I think it's worrying that even with performance and price parity, apple has a hard time establishing mindshare. I was recently in the market for a new laptop, and the Apple macbook was quite competitive pricewise with the wintel competitors.

Of course, using business and engineering apps meant that my only option is windows, but the Apple tax seems to have been mostly abolished (I ended up getting a Toshiga Portege).

However, I'd personally be more interested if apple could shave a few hundred grams off the 13" macbook, rather than making bigger laptops. After all, the target market for apples would be more willing to show off their laptop in pulbic than leaving them to sit on the desk at home.

Cyril, you made a huge mistake and gave the Anti-Mac crowd around here something to bitch about by not presenting *all* the facts. The dell is under $1k, but it's missing a bunch of stuff:

1.73GHz CoreDuo (the dell doesn't even have the Core2 enhancements) vs 2.16 Core2Duo in the MBP
X1300 vs. X1600 in the MBP
webcam in the MBP
Firewire in the MBP
DVD burner stock in the MBP (vs. CD-RW/DVD-ROM in all but the most expensive the Dell in your link)
DVI-out in the MBP (vs. VGA in the Dell)
Bluetooth in the MBP standard

Obviously, if one doesn't need that stuff, go buy the Dell and suck it up with Windows.

I don't mind that you're not an Apple guy, I just think you need to look at systems that are even *remotely* comparable, because at this point, it's not even close.

1299$-1699$ seems to be a nice range to cover for this product.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834220118

So my incentive for a lesser Mac that costs even more is what? For the right to say my computer has an ugly @$$ glowy apple on the back of the LCD. Not to mention i have never been of a fan of their all white "sleek" look anyways.

Oh yea, they also have an IDENTICAL model of laptop also made by Asus that only costs 1300. The ONLY difference is the screen has a slightly lower resolution (but the model is currently out of stock), spec wise though everything else is identical. So for $1400 (after 100 dollar ram upgrade from the egg) you could have a laptop with a 2Gz C2D, 2GB of ram, 120GB hard drive, and a X1700 video card... and Apple is offering... what exactly?

Now what Apple should do is have a 13" Macbook Pro. Personally, I love my Macbook. Having both OSX and WinXP is awesome. Plus Guild Wars runs great on it.

Where's my MacBook Lite? Arrgh... 10", 3-pound ultraportable, please!

Yeah, but does Dell offer Mac OS X?

They really ought to bring their prices to be more in line with the rest of the PC industry, because now, almost the only thing separating them is the OS.

What about the true ultraportable? Come on, 12" or smaller laptop!
Plus a sub-4 pound Mac laptop would be cool; I'm not sure they've ever had one of those.

The problem with Apple is that they don't alter their prices to reflect falling prices in the industry as much as any other company.

So when they launch a product they're usually only a bit more expensive, and that's fine because of Mac OS X and the applications you get with a Mac.

But 3 months later the prices are vastly different because everything has got cheaper. Apple doesn't up the specifications or lower the prices however. Then 9 months later they release an update to the design with new prices that are nearly competitive again. Rinse. Repeat.

With the switch to x86, Apple has to be a bit more proactive with their pricing. On the other hand, if people are buying all they can make, why should they bother...