Inefficiency
Jonathan Kadish brought up an interesting point when he was discussing the pricing of Apple's new MacBooks. The only differences between the $1299 and $1499 model is that the $1499 model comes in a black enclosure and has an 80GB hard drive, while the lower model is in a white case with a 60GB disk. Yet, upgrading the lower-end model to have an 80 GB only costs an additional $50, making the cost of a black enclosure $150. Rather absurd I think.
I think black is worth $150.
I'd love to buy an iPod, but they don't work for downloading books from libraries -- so I had to buy a iRiver clix. It might be time to sell aapl.
That is a good point about the new pricing structure. One would think that since the black model is more expensive it would somehow be higher end but in all reality it just has a prettier case.
I think I will be getting the lower end MacBook and upgrading the memory. Later on in the Summer Apple is sure to have some great student deal (a la free iPod like they did last summer). I may wait a couple months for the initial kinks to get worked out (and for them to reach the Apple employee store...). Anyways, for anyone who needs a laptop for school, it's the best choice out there.
I think it's a matter of different price structures. The business professionals who need black laptops to seem professional are willing to pay more for a laptop than a kid going off to college. It's just like that weird example of airplane flights with a Saturday night stay are priced less... even though I'm not sure if it's true anymore. And personally, I think the white case looks cooler. Just shows how non-professional I am.
Why would a business professional "need" a black laptop? If this really is the case, then I am even further out of touch with practical reality than I thought I was, and I hope to god that I never have to enter into this wretched world of "business professionalism." It do not think that this is the case because the vast majority of laptops are not black at all, but instead are various shades of gray or blue. True, black is closer to these colors, but they're still quite different. The only thing that I can conceive of is a possible supply problem with the black laptops. Since this is the first black plastic notebook that Apple has produced in quite awhile, perhaps there is some reason that black plastic costs more. I'm really just guessing here, though. Given how many lay people criticize Apple for selling their computers at such a premium over run-of-the-mill PCs, I would be extremely surprised if they charged a $150 color premium.
Well, maybe they don't "need" a black notebook, but the other option, some pearly-white shade, is not professional at all, in my opinion. If you were some high-powered lawyer, would you want your clients seeing you with a pearly-white laptop? I wouldn't; I think it looks kind of goofy. Of course, that's the appeal of them half the time.
But are you sure that the hardware in each is exactly the same, other than the memory difference? Like, does the black one have better RAM or something?
The only difference is the 60 GB hard drive versus the 80 GB drive. You are correct though. Macworld posed this question to Apple, and the magazine reports that the black does indeed cost more for purely stylistic reasons. They claim that it might appeal more to PowerBook owners who are used to darker exteriors. While I personally find this ridiculous, they make the valid point that Apple has been very successful in charging these "style premiums." Think of the iPod mini, which cost $50 less than the old 20 GB iPod, but had substantially less capacity and wasn't much smaller. Also, while the U2 edition of the iPod came with a great deal of music, there was arguably a premium for the design. This is the same idea, although it takes it quite a bit further, since there are fewer differences between the black version and the next model down than in the other cases I mentioned.