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Apple is now selling its super slim MacBook Air for $2598, down from the $3098. The cut was the result of a cut in price for two of the MacBook’s components. The Intel Core 2 Duo processor upgrade for the Air’s 1.8GHz was reduced to $200 from $100. The second reasons being that cost of the Flash memory based 64GB SDD drive upgrade to $599 from $999, That’s nearly a 50% slash of the original price. Oh and my be the sales of that particular SKU were not no hot… Now, customers may now configure a 1.6GHz MacBook Air with a SDD Drive starting from $2398.

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A forum poster over at Macrumors has posted photos of a fake iPhone that’s close enough to the real hardware that you might believe it at first glance. Its proportions are off, the screen’s not wide-sized and there’s a mini-USB connector instead of an iPod dock one, but even the packaging is mocked-up to look Appleish. The UI is glossed-up to look very real, with some differences of course. And sure, you can imagine it would be not so sweet to operate… but you can’t argue with the look of the thing. Steve’s famous “start your photocopiers” call has gone a lot further than Redmond. Wonder how soon we’ll see photocopy iPhone 3Gs?

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Razer has released its Aurantia gaming keyboard that will target only the China market, so it won’t be available anywhere else on an official basis. This gaming keyboard comes with a red backlight color in a relatively small package measuring 446mm x 205mm x 29mm, featuring a removable wrist rest attachment, the ability to record macros while storing up to 10 game profiles within. The Windows key which gets in the way of a frantic gaming session often can now be disabled. Each Razer Aurantia keyboard will be accompanied by a Razer Salmosa mouse, retailing for approximately $60 when it arrives in China sometime in the middle of this month.

Apple’s latest iPhone 3G will be more profitable than any other product in its line-up, which includes iPods, Macs, and iTunes. Despite a price tag that is half of the previous iPhone, the numbers of markets targeted around the world are a major contribution to the company’s success.

Reducing the component cost helps the new iPhone to exceed the 50 percent level achieved by Apple’s most popular media players, according to a preliminary study by research firm iSuppli Corp. “Apple’s iPod and iPhone products typically are priced about 50 percent more than their (materials and manufacturing) costs,” iSuppli said. “With the new iPhone sold at a price of $199 and the estimated subsidy of $300, Apple will achieve an even higher margin. ISupply estimates manufacturing costs for Apple’s new high-speed iPhone totaled $173, compared with $265 for the original iPhone, released one year ago for about $500 with no subsidy. After what it called “component price reductions,” the initial iPhone carried a cost of $226.

Wireless phone carriers are expected pay a subsidy of about $300 to Apple for each of the new iPhones, iSupply said. Note that this is another important factor which would contribute to Apple’s Profits. The cost estimates don’t include software development, packaging, shipping or included accessories like headphones. The phone will go on sale in 21 other countries on July 11, at varying prices, all subsidized by carriers.

On the other hand, The BlackBerry Bold 9000, the latest addition to Research In Motion Ltd.’s (RIM) BlackBerry smartphone arsenal and its first with 3G support, won’t hit the streets until the next couple of months, opening the door for the Apple iPhone to get its 3G device into users’ hands first. According to a Wall Street Journal report, phones based on the Android software won’t hit the market until roughly the fourth quarter, mostly due to Google’s 30 plus partners having trouble hitting deadlines. Google had initially projected that Android-based devices would hit the market around the second quarter. The Android delays put another arrow in the 3G iPhone’s quiver, since its Apple will have its 3G device in the hands of the smart phone hungry public before Android-based devices reach the market.

Motorola has quietly started shipping three new Linux-based “PDA” phones. Available now in China, and also approved by the FCC for use in the U.S., the MotoMing a1600 and a1800 are higher-end versions of the popular a1200, while the a810 adds a lower-end Ming model.

The new Ming phones succeed Motorola’s highly popular Ming a1200 (pictured at right), which sold a million units in Q2 2006 alone, according to a Canalys study. Although officially distributed only in Asian markets, unlocked a1200s have been a staple on eBay with U.S. buyers for years, due to their richer smartphone feature package than Mot offers in its Linux phones for the U.S. market.

The new MotoMing a1600 and a1800 both support GSM/GPRS phone service (850/900/1800/1900MHz), with EDGE class 10/12 and GPRS class 10. There is no 3G support, however, nor is there built-in WiFi. The a1800 adds two extra SIM slots that offer dual-mode functionality for flipping between GSM and CDMA networks. As with the Ming a1200, the two phones are targeted primarily at China, but are also said to be aimed at South East Asia, India, and EMEA.

The a1600/a1800 clamshell design measures 3.8 x 2.0 x 0.7 inches and weighs a little over four ounces, according to Motorola. The 2.4-inch display offers 240 x 320 resolution, with 262K colors, and includes handwriting optical character recognition (OCR), along with a business card reader. The 3-megapixel camera includes an 8x digital zoom mode.

To support the AGPS/GPS component, Motorola includes a “turn by turn navigation application,” as well as one or two city maps that can be loaded from a CD via a computer and the phone’s built-in micro-USB port. The Java ME-based phones are said to be compliant with CLDC (connected limited device configuration) and MIDP (mobile information device profile).

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Macrumors noticed that the latest beta of iTunes 7.7 seeded to devs includes this note: “Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.” Beta 8 of the SDK has also dropped.

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