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Top Apple Rumors, Bricks, Low Price, NVIDIA
Vigile writes "With the news that Apple will be releasing new MacBook products on October 14th, speculation has begun on what exactly those new products will be. Tips of a manufacturing process involving lasers and a single 'brick' of aluminum are catching on, as is the idea of a sub-$1000 netbook-type device. More interesting might be the persistent rumors of an NVIDIA chipset adoption that would drastically increase gaming ability, allow MacBooks to improve their support for OpenCL and take advantage of the new Adobe CS4 software with GPU acceleration. Will NVIDIA's ailing chipset business get a shot in the arm next week?"
If they sell a laptop for $800, as rumored, then who's going to buy a Mac mini for $600+?
Of course, they could probably sell the mini for $400 and still make 40% profit. It's basically a laptop with the most expensive part of a laptop (the screen) left out.
Nvidia? That'd be just awesome. I can't think of any other way to make Apple hardware (already more prone to need warranty service than any other manufacturer's product that I can name) any less reliable. Go go gadget failure!
The best thing the computer gaming industry can do is not actually "give" people a reason to buy a console...they've already got their computer. Theres no doubt there are problems in the computer gaming world, but this move can only be a good thing for computer gamers. If PC's, laptop or desktop (and I mean "personal computers" in general) come standard with decent graphics solutions it will only increase the platforms attractiveness to average joe who cant install a graphics card himself or does not know they even exist. Many people I know were not even aware you can get control pads for computers. They like they fact that with a console you plug it in, turn it on and play. They know they will never be able to tinker around with the inside of a computer. And when I tell them about things like Spore DRM, they know they dont want to "rent" a game. IMHO, The big PC builders, Dell, HP etc..should give away a control pad with the purchase of a new PC and perhaps companies like EA could also give away some controllers with games that really need it. It doesn't have to be a fancy wifi one...just a cheap usb PS2 clone controller...if average joe knows the controllers exists, he knows he can upgrade...
Most people are ill equipped to fill up a 40G drive, nevermind 1TB.
Those of us that can easily fill up a 1TB drive, find ourselves
wanting a lot more. So the mini isn't as bad as one might think
at first glance. There are far better things that Apple could do
with the line besides replicate the System76 Sable.
A Quad core mini would be my personal first choice. Add a video
chipset that has onboard h264 acceleration (although with the
quad you might not need it).
An appletv that can go toe to toe with the popcorn hour when
it comes to h264 decoding would also be a good move.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
A 500 buck cheap laptop today IS a cheap "all in one" from just a couple of years ago or so, which means it is perfectly fine except for most uses except extreme high end new games (mostly). You can still run a full size monitor and keyboard and a real mouse from them. Bonus extra screen and built in UPS that lasts for hours, not minutes!
I saw Sigur Ros here in Seattle and Paul Allen sat next to me. It was weird.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.