Pulling the trigger – Where to buy a Mac – Tips for the best price and delivery

Once you have decided what Mac to buy, it's time to pull the trigger and buy it. Although Apple holds all their retailers to around the same price, there are still ways to get a deal.

Your first consideration is whether buying a used Mac will suit you. If you can still enjoy your Mac knowing someone else may have used it, you can find the best prices in the used market.

The next issue is whether you need the latest edition of the Mac model you want. Many times during the year, you can buy the previous model on clearance at a discount. This is often a good way to go if you are not looking for the most powerful Mac.

Your last consideration is which is more important to you: price or instant gratification. Often good prices are found by ordering out of state and avoiding sales tax, but you can end up waiting for slow, free shipping. Conversely, you might pay a little more at the local Apple store, but you can come right home with it and be using your new Mac that day.

Here’s a run down of the best places to buy your new Mac with some of the trade-offs involved.

Amazon – Amazon usually has the best prices on current Macs. They often offer a rebate and free shipping, and you probably won’t pay sales tax depending on where you live. The down side is you will have to wait for it to be shipped, which could be a while if you select the free shipping option.

Apple Web Site– Shop the Special Deals section of the apple web site for great discounts on certified refurbished Macs. These are as good as new and come with the same warranty. Down side: You also wait for free shipping and you will probably pay sales tax. The selection is also hit and miss. Bonus: You can also find older models on clearance by clicking on the Clearance tab.

Your local Apple Store – This is your best bet for instant gratification. They always have plenty of stock at list prices, but the secret is at the end of the month, they put out a sale table of all the items that have been returned and they can’t sell as “new.” This usually leads to a 10% or so discount. Chat up a sales person to find out exactly when they become available. Other bonuses: you can recycle your old PC or a friend’s for free with purchase, and you can have the Apple Geniuses help you get it set up (if you have time to spare). Down side: Sales tax, driving.

Your Campus Store – If you are a college student or any faculty member, you can get the education discount on a new Mac. It’s not much on the cheaper Macs, but it can add up if you are going high end. You can also get this discount on Apple’s store web site by clicking through to the education store.

Mac Catalog/Web stores – These outfits only can offer a few dollars off list price, but they will usually throw in a printer or extra RAM to entice you. They also offer clearance models from time to time. Down sides: many states pay sales tax, time/cost to ship.

Best Buy/Circuit City/Frys – The only advantage these big retailers offer is convenience. Their prices aren’t much better and their service is usually pitiful. Only buy here if you don’t live near an Apple store and you have to get it today. Down sides: Sales tax, driving, poor service.

Ebay – You can find both new and used Macs on eBay. The sellers range from small retailers getting around Apple’s enforced pricing to business liquidators to people like you to scam artists. Buy only from sellers with many previous sales, not purchases. I also suggest you only buy from someone local (you can specify that in your search). That way you can inspect the seller and your new Mac before buying and you save on shipping. Regular shipping on computers can be expensive. Down sides: time spent to close and win an auction, paying cash if picking up.

Universal tip: Pay with a credit card that offers both cash rewards and warranty extension whenever possible. Some credit cards double the warranty on purchases and you might as well get 1-3% cash back. That can add up to $10-50 or even more.

DIG DEEPER

Most of these retailers’ prices can be compared at a glance at Macprices.net.

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Your Comments:

factory refirbs are a great option, reduced price and same warrenty as new!

 charlie
 06/11/2007  at  08:52 AM

I bought my Mini through my company discount program and got another 10 or 15% off - also got the monitor (Dell) at a discount. Worked great.

 Phil
 06/11/2007  at  08:30 PM

when buying from Apple, you might also want to consider getting upgrades like RAM from another source. installing RAM is simple (even for the Mac newbie) so getting a deal from a third party might be something to consider when trying to get the most bang for your buck.

 rory
 06/12/2007  at  12:03 AM

I work at CompUSA and people call me iDan and I offer excellent service

but I see what your saying, im the only person in the store besides our ASC who knows Apple.

Its because I have a passion for the stuff!

cool site, keep it up!

 iDan
 07/14/2007  at  08:31 AM

http://WWW.MACMALL.COM best place to buy a new Mac. Generally give a little rebate, free shipping and tax free!

 Tyler
 07/14/2007  at  01:12 PM

If you're a college student -or- if you are faculty, staff, etc. for a college, university, or K-12 school then you probably get a discouunt from Apple. You can check the Apple Store online for it (from their main store screen, check for a link for 'Education' discounts. They move it around on the home page from time to time, it's usually in the margin of the page. Follow the link and it'll help you search for your school and take you to a store page that shows your discount pricing.

The Apple Store retail locations also honor the discounts if you bring your student ID or proof of employement with you.

 Tim
 07/14/2007  at  02:11 PM

Hi everyone, im living in the darkside and trying to go into the light but a have a problem, im a .net-java-oracle developer and need to continue with my job. Do i have some way to achive this?... i've hear about some packages like Parellel ans VMware that can emulate windows environment. Are they real alternatives to load windows and visual studio on a mac machine ? (im thinking on a macbook). Please, can you help me to finally abandon win and look the darkness from te light?.

Thank you all

George

 George
 09/03/2007  at  10:16 AM

George -

I run Parallels for my work to run a program called iRise and also Microsoft Visio, two programs that are not available natively on the Mac. I'm not exaggerating by saying for me, using Windows on my Mac actually makes Windows itself more bearable. I have not yet run across anything that I can't do in Parallels.

 Chuck Konfrst
 09/03/2007  at  06:25 PM

Hi George, I’ve been a Mac user full time now since December 2006 and I have never left Windows completely because as in your case I use it some times for work and gaming. I think my experience could help you choose correctly in this case and that’s what I intend with my response. When it comes to Windows you should think of your Mac as a great piece of hardware to run the Microsoft OS; if you have a powerful computer with a lot of RAM you could have not only Windows but almost any kind of OS running at the same time with you Mac OS X and not even notice that it’s been virtualized. For these options you can use Parallels or VM Ware Fusion, I have only 2 GB of RAM and I run Windows XP fast enough to work with Web Development and office tools as if it was native Windows. Nowadays Parallels support OpenGL and 3D acceleration for your video card and I’m almost sure that we would have that on Fusion pretty soon.

In the other hand you can have a really native installation of Windows in your Mac using Bootcamp; this is the easiest way ever to partition your HD and install a second OS in your computer. You just have to download the latest version of Bootcamp from Apple website, install it, execute it and follow the few steps.

 Juan González
 09/03/2007  at  07:10 PM

With this way you can run you copy of Windows in your Mac as if you were installing it in any other PC (any other great and beautiful PC of course). Now you should be able to do everything you do on a DELL for example. As in the virtualization option you will have a fully functional copy of Windows working.

If that is not enough you can install Windows on your Bootcamp only and use the virtual machine software to “load” that partition of your disk which contains Windows and use it without the rebooting part; so with only one Windows installation in your machine you can use it native or virtualized. I’ve tried and heavily used both virtualization software (Parallels and Fusion) and they’re both great. Parallels is a really more mature application because it has more time out in the market, but personally I prefer Fusion because it seems to move faster to me.

I hope this helps you some how in your choice and believe me, you can run Windows as fast as you want, you’ll love it because it brings the best of that OS when it is running in a mac, you’ll have a great piece of HW and you’ll get the best of both worlds in your hands. You’ll never regret that decision.

Best of lucks!

 Juan González
 09/03/2007  at  07:11 PM

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