Best Buy Ad: What Do You See?
Thursday, September 17, 2009 at 8:55AM 
We want to thank Best Buy for bringing us this tech Rorschach Test of sorts. Looking at this ad page, you will see the MacBook Pro listed at $1999. The second most expensive laptop on the page is a 17" HP for $1299. Right next to the MacBook Pro is a seemingly similar spec-ed Dell at just $629. Same drive size, same RAM, even a slot-load drive.
What are we looking at here? Is this a bad move on Best Buy's part to show only the $1999 MacBook Pro, rather than say, the $999 MacBook? Is this page proof positive for those who feel the "Apple tax" is alive and well? Does it serve Apple by painting it as a luxury computer?
Yes, there's build quality. Yes, there's Mac OS X. Yes, there's the whole user experience, but how do you get that through to someone who sees they can buy three Dell laptops for the same price as a MacBook Pro. Also worth nothing that after years of the "megahertz wars," ironically the MacBook Pro is the only model with an actual processor speed listed.
