Yet you can still buy one when you spec up one of these new Macs. It is £15

Oh yeah, so it is! Wonder if this is a Bluetooth version of the remote?
If not, then Apple have made a mistake on the order page. The IR Receiver isn't listed on the specs for the new Macbook Pros so I assume it's been dropped.

Maybe so but I have BT turned off all the time.

Maybe Apple would rather you buy an iPhone or iPod Touch and use the Remote App.

uRemote FTW!

(Or yes, the Apple iPhone remote would do some stuff too....)

Nope apple don't do one yet

Bloody hell these are expensive! And the 13" model isn't much of an improvement over the 5,5 model I bought last June, and yet is what, £200 more?

It is £100 more than mine (MB990) but now has twice as much RAM, bigger hard drive, slightly better graphics and a faster CPU (only .2 ghz, but it's an improvement - basically the one from the £1100 model of the last refresh) - oh and a 10-hour battery instead of 7 hours.

That was my thinking.

Looking for a new laptop for home and wanted a MBP. I want either the hi-def 15" (1680) or 16"/17" (1920) display, quad core processor and 8GB RAM - I do a lot of virtual machines and my iMac creaks and groans with 2 cores and 2GB. Unfortunately, Apple haven't put any high end processors in their high-end MacBook Pros. No quad core options, just the dual core version. I am also looking at between 2.600€ and 2.800€ for a Core i7 (dual core) MBP with 8GB RAM (15" and 17" respectively), without going for SSDs etc.

Alternatively, I can get a quad core Sony Vaio 16.4" 1920x1080 matt display, 8GB, Core i7 quad core processor and DVD player for 1.299€, 1.499€ with Blu-Ray... That means that the aluminium case and OS X pop up the price by over 100%! And that is being kind and not knocking another 200€ off the price of the Sony for a dual core version!

I bought the iMac 24" (and love it), because it cost about the same as a regular PC with a 24" monitor. When Apple launched the first Intel based Macs, they were competitively priced, but the component prices have come down by over 50% since the first Intel Macs, and the competition have repositioned their goods to match the reduction in costs, but Apple's prices have remained constant.

At this time, I can't justify paying 1.300€ just for a "badge", when I can get a complete, better machine for 1.300€, minus OS X (and day-to-day, there really isn't much difference between OS X and Windows 7 in use).

If the prices were a "bit more" than Sony's, I'd seriously look at them (up to about 1.700€ for a quad core MBP with 8GB RAM), but at over 2.600€ their pricing is a joke. Yes, the aluminium case is robust, but my 6 year old Acer laptop still has only a couple of minor scratches on it and the case is still 100% sound, Jessica's 1 year old MBP 13" is shows more scratches...

And the Apple care on laptops is stupid. Way more than it is for a desktop of the same value.

Chances are that's because you're much more likely to claim applecare on an laptop than a desktop due to dropping it or whatever. Applecare is a form of insurance after all.

I appreciate that but even so last time I opted not to get it and while I needed to get a new superdrive it would not have been covered as it was outside the warranty period and other than that the only thing that needed replacing was the battery but that was covered by a recall.

I'm hoping Acer will do a battery recall, my Acer is 6 years old and it only holds around 2 hours of charge now (down from 3)...

Yes but is 6 years getting on in battery terms?

They are a touch on the pricey side tbh but then they are a premium product.

I may not want one but I can see the attraction. It's like the DB7 before the DB9 was unveiled: the car was really getting old for the money but it was still a bloody nice car.


Yes, by about 4 years.