[calverson]

Okay, so I am getting the 17" Penryn MacBook Pro, but not the "new" one.

Reason:

1 U.S. dollar = 10.9411584 South African rands.



So, prices for all things imported have gone up by about 25% - in addition to the already stupid price of Apple hardware in this country.

Now, the Late 08 Apple portables have not been released in this country yet. They are arriving in about 6 weeks. The price of the OLD stock is as follows;

Early 08 15" MacBook Pro, 2.4Ghz - $2100
Early 08 15" MacBook Pro, 2.5Ghz - $2400
Early 08 17" MacBook Pro, 2.5Ghz - $2600

The estimated prices ATM for the Late 08 MacBook Pro's is:

Late 08 15" MacBook Pro, 2.4Ghz - $2600
Late 08 15" MacBook Pro, 2.53 Ghz - $3000
Late 08 17" MacBook Pro, 2.5 Ghz - $3200

Expect it to increase with the exchange rate.


So, as a result of all of this, I have decided not to get the new ones, and to get the last-gen 17" MacBook Pro, the base model, 2.5 Ghz, 512MB Video Card, 4GB DDR2 RAM.

Long Live FW400 and Matt Screens.


Am I being really stupid in doing so?

[MartiNZ]

I'm interested to hear that the prices are actually changing based on the exchange rate. Prices for Macs in New Zealand have just always been ridiculously high. We were up at $NZ1 = $US0.80 in June, and are now down around $US0.50, at which point the prices finally make sense again - aluminium MacBook starting at $NZ2399.

So personally I'm not put off, but I could easily understand being hesitant to wait for new machines expected to be more expensive!

[calverson]

There is no official Apple dealership here, per se, just retailers, and they all by their hardware from a company called Core. The indicative market price is based on what Core is selling them at, and what Core is selling them at depends on what they are buying them at, which depends on the $.

So, they will import a ton of MacBooks and MacBook Pros, and they will remain expensive until the next shipment, which will still be a while.

I broke my MacBook Pro Core Duo a couple weeks ago, and so I can't really wait for much longer (no work=no food) so I have ordered the 17".

[B Gallagher]

Prices for the new MBs and MBPs have definitely gone up a few hundred dollars in New Zealand compared to the previous models. Damn exchange rates. @_@

[MartiNZ]

Really? Ok then I guess the fact is masked by the less configuration needed - e.g. the MacBook pro 2.53GHz starts at $3699+GST on the Apple Store, as I believe was the case for the 2.5GHz last model - but now they come with 4GB RAM standard and upgrading the hard drive is cheaper, which makes them seem cheaper overall.

Another annoying thing though, the education discounts have definitely been reduced .