Following a slump in the cost of the NAND flash memory used to produce solid-state disks, Apple has decided to give a pleasant surprise to those in the market for an SSD-equipped MacBook Air by quietly cutting as much as $500 off the price for an SSD upgrade.

The 1.8GHz model equipped with a 64GB solid-state drive now costs 'only' $2,598 - down from $3,098. In addition, Apple also cut the price of upgrading from a 1.6GHz processor to a 1.8GHz processor on the base machine from $200 to $100. Needless to say the MacBook Air is still pricey, and despite the $500 price drop, the 64GB SSD still represents a $599 option that's likely out of reach for most customers.

It's always good to see prices coming down though. Hopefully, we'll more of this in the following months as a result of increased competition in the thin notebook market and ramped up production of solid state drives.