Apple Unveils First Sub-$1,000 MacBook

Apple (AAPL Quote) finally ended months of rumor and speculation about its laptop strategyTuesday, when it unveiled its first sub-$1,000 MacBook.

By cutting the price for the entry level, white plastic MacBook from $1,099 to $999, the firm is hoping to tap into holiday season demand, although there are still many cheaper options available for cash-strapped consumers.

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Steve Jobs: The Man, the Myth, the Turtleneck

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Apple CEO Steve Jobs also said at an event at its campus in Cupertino, Calif. that new MacBook Pros, as well as upgraded versions of the company's MacBook Air and MacBook, will use a graphics chip from Nvidia (NVDA Quote) that was not available in earlier versions of the notebooks. "This is huge," he said. "This is an amazing chip."

With Apple's stock falling dramatically during the recent economic downturn, Tuesday's event was seen as critical for the company's fortunes. The Internet has been rife with talk of notebooks built from a single piece of aluminum and new low-cost offerings.

The speculation before Tuesday's event was that Apple would come out with a laptop to compete with many other companies touting mini-laptop computers priced for less than $500. Among others they include Asus, Dell (DELL Quote), H-P (HPQ Quote), Lenovo, Intel (INTC Quote), and MSI.