Wed, October 15, 2008
The holiday season is around the corner and Apple is making a play for weary consumers' wallets.
The company is cutting the price of its entry level laptop to $999 dollars.
CNET's Dan Ackerman:
SOUNDBITE: Dan Ackerman, Senior Editor, CNET.com, saying (English)
"It's very important to get a product out there below a thousand dollars, $999 is a very important psychological barrier for people so its good that Apple has a laptop available for 999. On the downside, its not as fancy and exciting as the new shiny macbooks they introduced today. In fact its the same old model people have been buying for a few years now."
In fact many had expected an even lower price.
The company also unveiled a new line of aluminum MacBook notebooks.
Those start at $1299.
Key features include Nvidia graphics chips which the company says are five times faster than the ones previously used.
Apple is also using new technology in the body of the laptop.
SOUNDBITE: Dan Ackerman, Senior Editor, CNET.com, saying (English)
'Using fewer parts and using this new manufacturing process which they call the brick process, cause you start with a brick of aluminum. Apple says that they are now more environmentally friendly and they produce fewer waste materials while producing laptops and the laptops are easier to recycle in the long run."
In its most recent earnings, close to 42 percent of Apple's revenue came from sales of notebooks and desktops.
Apple is scheduled to report its earnings a week from today.
Bobbi Rebell, Reuters, New York.
