Apple’s New MacBook Pro’s Sneaky Surprise

Apple has bumped up the price of the new MacBook Pro machines for those looking to bump up the specifications of the entry-level laptop. If you were looking for the practical benefits of moving from 8 GB of RAM to 16 GB of RAM, you are going to have to pay an extra hundred dollars. The customisation option has been raised from $100 to $200.

The price increase is significant. Notably, this price increase has not been triggered in other Mac machines, suggesting this is less to do with currency fluctuations. It’s more likely that Apple is encountering a shortage of supply. The entry level MacBook Pro is only available with 8 GB or 16 GB of RAM; with the memory soldered to the system board, each assembled boards will likely be treated as a single component.

If one has suddenly become more expensive due to supply and demand, you have to ask how Apple’s legendary ability to understand the market and meet the sales expectations managed to get this wrong. After all, the new MacBook Pro machines went on sale less than a month ago. Pushing a price increase so soon suggests a mistake has been made.

Curiously, it pushes the price of the 16 GB MacBook Pro with the eighth-generation Intel processor much closer to the 16 GB with the tenth-generation processor, making the up-sell that little bit easier to stomach.

If you were cynical, you might think that Apple has kept around the older and lower specced MacBook Pro so it can advertise the price as ‘starting from $1299’ while the MacBook Pros that are fitted with the latest processor start at $1799. This month’s update to the MacBook Pro range (and the MacBook Air update in March) was more about replacing the hated butterfly keyboards and keeping the specifications in touch with the Windows 10-powered competition than taking a step forward.

If you want a MacBook Pro that does have improved features and new thinking behind it, you‘ll need to wait till next year.

source: forbes