"The iBook starts at $899"
Excellent point. Now, if Apple can get an iBook down to $670, they will drive China-Mart out of the business. I bet they can, but I doubt there has been a great calling. Wal-Mart, love 'em or hate 'em, understands the low end market better than anyone. They know a $250 savings is a deal maker.
It seems many on FR are fairly well off, meaning $250 isn't much to them. That isn't a bad thing, as I am also oneof those. It's just that many familes see $250 as all the money in the world, and when their kid goes to college on student loans, a $650 laptop is an incredible buy. If Wal-Mart can get that to $450 they might even sell twice as many of them.
When the models change, I've seen the old models in the $699 range. Limited supplies, of course. I have a 12" iBook that's over 3 years old. I've maxed out the memory and upgraded the hard drive but it's still going strong. The only problem I have is that the video card only has 8MB of RAM (and can't be upgraded) but since I don't play a lot of games, I've been able to live with it. I don't know about the Powerbooks but the iBook is incredibly solid and I've carried mine around in a canvas bag. The iBooks are great if you don't need top-end. The Powerbooks offer a few very nice features that the iBook doesn't have (I'd love to have the dual monitor capability, for example) but the iBook is an incredibly good machine being Apple's "entry level" laptop.
I'd also suggest that you look into the wireless networking if you weren't thinking about it. Apple puts top-notch antennas in their laptops and they have great range.
I bet they can, but I doubt there has been a great calling. Wal-Mart, love 'em or hate 'em, understands the low end market better than anyone. They know a $250 savings is a deal maker.
Remember that Apple is still a hardware maker, they don't let their resellers discount, and they really aren't interested in the low-end market. They are more like a Volkswagen, Audi, or BMW than Hyundai or Kia. Their low-end stuff is still feature-rich and built well.
It seems many on FR are fairly well off, meaning $250 isn't much to them.
Unfortunately, I think the poor also don't pay enough attention to quality. There is a point where what you are buying is simply "too cheap" and either doesn't work properly or simply doesn't last. We gave our old Blueberry iMac (about 5 years old now) to my mother-in-law when the HP desktop that we bought her, not long after buying the iMac, because it was a couple of hundred dollars cheaper gave up the ghost. Had we just gotten her an iMac, wouldn't have needed our old one.
If Wal-Mart can get that to $450 they might even sell twice as many of them.
They could get there if the software and OS writers wouldn't keep escallating the hardware requirements for their products. If you look at an iBook or Dell or whatever that's sold at a certain price point today, it probably has substantially better capabilities thant he same laptop at the same price point a year ago. The prices don't come down because the current standard is set to a price point rather than a particular technical capability.
The initial price isn't everything. I have a Mac desktop and a Win laptop. The Mac desktop is trouble-free. I seem to go through a Win laptop every year or so. Once it was a Win upgrade that the hardware wouldn't handle - processor speed and memory size were both problems. Now, my year old laptop has a nasty virus. I somehow missed a virus protection update. I've invested hours in trying to clean it up with no luck.
I'm going to buy a Mac lap-top after I see what their new products are. I'm done with spending a lot of time updating virus protection programs, recovering from crashes, saving important stuff every 10 mins., etc.
And I live very near an Apple store. They have free advice and free classes. I won't have to pay for support that is poor at best.
I used to like playing with the computer, upgrading it, and just fiddling with it. Now, I prefer to surf. The Mac is better for that.
Be sure and tell us what your wife decides.