216 cubic inches, 0.098 lb/cu in, 21 pounds. Aluminum is running about $1/pound. That sounds like $20 to me. I think they can find room to bury that in the price tag. You could spend around $200 to buy a single 12"x12" plate from a metal retailer on line, but I think Apple would buy in volume.
Actual volume of a macbook is 123 cubic inches, so it is even less.
I suppose I could be wildly wrong about the price of whatever alloy they are using.
That looks like the current scrap price. Its at about $.80 at this very moment, down from a high of $1.10 earlier this year.
Pure alloys (not mixed and cast by melting scrap), even common ones like 6061 still seem to be $5-$10/pound even in large quantities. If you know of a way to get 61 or 52 for less than that we would greatly appreciate the tip.
I just talked to an automotive manufacturer, ok, my brother. He is paying about $1.60 a pound for 6000 series aluminum extrusions. It was higher but is headed down.
The above manufacturer counts on getting 80% of the source price back for their scrap. So you can imagine if apple rough mills the bricks to remove most of the material as chips and gets 80% of the rate for those pounds of chips, then uses their exotic processes for the final work they will generate more valuable scrap, cutting their end cost.
The only way I can think of that this might possibly make economic sense is if they've figured out how to get the waste in the form of large cut-out chunks of metal, rather than chips that oxidize substantially, and can recycle it on site (presumably fairly straightforward, since all the scrap is known to be of the desired alloy composition already).
Actual volume of a macbook is 123 cubic inches, so it is even less.
I suppose I could be wildly wrong about the price of whatever alloy they are using.