Apple today unleashed a number of goodies, including giving iMacs and Mac Pros more oomph with new processors and increased storage options. We have those deals today, along with many more items for the Mac lover. Along with the refreshed line of iMacs and Mac Pros, we’ll also look at a number of software deals for you iPod, iPhone and Mac.
As always, details on these and many other items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
After one of the longest waits in the Intel era, the MacBook Pros were updated Tuesday complete with a migration to the new Intel i5 and i7 architecture. In addition to the CPU update these new top-end notebooks feature better battery life, and the ability to switch from integrated to high performance graphics on the fly. We here at the Cult managed to get our hands on one of the top-dog 17 inch i7 models on Wednesday have have been putting it though it’s paces.
Follow us after the jump for out first impressions and a detailed rundown of the King of the Hill’s real world performance.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7ksSDAc9ns
There’s no shortage of ways to kill zombies on the iPhone. Blast them in the head with a shotgun, gobble them up with a venus flytrap, or hit them with a car. Even so, Meridian Digital Entertainment’s Smash TV like, Alive 4-Ever, was one of the more satisfying ways to blow apart fetid corpse flesh around… and the upcoming sequel, Alive 4-Ever Returns, while out-stupiding the naming paradigm of its predecessor, looks even better with its new graphics engine, zombies, skills, power-ups, weapons and environmental effects. It should be available later this month.
We start off with another deal on MacBook Air laptops from the Apple Store. These deals include a 1.8GHz MacBook Air for $1,199. Also on tap is a new round of App Store price drops, including Amateur Surgeon, for you, well, amateur surgeons out there. Finally, we wrap up the top trio with some refurbed iPhone 3Gs from AT&T, including an 8GB 3G for $49.
As always, for details on these deals and many more bargains, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
We close out the week (and winter in the U.S.) with a trio of MacBook deals. First up is a MacBook Pro with a 2.46GHz Core 2 Duo processor, along witha 15-inch screen for $999. Next is a 1.8GHz MacBook Air with 64GB of SSD memory for $1,199. Finally, is a fully tricked-out 17-inch MacBook Pro laptop running at 2.66GHz with three years of AppleCare for $2,090.
Along the way, we also have more deals on MacBook Pros, some musical hardware for your iPod or iPhone, plus a great laptop buddy. As always, details on these and many other bargains are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
The potential for Apple’s iPad to be wildly successful is a concern for more than direct rivals of the Cupertino, Calif. company. If the iPad becomes yet another hot product, expect flash memory to be even more expensive and don’t hold your breath for solid state drives to replace traditional hard drives on PCs, warns a Friday report.
“With the iPad likely to grab most memory supplies, prices may increase causing higher prices for SSDs,” writes industry publication Digitimes, citing an unnamed source. Apple currently consumes nearly one-third of the total flash (or NAND) memory supplies, the report says.
We close the week with three high-profile hardware deals. First up is a deal on used 15-inch 2GHz MacBook Pro laptops, starting at $849. Next, we check out 22-inch iMacs running a 3.06GHz processor for $999. We round out the top trio with some Mac Pro Xeon desktop workstations, starting at $2,149 for a quad-core 2.66GHz machine.
Along the way, we’ll check out more iMac deals, two offers on 32GB and 8GB iPod touches and a variety of software. As always, details on these and many more items are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
Although that $499 entry-level iPad is pretty much affordably by everyone, Apple will still be making a rather sizable profit on each one, if a bill-of-materials (BOM) breakdown conducted by BroadPoint AmTech analyst Marshall is to be trusted.
According to the BOM, the low-end $499 iPad only costs $270 to make, with the 9.7-inch touch-sensitive display being the most expensive element at around $100, with the 16GB SSD and aluminum case each costing only about $25.
As the storage jumps, so do Apple’s profits: the 32GB and 64GB iPads only see their costs rise another $25.50 and $76.50, respectively, but their suggested prices go up $100 and $200.
Apple’s most profitable BOM item? The 3G radio: it only costs them $16, but Apple’s charging over $130 for it. I personally wonder if some of that mark-up might be shared with AT&T to compensate them for assumed profit losses related to the month-by-month, cancel-anytime iPad 3G deal, but either way, Apple’s charging a premium for the functionality.
It’s all an estimate, of course — no one will know the iPad’s true cost until it’s actually vivisected after launch — but Apple knows how to put together a high-quality product that is both extremely profitable and an extremely good value. I wouldn’t be surprised if these numbers were exactly right.
And now some of the specifics of my particular iPad tablet beef have come out.
The chip is from PA Semi, an ARM-based CPU, as guessed. It’s called the A4, and it “screams” at 1GHz.
The iPad is 0.5 inches thin, weighs 1.5 pounds, with a 9.7-inch IPS, fully capcitive multitouch display.
“All the usual suspects: accelerometer, compass, speaker, mic, dock connector. And it’s got battery,” says Jobs.
And what a battery! Netbook style! 10 hours! A month of standby. Remarkable for a device so thin.
Come in flavors between 16 and 64GB of flash, SSD storage.
Only connectivity that Jobs has mentioned so far is 802.11n WiFi. Let’s see if they unveil the 3G partners shortly.
[image via GDGT]
We start off with several MacBook Air laptops from the Apple Store, including a 1.6GHz 13-inch model for $1,099. Also on the price-chopping block: a $30 saving on a 64GB solid-state drive from Super Talent, plus BlueAction’s BAE Bluetooth headsets.
Along the way, we also look at DVDRemaster Pro 6 for the Mac, the Genius EasyPen tablet and assorted other gadgets. As always, for details on these and many other bargains, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
