Australian pricing for new Macs

Apple has revealed Australian pricing details for the new hardware line-up it announced overnight in the US, with the vendor's new low-end MacBook laptop starting at AU$1299.

Apple's new Magic Mouse
(Credit: Apple)

The new MacBook (which sits under the vendor's higher-end MacBook Pro lines) has been outfitted with a new polycarbonate unibody design, an LED-backlit display and a glass multi-touch trackpad. The machine's standard specifications see it kitted out with a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard disk and an Nvidia Geforce 9400M video card. Various options are available to boost those specifications.

Apple has also updated its iMac desktop machines. They now come with a redesigned "edge to edge" screen and in an aluminium enclosure, similar to the vendor's MacBook Pro line. Starting price for the 21.5-inch model is AU$1599, with the 27-incher beginning at AU$2199. Apple will also offer step-up models for each screen size, coming in at AU$1999 for the beefier 21.5-inch model, and AU$2599 for the higher-end 27-inch iMac.

As for specs, Apple has mostly opted for raw speed over adding more processing cores. All but the AU$2599 iMac come with Intel Core 2 Duo chips, but the CPU speed in the lowest model now starts at 3.06GHz. That used to be the fastest chip available in Apple's previous highest-end iMac. The one exception is the AU$2599 iMac, which starts with Intel's most recent quad-core chip, the core i5 at 2.66GHz, and upgrade options for that model go all the way to the even faster Core i7 at 2.8GHz.

Other new iMac features are relatively straightforward for the systems themselves. There's no Blu-ray option, as was rumoured, but you do get an SD card slot on all new iMacs. The 27-inch version also lets you use its mini-Display Port input as a video input (via a dongle from Belkin), which means you can use the larger iMac as a second monitor. The GeForce 9400M remains the standard graphics chip, with upgrades available to Radeon HD 4670 and Radeon HD 4870 chips. Storage options go as high as 2TB on the 27-inchers.

You'll also find new peripherals in the box with a new iMac. Apple has made a wireless mouse and keyboard the default options, and both have received redesigns. The keyboard now has an all aluminium body, but the new mouse, dubbed the Magic Mouse, is far more interesting. The sleek, touch capacitive design behaves similarly to the trackpad on Apple's laptops.

Of course the standard two-button usage model works as you'd expect, but you can also simply drag your finger down the middle of the mouse to scroll up and down. It also supports accelerated scrolling, like the iPhone, along with a few gestures for lateral and 360-degree movement, depending on the application. The mouse will sell in Australia for AU$99 and will be available at the end of October.

Finally, Apple gave a nod to the Mac Mini. The core design remains the same for the most part, with a few minor tweaks to its CPU, memory and hard-drive capacity. The base Australian price of the machine is AU$1099. Far more interesting is the new server iteration of the Mac Mini. This model starts at AU$1399, and instead of a DVD burner, you get the Snow Leopard version of OS X Server, along with two 500GB hard drives.

All of these new products are available today, except for the Core i5-based iMac, which goes on sale in November, and the Magic Mouse, which will be available later in October.

Much of the details of Apple's new line-up came from CNET.com's story on the launch here.