There’s something about comparing the prices of Windows PCs and Macs that makes otherwise cool and collected people–Windows and Mac users alike–become profoundly emotional and partisan, until steam shoots out of their ears and their eyeballs turn bright red. You can see this passion crop up in some of the comments on Ed Oswald’s two recent posts on Microsoft’s new “Lauren” ad comparing 17-inch Windows laptops to the MacBook Pro.

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Apple last week introduced a pair of very nice notebook computers that, not at all surprisingly, looked like riffs on the MacBook Air. The company in a separate announcement released 600 high-definition television episodes through the iTunes Store. This week Apple will reportedly release new 20-inch and 24-inch iMacs, also for the Christmas season. Two weeks, three announcements, but what strikes me is what won’t be announced–the big surprises that are missing. What happened?

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Despite a raft load of nifty new features, Apple’s new Mac notebooks will have a hard time moving off store shelves during the economic crisis, industry analysts say. “There will be a lot of people looking at a lot of stuff at the Apple Store, and they’ll probably come out with [iPod] nanos or shuffles,” said Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies. “That’s what people are going to feel like they’re going to afford this year.”

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I’m sitting here in the parking lot on the Apple (AAPL) campus in Cupertino outside Building 4 on Infinite Loop, waiting for this morning’s unveiling of updated Mac laptops. The event should get under way around 10 a.m. PDT. Expectations are that the company has redesigned the MacBook, adopting aluminum casing similar to the Air. Analysts anticipate price reductions across the line with low-end model pricing dropping below $1,000.

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If you’ve been following the latest Macworld 2008 news, you probably heard about the signs that have been hung at the Moscone Center that say “There’s something in the air.” There is much speculation as to what that might mean, but according to Brighton-based “Internet junkie” Aral Balkan, that something is a flying MacBook Pro.

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