View this article at: http://dev.macnn.com/articles/06/02/13/apple.charges.premium Monday, Feb 13, 2006 8:50pm Apple charges premium for M... Apple's MacBook Pro is nearly $1000 more than a similar Dell notebook (after using a coupon) or just over $400 without coupons, according to a blog entry at ZDNet. While the debate rages, the Dell Core Duo notebook offers a larger 17-inch screen, faster graphics, and a faster optical drive. "pple lovers will always feel that the extra money is well spent and they will always believe they have the superior product. PC shoppers with more realistic budgets will always prefer the cheaper product (with mostly superior specifications) that can run all of their existing software. The difference is that the latter will always outnumber the former by more than 10 to 1. Apple has always managed to charge a premium for their hardware because of superior branding and a diehard fan base, but they will always be priced out of the main stream. A lot has changed in the last year with Apple Macintoshes running on an Intel Pentium M platform (which I predicted), but the more things change the more they stay the same."