eXtensions
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Bangkok: MacBook Press Briefing, 30 May 2006 |
Earlier this afternoon, along with some of the local media representatives, I attended the Metropolitan Hotel, Sathorn Road, Bangkok for the Appple press briefing: subject, MacBooks.
I was a little surprised reading through the handout before the proceedings started as the price for the basic MacBook was shown as merely a few baht above that of the US: history, I wondered? The full specifications elsewhere on the handout (see below) gave the real price (and the typing error was duly corrected). Nonetheless, it would seem that the basic, white MacBooks are fair value.
Therdsak Skulyong, Apple's Managing Director for Thailand began the afternoon and introduced Tony Li, Director Product Marketing, Asia-Pacific. As ever, and becoming more and more a double act with Tony Li, the much appreciated Suvapal Promprakan translated.
Tony began his session by playing the TV advertisements that Apple is airing in the USA -- light hearted looks at the Mac and PC personas intended to interest potential customers. These are available for viewing on the Apple website. Now with the Intel Core Duo processors, interest has grown significantly. Users are also concerned increasingly with the stability that Macs offer.
Tony pointed out that the Intel anouncement was in June 2005 and that in under 12 months, the entire range of laptops has been moved to the Intel platform, some seven months ahead of schedule: the MacBookPro 15" was released in January this year and the 17" in April. The MacBooks were announced earlier this month (May). Tony said that the 13" MacBook replaces both the iBook and the 12" PowerBook. Many of us mourn this loss.
One of the reasons that Apple moved to the Intel chips was that the G5 chips, with the promise of higher speeds, would not work in laptops due to heat and power consumption. The Core Duo, he pointed out, uses much less power and has a considerable advantage in the 2MB L2 on-board cache: the chip has less work to do.
 Tony Li |
 Suvapal Promprakan |
Tony expandced on the equipment and software included in the MacBook package. It now follows the other computers released in the last months, with an iSight camera, Front Row and the remote control along with PhotoBooth and the iLife pacjkage as standard, as well as a huge range of bundled Apple and third party software.
The thing about Tony's presentations is that he not only talks about the technology but, in the case of Front Row, for example, shows the whole thing and the way it works, including an instant switch to a movie trailer (Superman Returns). Then he switches straight back to the presentation on his own MacBookPro. He did admit that he has extra RAM installed.
The presentation emphasised the "all-inclusive nature" of the mac laptops. They alll now have widescreen displays with a 16 x 10 aspect ratio, paricularly for watching HD movies, or even creating your own.
The MacBooks outperform the iBooks and the 12" PowerBook by a considerable margin and Apple claims (floating point test) an increase of up to five times the speed. For some applications this is lower (e.g. GarageBand 3.9 times). Battery life "with optimised settings" is much enhanced with up to 6 hours for the MacBooks; with WiFi use it is up to 3.75 hours; and with DVD playback, up to 2.75 hours.
As with the MacBookPro these new models now come with the MagSafe connector for increased safety -- no kicking the cable. Tony also explained that the target market for the iBooks being students, Apple had seen less respect for the computers and this, along with backpack use had seen a number of problems, including broken latches. If the problem is broken latches, how do we cure the problem? Answer: remove the latches. The MacBook now has a strong magnet to secure the lid and the problem is solved.
Tony claimed that the MacBooks and MacBookPro lines were "Very aggressively priced." There are three models of MacBook: a white 1.83GHz with 60G hard disk and combo drive at 45,200 baht; the white 2GHz, with 60G hard disk and superdrive at 53,600 baht; and a black 2Ghz model with 80G hard disk at 61,500 baht. These are already available here and are "Ultra compact; ultra cool."
Before the presentation I had made a comparison of prices following the Singapore release last week where the 1.83GHz MacBook was priced at S$1889, while it is US $1099 in America. A quick online conversion gave the Singapore price as 45,728 baht and the US price as 42,136 baht. For a change, the Thai price is competitive within the region. Other Singapore prices were: White 2GHz S$2248; black 2GHz S$2588.
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While a quick glance may lead us to think that the MacBooks are almost the same as the MacBookPro, a close examination of specifications reveals that this is not so. The hard disks, while considerably larger in the Pro range, also run slower in the MacBooks (5400rpm). The Pro range also has better connectors and output as can be seen on the relevant Apple pages: MacBook: and MacBookPro.
In a brief question and answer session, Tony neatly sidestepped questions on sales figures in Thailand but did answer a well-placed query on Boot Camp. he was quite clear that this was beta software that Apple had put out for users to experiment with. It has clearly also developed perhaps mopre interest than Aple was expecting. He did suggest that it was not used on mission critical machinery, while Suvapal Promprakan suggested that it could be put on the girlfriend's Mac. Tony added that Boot Camp will be "a standard feature of the next OS."
When the session was over, the audience had a chance to examine the half a dozen or so computers there for the purpose and I spoke to Tony as I looked at the desirable black one. We agreed that many users will buy this model -- which only has the advantage of a 20G larger hard disk for about another 8,000 baht -- simply for the cachet: the point about being seen with such a machine says something about the user. Now that many other manufacturers are beltaredly swithcing to white, Apple is changing again. As MasimumNews suggests (today) perhaps Apple could take the approach they have with the MacBook and offer a black iMac too.
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