Next week, Apple is turning its attention to their notebook line, which has been wanting for a while. The Cupertino, CA company issued invitations on Thursday to media and analysts for an event to take place on Tuesday. The invitation, shown to the left, hints that the event will focus on the Macintosh portable computer line.

It will take place next week, at 10 a.m. PDT in Cupertino. Several select media personages have been invited to provide live coverage of the event. They represents websites like Engadget, CNET, VentureBeat, Digital Daily, Gizmodo, Ars Technica and several more, so be sure to tune in to their websites for on-site information.

The two biggest rumors regarding the new laptops are that for one, they’ll be constructed using an all-new spiffy technology called “brick” which uses lasers and very price jets of water to cut notebook cases from a single block of aluminum. The new models are said to be more resistant, slimmer (about time for Apple), and more cheap to fabricate. Some however say that the outer cases will still be plastic, with only the insides being crafted from aluminum.

The other whisper going around is that Apple is going to release one laptop below the $1,000 price mark. The most circulated figure is that of $800. Given the current economic troubles such a laptop may well be the only one that apple will sell in any significant numbers in the near future.

Another hint is that Apple is going to introduce an ultra-portable computer as a replacement for the current 12" PowerBook. According to a report by AppleInsider, there will certainly be a 15" MacBook Pro, and they have the pictures to prove it.

A more affordable line of Macintosh computers would be well in line with the aggressive price cuts that have been a staple of the industry of late, and would probably give investors more confidence in Apple’s stock, which has fallen to levels unconceivable a few months ago.

Apple Macintosh, the company’s computer line, is an essential branch of the company. Although it has expanded to areas way beyond computers, in the quarter that ended in June $3.6 billion of Apple’s stock came from computers. That’s 43% more than the same period last year. Notebook sales amounted to about 61% of that.

Even if one of the new Apple laptops were to sell for as little as $800, it would still be above the price of some of competitors’ full-featured PCs, which sell for around $450, and even as low as $399. The company has to take that into consideration when the mainstay of its sales is based on the North American and European markets, which are some of the hardest hit by the economic recession.