Best place to buy a Mac?

ericengland33

ericengland33

Active member
I've been a PC user my whole life. I'm really ready to switch over to a Mac since I want to get more familiar with FCP and I'm about to attend school. I was wondering if buying a Mac was like buying a camera and you have to watch out for grey market type products or anything like that?

If so, where are the best places to buy Macs at a good price? Thanks guys! (Hope this is ok in this section).
 
Pricing on mac's is pretty much universal where ever you go, so it doesnt really matter. (im sure someone here will post a reason to go to the apple store)
 
Where are you located? There are some differences between macs in different parts of the world (mostly keyboards and localization), but really, otherwise, no. There are no "grey market" macs, except in areas where there's no or minimal official mac support (f.ex. India).

If you are in the U.S., I think the best place is Amazon. Amazon has the best rebates, and it is a respectable and reliable site. Furthermore, you most likely won't have to pay taxes (unless you are unlucky enough to reside in one of the few states with Amazon physical presence, such as Washington). Most of the time, shipping is free through Amazon. The only limitation of Amazon compared to the Apple online store, is that you can't do BTO, meaning you can't request special features, you only get the stock machine - but guess what, that's totally sufficient, especially for a newbie. I always buy through Amazon.

I would strongly urge not buying used macs. The reason is simple: you get extremely little discount. Macs are notorious for high resale value (I've seen idiots on Ebay and Craigslist pay more for a used mac than a new one). At best you'll save a tiny fraction and you'll have a used product on your hands with shorter warranty.

Things to keep in mind: as soon as you get your mac, order more RAM memory - but not from Apple - Apple's memory prices are way too high. Go to a good site, locate your model of mac, and buy cheaper memory. Here's one good site I always use:

http://www.datamemorysystems.com/

OS X is a very memory hungry system. If you can afford it, max out your RAM.

That's about it! Of course, I'm sure you'll want to accessorize, depending on what you'll use your mac for (f.ex. film/video editing), but you can get to that once you have your mac in hand.

Good luck!
 
The best place by far to buy a mac is at an educational institution! As stated above, mac prices don't vary a lot by vendor, but students, teachers, and other academics have access to great discounts. If you're affiliated with any educational institution (or know someone who is), that's the way to go.
 
Yup. Apple.com/store for edcuation is a great place. Macmall.com offeres rebates on most macs as well. I use the apple store with a student discount on my yearly desktop and laptop systems.
 
Thanks for all the input and responses! Do you know what grade level the discount for educational applies at? I know a few teachers, but most of them are with kids.

Also, I live in Arkansas.

Thanks again!
 
At the mac store with a student ID a fake student ID or an expired one will work (at least in toronto). Hell, just show them your video card and tell them it is a student card.

Student card+no tax.

-rook
 
mikkowilson said:
Whaaa?? Isn't all computer support in India? :huh:


- Mikko
Click to expand...


No, Apple computer support is in America, they were going to open a big Apple center in India, but pulled out at the last minute.
 
SomewhereinLA said:
No, Apple computer support is in America, they were going to open a big Apple center in India, but pulled out at the last minute.
Click to expand...


That's actually not true. They had apple support in bangalore india
 
There's no place to get good prices on Macs.

When shopping for PC stuff its easy to go online and purchase just what you need for the best price, I suspect that's true for Macs too but since I didn't know that much about Apples warranty and after market products I did a little of both, shopped online for the best price and then had an Apple certified reseller match the price and install it. That way I know its covered under warranty.

I shopped online and there really wasn't much of a difference in prices between Apple.com and online distributors. Eventually after shopping around I purchased my Mac from a local integrator - Mac Hollywood. However, the prices for upgrades through Apple were way too high, when I asked Apple [and others] about purchasing after market drives, RAM, monitors, etc I got a lot of conflicting advice. At the Apple store they told me it voids the warranty others said that was not the case.

So after shopping around for the best prices for the peripherals I wanted I took the list to Mac Hollywood and they matched the price.
 
the apple refurb store. go to the apple online store and look for the red "save" icon on the middle right hand side. its updated every morning m-f with new items.
 
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