Macbook Mini - Russian magazine mockup

[Kaido]

Interesting...

Picture #1

Picture #2

Picture #3

-$899
-10.4" LED-backlit display
-1280x800 resolution
-9400m GPU
-1.83ghz Z840 Atom
-SSD
-2GB RAM
-Unibody enclosure
-802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, USB, Mini DisplayPort

Plausible...leave it to Apple to ruin a netbook by making it $900 lol. The earlier "leak" said that Quanta was supplying 10" touchscreens, so...who knows!

 

[aleckz]

:/ 900 dollars, about 400-500 dollars too much.

 

[sjwaste]

Wow. That absolutely sucks ass if its true. There's absolutely no reason to buy that over a cheaper netbook or a whitebook at $100 more. That thing needs to cost under $600 to compete in the netbook segment.

Apple makes what would be considered luxury goods in the consumer electronics segment. In a down economy, luxury goods don't hold their demand. Either Apple's banking on a faster economic recovery or they're setting themselves up for failure.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
Wow. That absolutely sucks ass if its true. There's absolutely no reason to buy that over a cheaper netbook or a whitebook at $100 more. That thing needs to cost under $600 to compete in the netbook segment.

Apple makes what would be considered luxury goods in the consumer electronics segment. In a down economy, luxury goods don't hold their demand. Either Apple's banking on a faster economic recovery or they're setting themselves up for failure.

You know what? I bet it'll sell just fine at that price. Every time apple announces new stuff people complain that it's too expensive, yet it always sells.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
Wow. That absolutely sucks if its true. There's absolutely no reason to buy that over a cheaper netbook or a whitebook at $100 more. That thing needs to cost under $600 to compete in the netbook segment.

Apple makes what would be considered luxury goods in the consumer electronics segment. In a down economy, luxury goods don't hold their demand. Either Apple's banking on a faster economic recovery or they're setting themselves up for failure.

Nah, you need to see the bigger picture:

First, the Macbook Air is selling, so even a ridiculously-priced $899 Apple Netbook would sell. Like hotcakes, no less. People would think it's a steal - a Macbook Air for 1/2 off!

Second, Apple realizes that despite the "recession", people still buy what they want to buy, which includes "luxury" items like fancy computers. People will ALWAYS spend money on what they WANT, not what they're supposed to. Go into any ghetto neighborhood and see where the money is going. Is it because their poor that they don't live better lives? Or is it because they spend their money on drugs? Or in the better-off low-end neighborhoods, do they have Cable TV and cell phones?

I have several friends who would be considered "poor" due to the yearly amount they make, where they live, etc., but they all still foolishly spend their meager earnings on "luxury" items like cell phones, cable TV, and eating out. Heck, McDonalds will suck up your money faster than anything if you eat out all the time - I know a guy who is in his mid-20s and has never left home, and after helping him with his personal finances discovered that he spends over $960 a MONTH on eating out!

I think Apple knows exactly what they're doing - they know that "cool" sells. They know that trendy, popular items will ALWAYS sell, despite how the economy is. You can't fight human nature, but you sure can take advantage of it 😉

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: silverpig

You know what? I bet it'll sell just fine at that price. Every time apple announces new stuff people complain that it's too expensive, yet it always sells.

Yes, but that crowd usually isn't mid-20's professionals with disposable income. Those are the people that do the buying.

At $900 this thing is unjustifiable. It's smaller than the Macbook but really isn't significantly cheaper. They better stop selling $1100 Macbook refurbs and $1000 whitebooks.

The only thing I could see dragging some folks back into the fold on this is if it has 3G and will work at no additional cost w/ at AT&T iphone plan, or tethers w/ no fees to the iphone.

Otherwise, it's not that much smaller or cheaper than the existing 13" line.

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Nah, you need to see the bigger picture:

First, the Macbook Air is selling, so even a ridiculously-priced $899 Apple Netbook would sell. Like hotcakes, no less. People would think it's a steal - a Macbook Air for 1/2 off!

Second, Apple realizes that despite the "recession", people still buy what they want to buy, which includes "luxury" items like fancy computers. People will ALWAYS spend money on what they WANT, not what they're supposed to. Go into any ghetto neighborhood and see where the money is going. Is it because their poor that they don't live better lives? Or is it because they spend their money on drugs? Or in the better-off low-end neighborhoods, do they have Cable TV and cell phones?

