Apple has always put style of substance - and while there was always a few lacking aspects in terms of performance, Apple has pushed the envelope further (in my opnion, now too far) on the style and slacked too much on the substance at the price points.

I’m not buying it this time. I’ve been a Mac fan for a while now, and have been generally enthusiastic and optimistic of most of their product releases. But the products revealed today are grossly overpriced, especially in the face of economic turmoil.

Apple 24″ Cinema Display: Really a docking port with 3 wires (power, USB and video). At $899 for only 24″, it is overpriced by about $200. Dell’s top of the line 24″ LCDs are a little over $600 and come with USB ports, and the magsafe connection is trivial, and should only add $100 to the price, bringing the expected price to $719. Apple is way over target on this one.

15″ MacBook Pro: Looks great. The features match well with the price, though I was expecting slightly faster CPUs (2.53 with the top line 15″ having a 2.8) as well as a $200 price cut, but as you can tell, Apple is in no mood to cut prices today.

13″ MacBook Air: Nothing surprising here, bigger HDD/SSD options, same price. I’m interested to know if they’ll be using the new 45nm SFF chips - the delay until November makes me thing so, and hopefully this will resolve the CPU overheating issue that is a problem with current MacBook Airs.

13″ MacBook “Premium”: Starting at $1299 for only a 2.0GHz processor, even with the much improved video performance, is weak. Comparing this to the baseline $999 Plastic MB, you’ll get a slower CPU, more RAM (which is dirt cheap now), and no firewire. It seems like a huge $300 gap for an extra GB of RAM, nice case, slower CPU and no FW. What was I expecting? At least a $1199 MB at 2.26Ghz, 2GB and the same features (minus the backlit KB) for the new MB “Premium”.

13″ Plasti-Mac: A $100 price cut? I guess I was expecting more ($899), but I was also expecting the rest of the MacBook line to not be nearly as expensive as they are, so I guess it fits in the lineup. I will say the Plasti-Mac looks downright ugly next to the new MacBooks, which will either drive people to the $1299 MB or just turn them off entirely.

Summary: Just when everyone expected Apple to cut prices to move aggressively target the notebook market and grow its share more, Apple increased the prices on the “entry level” Apple laptops, Plasti-Mac not withstanding. For now I’ll hold on to my money. I’ve been waiting for this specific notebook refresh since January 2008 when the plans for Montevina and the new Penryn mobile chips were laid out. I had planned on purchasing a new MB today and had even arranged to sell my old MacBook to my sister, and she’d sell her old PC to my dad. Instead I’ll be holding on to my money and waiting until Apple reduces the rediculous price premium, probably some time next year.