there is no such thing as a “sexier” computer. I’m afraid that computers most certainly do not have that kind of appeal to me, and do not turn me on.
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Has anybody seen any performance numbers for the new machines? I’m wondering if the 2.8 GHz machines are worth the extra $$$ over the 2.53 GHz machines?
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Totally doubt it. I don’t think you can tell the difference with .27 of an increase in processing power. At least unless you’re doing 3D animation or something. If u want to see speed and response time increase, get an SSD on the side and swap it out with your HDD.
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