HOME TOPICS ABOUT ME Apple's first portable computer was too big, too heavy (at 16 lbs.!) and too expensive. |
technofile Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983 Apple's big laptop is an even bigger goofBy Al Fasoldt Copyright © 1990, The Syracuse Newspapers The company that brought us the much-admired Macintosh in 1984 has been having a hard time selling some of its computers lately. Everybody seems to agree that the company's consumer-level computers -- the ones that are supposed to be bought by you and me, not by big companies -- are just plain too expensive. So Apple cut its prices. The latest to get the chop is the amazing Mac portable. The laptop Mac now costs "only" $4,800 in its most basic form (limited memory, no hard drive). It's $5,500 with the same memory but a hard drive added. Although you can buy 1 megabyte of additional memory for regular Macs for less than $100 (from other companies), Apple charges $500 for that extra megabyte for the portable. (And that was after a price reduction!) This problem of price is a double one. First, it keeps buyers away, since they can buy a good MS-DOS laptop for half the price of the Mac -- and it will probably weigh half as much (the Mac laptop weighs 16 pounds). Second, Apple's pricing is obscene. That's the only way I can describe it. Industry sources say the Mac laptop costs Apple $1,500 to make. If car makers used the same sort of profit margins, your everyday Honda Civic would cost $35,000. It's A shame. Except for being too heavy and maybe too big, the Mac laptop is a fine computer. It would sell like crazy at $1,900. |