talkingDigital

This is the first post from my new iMac. After much searching, I found that the best deal on a Mac is to get one from Apple directly.

Here are a few tips on how to get the best deal.1. Go for the refurb – typically, I would recommend staying away from refurbished items, especially electronics, but it is a little different with Apple. Refurb units come with exactly the same warranty as their brand new units.

The way I look at it, there is probably more risk of defect in a brand new unit than one that has been sent back to the factory and repaired. AppleCare is still available on refurbs as well.

2. Go for the education discount – Teachers and students of Apple-approved schools are eligible for great discounts on all units including refurbs. This brought the price down from a $1500 system to $1400 with the refurb then to under $1300 with the student discount. In the end, I paid just under $1350 for the Mac, tax and shipping (I paid $33 to have it shipped 3 day FedEx).

Of course, I am teaching for Mesa State College, so the educational discount was legitimate, but nowhere during the purchase did it ask me to varify my credentials. Weird.

3. Stick to what you really need – Apple makes their lesser products seem inferior when compared to their top of the line systems. Do you want 4GB of RAM or 16? OS X runs great on 2GB of RAM and, unless you store a lot of photos or do heavy video editing, you won’t even use 100GB of storage. Most Macs come with at least a 250GB hard drive.

Macs aren’t cheap, but they don’t have to be very expensive either.

I did buy some heavy software for it, but most people can get by with free software like OpenOffice, Gimp, Picasa, and the iLife software included on the system.