... is if you or someone you know can buy it in the states.

My mac came from a friends business trip, as did all my friends ipods/touches and nanos.

I'm no apple fanboy, they're good enough though but only when they are a reasonable price (like their dollar price).

"At that rate, by Christmas the SSD Air will be £194 cheaper still. Or offer more storage capacity. We'll surely know early in January 2009"

Unless I've worked something out wrong it doesn't seem like a big mark-up to me.

If I take the VAT off, the UK price in dollars is $221. (1/1.175 * 260)

Add on 8% sales tax to US price and it is $216. (1.08 * 216).

So thats $5 more, or 2.50 squid (2.3%).

All you're really paying for is the thinness. Apart from thinness, in terms of technology you can get all that's in the Air and so much more for a fraction of the price if you're not obsessed with Apple branding.

Took an axe to the PRICE did they?

Pity. For a moment there I thought you said 'the product'...

Even worse, Apple constantly slashing prices lately is going to have two inevitable results - the fashion victims will stop buying the products because, instead of being expensive and thus desirable they will have become cheap and therefor crap.

Faced with decreasing sales Apple will, in time, reach the point where they'll be paying people to take them away.

An environmental disaster of epic proportions will then ensue as fashion victims then abandon their Apple jewelery, unable to risk being confused with un-trendy poor people.

The ultimate outcome will be Stevie 'boy-wonder' Jobs being arrested on charges of environmental terrorism for being directly responsible for world wide pollution caused by the mass dumping of Apple products.

_______________________________

Oh hell, it IS Friday guys...

wait til you get to the airport and buy it from Dixons Tax Free. I can't believe I've just admitted to shopping at a DSG outlet, but they do knock off the equivalent of VAT...

Your diatribe shows you've patently only ever looked through plate glass at an Apple product with your tongue touching the window...

Jealousy is a bad thing to have.

As an aside - the Macbook is an overpriced proof of concept, but people want that kind of shit, much like you spend your life playing World of Warcraft.

(Note - I am not an Apple fanboy - I'm just open minded having used Mac, Windows, Linux, SVR4, VMS etc.. etc.. etc..)

Dude, you're comparing UK tax free and US with tax.

Comparing both tax free gives $221 and $200, so 10.5% markup, which is a fair whack.

In terms of technology, you can get all that's in the Air and so much more for a fraction of the price if you're not obsessed with thinness. And it still comes with the Apple branding and the thing most Apple users actually care about — the OS.

To others: what are the import duties like on equipment brought back from America? Or, ummm, the airport?

Nothing like seeing an Anonymous Coward fall flat on their face on a Friday afternoon!

As it happens, I'm typing this, as I typed the original, on my Mac. A 24" Intel iMac as it happens...

So, how come if I think Apple products are designed largely with fashion victims in mind? Well, horses for courses. I much prefer the user interface of OSX - now it's out of Beta anyway - and a few apps only run on X.

I am aware that you can get X (well Leper, Apple's Vista) to run on a PC, but I prefer to keep my PCs for serious stuff that requires raw processing power and decent graphics hardware, something even MacPros (which I'm very familiar with) don't seem to posses.

However, anyone with any sense of discrimination who runs and works on Macs knows very well that Macs are overpriced, rather poor value for money and full of 'ooooh! shiny!' design compromises that are solely designed to appeal to... fashion victims.

Though some of us do run them because of software requirements and the rather nice pre-Leper user interface.

So, that's why I wrote that little bit of satire. Sorry it went right past you, only pausing to trigger your latent Mac-fanboi tendencies :-)

ha! - 'leper' - i like it. just about sums up my experiences with 10,5.

Apple's Store has a Refurbished MBA (SSD) for sale at AUD3689 - Link is

http://store.apple.com/133-622/WebObjects/australiastore.woa/wa/RSLID?nplm=F0FS0X/A

The Store also has a new MBA (SSD) for sale at AUD3538 - Link is

http://store.apple.com/au/configure/Z0FS?mco=NzUyMzg2

Cheaper to buy new than refurb ... Hmmm.

Because pretty much everything is between 10% and 60% cheaper in the US. If you don't like it, emigrate...

... although, when you do, make sure you're still working for a British company and on a British salary, because Americans generally get paid less than us and don't have a free health service.

No, for the last time it's not the thinnest laptop. Apple have no right to claim it, why on gods earth are El Reg authors? You should know better than buying into Apple's "marketing".