What is a really good price on the following MBP with student discount etc ?

15" MacBook Pro
Intel 2.16GHz core 2 duo
1 GB memory
120 GB hard drive
128 MB video ram
SuperDrive (read/write)
iSight camera
Mac OS X 10.4
iLife software
3-year Applecare protection

What would be a really good price on this, with student discount etc. ?
Excluding taxes.

 

That should be $1799 for the MBP and I think around $230 or so for the AppleCare.

 

With student discount and stuff ?

 

That's a very good deal.

 

Yes. $1799 is the price of the core MBP (it is regularly $1999). And AppleCare with the student discount is $239 (regularly costs $349).

It's worth noting that you don't have to buy AppleCare right away..... you can buy it at any time before the original 1 year AppleCare coverage expires. So if you want to buy the MBP now and the AppleCare extended coverage next year, it shouldn't be a problem.

Note this is just the pricing for the current MBP. Depending on what happens with the updated MBP's, some of this could change in the future, but I would expect pricing to be similar with the updated models.

 

I paid $2,038 and a $59 case plus tax and overnight shipping and it came to about $2,263 or something like that. I'll have to check my invoice, but REALLY spring for overnighting. It comes in FedEx overnight, and it's really convenient. Mine was on a plane 2AM on the day after I ordered it, ON NEW YEAR'S EVE!!! Still holiday shopping season, you know. Anyway yeah really spring for overnight shipping...especially since FedEx doesn't have permission to leave your $2k computer at the door without YOUR permission or your signature. And if you miss delivery, you should be able to pick it up at your neighborhood Kinkos.

Besides, Apple is not known to change their pricing too much. I suspect it'll be the same.

 

the student discounts are nice. My college gives us one. both on Dell and Macs. Obviously we use both at school. The macs for graphics and pc's for programming.

 

Yeah, same here, although my school doesn't use Macs at all sadly. Just Dells and IBMs.

 

So, um, $1500 for it would be a really good price ?

 

For a brand new one with a full 3 years of AppleCare? Absolutely, considering that is $538 less than it would normally cost.

 

Would 1500 be a good price for just the hardware (say if I plan on installing windows on it )?

 

I don't think it would be wise to buy a MBP simply for the hardware if your plan was to run Windows full-time. If nothing else, it would make a lot more sense to get a dedicated PC laptop that you know will have specific driver support, etc. (Apple does seem to be supporting the Windows drivers for the most part, but it's still not ideal compared to having a PC laptop).

I am pretty sure you could find a similar PC laptop that would have the same appeal to you, unless you just specifically like the 1" thick MBP form factor, small power adaptor, light-up keyboard, etc.

But I honestly just would have a hard time recommending it unless you planned to utilize OS X. It just doesn't make much sense to me otherwise.

 

Using just Windows on a MacBook Pro is a real waste, simply because Windows isn't as integrated with Mac hardware as OSX. Plus, battery life suffers a lot (2 hours compared to 5 hours when trying to get max battery life).

In any case, if you want a cheap MBP, go with refurbished. I bought mine about 3 weeks ago, and if I didn't tell people it was refurbished, they would have definitely thought it was new. Not a single visible scratch either plus a full 1-year warrranty. Also, you can get AppleCare at an academic price if you get the student discount.