Who Wants a Cheap(ish) MacBook?

The $800 price point -- a $300 drop from the lowest-end existing MacBook -- is still a rumor, born out of some purported price sheets that Apple may or may not have sent to its retailers. However, the secretive Apple confirmed something relating to laptops will happen when it sent out an invitation to journalists to attend a briefing event in California on Oct. 14.

Not surprisingly, Apple's invitation was vague, simply providing the date, time and place details with this teaser: "The spotlight turns to notebooks."

What if $800 Is True?

The real question is, "What if the $800 price point is true?" After all, that's a ground-breaking price for a Mac laptop, though it's in line with the average selling prices (ASPs) for the rest of the (non-Apple) notebook market.

"If you look at ASPs for notebooks in the last few selling years, from '05 to '06, there was a huge decline, from '06 to '07, another huge decline, from '07 to '08, a much smaller decline in price. Right now, the ASPs are in the $850 to 875 range, so this price point would get Apple right smack dab in the middle of the industry's ASP range," John Jacobs, DisplaySearch's director of notebook market research, told MacNewsWorld.

"Apple has been extremely reticent to compete on price -- that's never been their thing. It's always been to compete on features. If they could hit a lower price point, that would be a double whammy of having the features as well as a very attractive price," he added.

'Notebook' vs. 'MacBook'

As a company, Apple is very much about branding, design and trademarks. Interestingly, in Apple's invitation, the company did not say, "The spotlight turns to MacBooks."

Might this open up the possibility of a new form factor? A non-MacBook notebook? A tablet? An ultra-portable, ultra-small laptop? Something really cool like two larger iPhone screens hinged like a notebook (which could look like a mockup of a possible XO laptop redesign)? Perhaps a so-called netbook?

Asus was one of the first to make a big splash hitting the mini-notebook market, leading with $300 to $350 price points. HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) jumped aboard with their own little laptops, though they are a bit more expensive.

"There's a reason why a lot of those little netbooks are hitting those price points. They are not exactly the most robustly designed products. Many of them seem quite flimsy to me, and from an ergonomic perspective, it's not something you'll want to use for a very long period of time," Jacobs said.

"Yeah, the market is starting to boom, and Apple has a relationship with Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) , so the Atom processor would be available," said Jacobs. "It would be a significant change in Apple's historic thinking of not trying to compete on price. Could they do it better?" Absolutely, he said. "Their industrial design, with Steve Jobs and his whole crew, make beautiful, nice products. And that sitting side-by-side on shelf with products not so well designed, maybe someone will spend a few hundred dollars more. But our research and other research I've seen show that the reason people are buying these small netbooks is the price," he explained.

"Apple trying to bridge the gap by having a product at a price point that appeals to those same customers ... I think it would be difficult for Apple to do that without sacrificing their traditional margin requirements," he added.

Even more likely, Jacobs said, is the chance that Apple will complete its transition to LED backlighting across the entire lineup. LED backlights vs. traditional florescent displays are more environmentally friendly.

Most research, Jacobs said, shows that the top five most important features to mature notebook buyers are a fast CPU, lots of storage , memory, long battery life, and a thin and light form factor.

"LEDs let you make a thinner design and use less power, so you get a longer battery life, which, going back to the five things that most people want in notebooks -- battery life is a big deal. If you say, 'Hey, we've made a thinner product, decreased power consumption, and it's green,' those are nice, simple messages that everyone wants and gets in the notebook market," he explained.

Research Says ...

Price and operating system are nowhere on Jacobs' list of top five notebook factors, he pointed out. "It's difficult for me to believe that Apple would ignore its track record and suddenly start trying to compete on price."

Even if Apple offers an $800 MacBook, consumers will still be able to find a decent, full-sized PC laptop in the $600 range -- though it will certainly be no Apple.