So, if the new Mac Minis have MDP on them, it's another $99 on top to be able to "bring" your existing video display?

Great - another £70ish to use my 20" ACD!

$99 for a video adapter is highway robbery. Woopie, let's hear it for progress. I think Apple just changes these display connectors every few years so they can make a bunch of money on adapters each time they switch. If it was $50, it would be a painful pill to swallow but ultimately not a deal breaker; at $100, it really makes you stop and reconsider whether the new aluminum Macbook is worth the premium over the plastic one.

In the negative column, we now have lack of Firewire AND a $100 additional cost to hook up an external monitor (discounting the value of dual-link support, since just about no one uses a monitor large enough to use it). Add another $100 if you need to hook up a projector (VGA or composite/S-video adapter), and these negatives are really starting to add up. Apple would do well to consider the consequences of trying to get their margins on these adapters to the value proposition of the new laptops, especially as they still sell the older model without these expensive birthing pains.

Apple should either sell these things at or below cost until the scale is eventually large enough to start making money, or get several 3rd party manufacturers on board sooner, so there is competition right from the start. Finding out you need to spend another $100 to hook up your monitor after you've dumped a minimum of $1300 on a laptop just leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. It simply promotes the image of Apple's products as expensive and proprietary.

I think that people need to reread the article, this time for comprehension. That's $99 for a DUAL-LINK adaptor, to convert a Display Port signal to the DUAL DVI signal needed to run a $1,800 30" display.

Which, WiseWeasel, is somethng the "plastic one" couldn't do in the first place.

"Standard" DVI and VGA adaptor cables are just $29.

OK, nhmlco is correct; that's not that steep of a price. If the standard DVI adapter is $30, that's entirely reasonable, and the few people who DO need dual-link probably don't mind spending $100 on the adapter. For some reason, I missed the availability of the regular DVI adapter for $30. Mod my last post down to oblivion.

Now if they can resolve their performance issues with the Dual-link adapters, we'll be sitting tight:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/12/29/report-apples-mini-displayport-to-dl-dvi-problems-abound

Wow, that's nice. Apparently $30 is not that steep of a price in order to hook up your existing monitor to your computer. Or, Apple could have just thrown in the adapter for free, since most people have that video anyway.

Oh, right, that goes against apple's philosophy of removing features and adding them as external adaptors, and then charging for the adapters.

testudio, I hate those stupid free adapters Apple includes. At client location after client location, I have drawers and boxes full of them! I'm sure there are at least a couple banging around the trunk and back seat of my car.

Not everyone needs them, and including them with every Mac is just downright wasteful and dumb.