[cc_foo]

Hi,

This is just an opinion, not a criticism.

I am making the guess that the 12" model is more popular than the 14" one. Suggestions online mention that the 12" is the better machine -- unless the user has eyesight issues.

I would have thought also, that the 14" screen would be cheaper to produce, since it is less dense than the 12" one.

Given those issues, does it make sense that that the 14" iBook cost more than the 12" one? Shouldn't they cost less, or at most the same?

[Graymalkin]

When making LCDs the mitigating price factor is the size of the LCD, not its pixel density. The occurance of defects in an LCD is a function of the LCD's overall area which makes a 14" screen more expensive than a 12" or 13" one. You find the same thing happening with desktop LCDs, a 14" 1024x768 screen costs less than a 15" one of the same resolution. A higher pixel density actually gives the 12" screen a much higher value because the price per pixel is lower than that of the 14" screen.

[vvedge]

You don't want to mess with the quantitative reasoning power of the American public.

That's why its so hard to get people to buy macs in the first place. If more means more and less means less, keep it that way. If someone suddenly pays more for a smaller screen, WORLDS WILL COLLIDE...

ok, little rant over...

[DeathStrike]

the 14inch has a bigger battery aswell which costs more
plus mroe material needed to make it

[flatcatch]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
When making LCDs the mitigating price factor is the size of the LCD, not its pixel density. The occurance of defects in an LCD is a function of the LCD's overall area which makes a 14" screen more expensive than a 12" or 13" one.

That is not the case regarding defect frequency. Defects/dead pixels are caused when individual transistors fail. Three transistors are etched into the glass for each "pixel" (since each pixel is actually made of three red/green/blue subpixels). A 12" 1024x768 LCD has the same number of transistors as a 14" 1024x768 LCD (1024 columns * 768 rows * 3 subpixels = 2,359,296 transistors).

Larger LCDs are more expensive basically because more material is required for their manufacture (glass substrate layers, etc). For larger LCDs, manufacturers must use more substrates to produce less displays - thus averaging up the cost per unit.

[Commodus]

What others have said is pretty much the case... the larger screen means fewer displays per batch, and you've got the larger-capacity battery. On top of that, Apple gives the default config 256 MB of RAM versus the 12" model's 128, so that by itself will cost extra.