MacBook Pro Pricing Oddities

The pricing on the new 17-inch MacBook Pros is quite curious. If you configure a build-to-order 15-inch MacBook with the 2.16 GHz processor — the same as the only available processor for the 17-inch MacBooks — the price is the same. E.g. for the exact same price of $2,799 you can get a 17-inch MacBook Pro with a bigger screen and larger hard drive. And, if you upgrade both machines to the 100 GB 7200 RPM hard drives and 2 GB of RAM, the 17-inch MacBook winds up $100 cheaper ($3099 vs. $3199).

Either the 15-inch MacBook Pros are due for a price cut, or something very strange is going on.

(Thanks to a bunch of readers who emailed about this.)

★ Tuesday, 25 April 2006