When to buy and how to get the best price?

I'm thinking about getting a Mac, and had some questions that I thought maybe y'all can answer for me.

First, I have a hard deadline to get a new laptop by Aug. 23rd. If I don't have one by then I'm SOL because I'll be overseas until Christmas. Given this, when should I buy a Mac? How long does it take between ordering and receiving?

Second, I'd like to get the best price possible on the Mac. I realize there are student and developer discounts. If I went with the student discount I could theoretically sell the iPod Touch for $$, but I'd probably be too tempted to keep it if I went this route. Do they allow you to combine discounts? Coupons? Any price drops coming up? I can't really go with a refurb because I want a 7200 RPM HDD.

Thanks for your help!

 

i've never bought a mac, and don't plan to (because they cost way too much for my liking ), but i'd say you'd be spending a bunch of money on anything from Apple regardless of when you buy it.

 

i don't think there are apple coupons...

if you need a 7200rpm hard drive, you have to order it online. so you can still get the student discount. and the student discount w/ the free ipod is a lot better than the developer discount, so you should definitely go that way. buck up and sell the ipod if you don't need it, or keep it and enjoy it. either way, the value is higher.

apple doesn't do price drops. they have a target price and hold. they update their specs and do things like give away free ipods to keep everything at the same price tag.

well, thats not entirely true, but apple laptops have had static prices for years.

 

Why do you want a 7200 RPM hard drive? The performance difference between it and a 5400 RPM one is not dramatic, at least not enough to justify the added heat and power consumption that go along with it. If you're looking at a regular MacBook, it's easy enough to swap out the HDD (not so much on the MacBook Pro, though).

In any case, combined discounts don't happen, and Apple doesn't offer coupons. Your best bet would be to go with the student discount and free iPod if you want a new system, or go with a refurb if having something that's brand new isn't that important.

 

Hmm... as far as I've heard, RPM is relatively important. Anyone know the brand and/or model number of the drives Apple uses?

 

RPM is important for desktops for quick HDD loading. If you really want that in laptops, consider flash SSD hdds, not a 7200 RPM hdd.

 

My old Compal HEL80 had a 7200 RPM drive, but it ran hot and rather enjoyed devouring the battery. The 5400 RPM drive in my Mac is slower, but not by so much that the extra few seconds to load things is that much of a bother.

 

OH MY GOD THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR INSIGHT THAT REALLY HELPED!!
Anyway, do you live near an Apple store? If so you could just go pick one up and not have to worry about shipping. No price drops. And which mac do you want? If you want a macbook you can get one refurb and easily swap the hard drive yourself.

 

Here is the deal I got yesterday from the local apple store:

Macbook 2.1 GHZ 13.3" $999 (with student discount)
1 Ipod Touch 8gb $299
1 HP all in one printer $99
Tax $90
Total spent: $1490

Rebate for Ipod Touch $299
Rebate for the printer $99
Selling Ipod Touch on ebay for $250+shipping (I'll get $250 cash at the end)
Selling printer on ebay for $70

Money via sales and rebates: $720

Final cost of an Apple Macbook with 2.1 ghz processor $770.

Try getting a xps1330 with the T8100 for this price after tax and shipping.

Apple is not expensive if you know what to do.

 

I'm a bit of a gamer, so it needs to be the MBP, just the cheap one though. I want to play Spore with it when it comes out (yay for being Mac compatible!), but other than that I'll probably only need the graphics card for WoW and source games (yes, I'll need bootcamp for the source games, WoW has a Mac port though I believe). I'm a C++/Java developer, so I'll be making lots of random things with it. I tend to have a lot of applications open all at once so it's gotta handle that well.

That's an amazing deal alitunay, wish it could work for me! I might try selling the printer on ebay though I guess.

Anyways, I'm looking at the Mac because I want to try different OS's and I don't feel Ubuntu or other distros of Linux are quite up to muster just yet... that and alienware/dell comparable laptops are within $100 of the Mac now (That is, if you get an LED screen from Dell).

Thanks so much for all your help! Any advice on when I should get it? I keep seeing rumors about a MBP upgrade with Montevina, but no one seems to know when it's coming out.

 

If you need it, just buy it, especially if you can't just walk into an Apple store and pick it up. There's always better stuff around the corner, and you don't want to get caught in a perpetual waiting game. You should buy it with plenty of time to allow for shipping, if needed, and to get familiar with OS X, as well as set up Boot Camp and all your other applications.

 

troll.......

 

He's right you know, troll or no troll. But it's not a bad thing. It's Apple's pricing, and people buy it.

 

is it possible to swap hard drives in the MBP?

 

I switched about two months ago and there's two certainties I now know....

1) I will never buy a Windows machine again
2) I will gladly pay Apple's price again.....it's certainly worth it!!

 

It is, but it's rather involved. Google how to do it, there's lots of links available.

 

For the free iPod Touch, when's the firmware update supposed to be released and exactly what features does it bring? (besides allowing you to install 3rd party crap)

If Montevina is going to be too late for me, I guess the iPod update is the only thing I should wait for.