re sporting differentiators
As for the GMA graphics, ironically, I fully support Apple's decision to use that as a bright-line differentiator between the laptop lines, even while maintaining my belief that the "high-end SKU" of the Mac Mini should have offered up a GPU.
I think Apple's decision to use GMA wasn't bad, especially as they upped the RAM capacity. The graphics performance benchmarks seem to support the idea that Apple is giving people an upgrade compared to the pre-667MHz frontside Minis and iBooks. I do suspect that just after major chip revisions from Intel, we'll see more transparently artificial differentiators -- but so long as Intel and AMD remain in a war over the metrics consumers want, Apple should be able to offer trickle-down upgrades much more quickly than Apple used to.
Merom will allow 32/64-bit differentiation, which will be perceived to have a lot more substance than linking SuperDrives to case color or whatever is going on.
Incidentally, offering black machines at a premium to white machines is a real stroke of genius, in my view: you allow people to pay to have a differentiated case without punishing people for not wanting it. Classic. If it's really true that the black one is costlier than an identically-configured white one, Apple's doing something that its competitors will wish they could. The real question, what is black case volume like? :-)
Take care,
--Tex.
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