I have several friends who would be considered "poor" due to the yearly amount they make, where they live, etc., but they all still foolishly spend their meager earnings on "luxury" items like cell phones, cable TV, and eating out. Heck, McDonalds will suck up your money faster than anything if you eat out all the time - I know a guy who is in his mid-20s and has never left home, and after helping him with his personal finances discovered that he spends over $960 a MONTH on eating out!

I think Apple knows exactly what they're doing - they know that "cool" sells. They know that trendy, popular items will ALWAYS sell, despite how the economy is. You can't fight human nature, but you sure can take advantage of it 😉

Fair enough, but I don't think this thing is significantly differentiated in price or size from their current line.

To sell this, they have to stop selling $1000 whitebooks and $1100 unibody refurbs (those sell like hotcakes too). I'm not saying this is a bad idea for a product, but if the article's accurate, I don't think it fills a unique spot in their product mix.

I said $600 before, but even at $700, it won't eat into sales of existing products.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: sjwaste
Fair enough, but I don't think this thing is significantly differentiated in price or size from their current line.

To sell this, they have to stop selling $1000 whitebooks and $1100 unibody refurbs (those sell like hotcakes too). I'm not saying this is a bad idea for a product, but if the article's accurate, I don't think it fills a unique spot in their product mix.

I said $600 before, but even at $700, it won't eat into sales of existing products.

Well it's the same problem as the Macbook Air - what the heck, another 13" laptop in addition to the three they already have, but for $600 more? That makes zero sense, yet it's working. Apple has some kind of weird mojo when it comes to making profitable products - $25 billion in the bank with no debt is a pretty good reputation, haha.

Personally I'm hoping that is NOT the Apple Netbook, especially since the earlier report said that they're going to be using 10" touchscreens. An oversized iPod Touch would more than fulfill many of my personal projects. No idea how they'd market that, but I'm sure they'll figure something out 🙂

 

[sjwaste]

Do you have a source on the Air's sales? I've read plenty that suggests it's not selling all that well, but that could be incorrect.

Not everything Apple brings to market is a huge success, they're just also very good at burying products that don't move. The AppleTV isn't exactly lighting up the market. The company also failed on many iterations of portable products before scoring a hit with the iPod. There's no reason to believe their first pass at a netbook is going to light the world on fire.

But you can always buy on the rumor and sell when they release the damn thing. That seems to be the best way to take short swing Apple profits anyway. I still think this is a product without significant differentiation in their current mix. I think it's a nice design for a small, thin netbook, but can't figure out why I'd have one AND a Macbook. Everything else Apple makes is complimentary in some way to their other products, and that's a strong business strategy. This netbook concept needs to fall more "in between" the Touch and base Macbook.

Then again, I'm not Apple's CEO for a reason, I suppose. I'm willing to eat my words if it works out differently. The most likely scenario is that this article is way off anyway.

 

[teiresias]

Visually, it looks nice. Power and spec wise, ok. Price wise, suicide - if this weren't Apple with its contingent of rabid fans (of which I admittedly count myself amongst, but would still not buy a product like this at that price).

Regarding the actual article I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope Apple doesn't listen to these "commentators" and others who have some weird obsession with having some bigger-screened iPhone or a netbook that runs some altered version of the iPhone UI and requires apps delivered via the app store. Part of the appeal of the netbook market is that it's running a REAL OS. Apple, give me a netbook that runs Leopard/Snow Leopard and runs all of the existing Leopard software or don't bother. I'm not interested in some gadgety iPhone-like touchscreen netbook that I can run fart applications on.

 

[Kmax82]

Yea the major issue I see with something like this is that I can pick up a Dell Mini9 for $250 which will run Leopard perfectly. So why would I spend so much more for the Apple version?

That's me though, and I'm not a typical Apple consumer.

I think the major divide will be between two groups. One group will buy it simply because of the unibody aesthetics. The other won't buy it because of the fact that you can get a more powerful machine in the white macbook for $100 more.

I also think that this is a false rumor, since Apple updated the white macbook. If they didn't release an update to that model with the nVidia graphics, etc... then I think they would replace that model with this. Now I think they might release something like this, but I'd bet my money on more of a MacMini pricing model.

We'll see... but that's my prediction.