Macbook Pro prices?

[TheStoat]

Morning everyone!

OK, so I've made up my mind that I want a Macbook Pro rather than a Wintel offering. I've had a search and bookmarked the "useful apps" thread and noted that the refurb section on the Apple site offers reduced prices for Macbook Pros. Is this the cheapest place to buy from? Sadly I'm not going to the US in the near future and while life is a "learning experience" I'm not *technically* in education either so I'm stuck with the more usual purchase options

I'm looking at a 15" rather than a 17" for portability. I want it to be a keeper so I'm aiming for the 2.33GHz, 2GB RAM, 120GB disc version with 256MB graphics card. I'll be using mail, office type applications etc but the most strenuous task will be processing my digital photos, hence the extra disc space, memory, CPU. At the moment this would set me back £1,429.00 from the refurb section. Any advance on that my learned friends? I'm more than happy to go searching for prices if any gurus can suggest alternative sites

Thanks for any suggestions,

Andy

[bobthemonkey]

Do you know any students - the uni edu. discouont works out about the same as refurb, but its three, rather one years of warantee.

Alternativly, if you have any contacts stateside, take advantage of the exchange rate.

[HiRich]

Apple have a pretty good control of retail prices, and the retail margins are minimal. Apart from the refurb store, your options are limited, though you should look for bundled deals (e.g. a printer or MS Office), and might browse resellers (Cancom, PCWarehouse, ComputerWarehouse, etc.) for their own refurbs & deals.
The one area you might do better is RAM. Apple charge a lot for extra RAM. Take a look at Crucial.com. You might even find that it is cheaper to ditch the stock RAM and buy the full 2GB from Crucial than it is to upgrade at source.

[TheStoat]

Cool, cheers for the heads up guys! I had forgotten about the three years warranty. I'm certainly getting the "controlled retail price" vibe at the moment. I'll keep sniffing around the various sites for refurbs etc...

Andy

[jamieboy]

Or if you don't know a student then I'd buy the machine from John Lewis where they give you a two year warranty instead of one, and I'd agree with getting the RAM from Crucial. In fact, I did exactly that a couple of months ago.

[TheStoat]

More cunning ideas! I knew it was a good idea to ask questions here

/runs off to browse the John Lewis site

[robbieduncan]

Even if you are not going to the US anytime soon are you flying anywhere? Dixons have tax-free shops at some airports (Heathrow and Gatwick for sure) and you can phone them up and ensure they will have what you want. The do sell Mac laptops (or did so in the past). The amazing thing is that you can get tax-free prices no matter where you are flying: even domestic.

[olf]

The Dixons airport option is a winner. Also would suggest www.dabs.com.

They'll do you a brand new one for 1639 including the 2gb RAm but doing a buy now pay Jan 08 so 9 months interest free.

[Mr Beckerman]

if you go through quidco.com you get a 3% (before VAT) 'cashback'. (Even works on the education store )

[robbieduncan]

olf said:

Also would suggest www.dabs.com.

I'd recommend never buying anything from dabs. Last time I tried (a G4 PowerBook) they advertised stock within 3 days. 2 weeks later when they still had not shipped my laptop and were still advertising a 3 day lead time on their website (fraudulently) I tried to contact them. Of course you can't phone them. Or email them. So I filled in the form on their website and it did some laughable "recognition" of my text (basically it matched a single word) and mailed me back a totally unhelpful and irrelevant suggestion which a link to follow if this did not help. I followed the link and was returned the the same useless form.

So I contacted Trading Standards and then suddenly they did actually have customer services and they were able to phone me. By some miracle (despite their website saying they were 3 days away from getting stock) they had just sent me the laptop. So I rejected it when it arrived as I had purchased one in the mean time locally.

Then a year later their credit company started chasing me for payment on the credit I had signed up for (why not, 12 months interest free is worth it even when you have the cash to pay now). Of course as I had cancelled the contract this was a mistake. Fortunately the credit company did answer their phone. They were very helpful and not surprised: dabs had failed to cancel thousands of agreements correctly.

So basically useless muppets all round.

[olf]

Whereas my experience was exactly the opposite.

[keith46]

Here are few items found on this site, (www.smartratings.com/search/macbook%20pro/item/Search). There's not much but I think it can help even in a very small way. Good luck.

[TheStoat]

Just a quick note of thanks to everyone who chimed in on this thread

In the end I have gone for the buy now pay later option of Dabs.com. I'll let you know if I get any hassle from them on the delivery etc!

Cheers,

Andy

[TheStoat]

Well I was duly warned so I'm not too disappointed. At this stage I have just cancelled my order for a Macbook Pro from Dabs.com

I placed the order and went for the "buy now pay later" option. Went through to the credit people to prove I'm not a chav/nutter/poor person and I'm charged £25. No mention of that before...

Carry on and submit the finance info. Email received the next day from the finance house confirming I'm elligible. Dabs.com moves the order status to awaiting info. Apparently my details don't quite match what they have on their records (I've used them before though?) Next day I get an email requesting cardholder address, cardholder name etc to confirm the details submitted to the finance people. OK, fair enough, details sent. Their email also asks that I amend the account details at Dabs.com to match these details. Why do I need to email them as well then? OK, I do this and wait...

Email comes back asking if I still want to place the order as the goods can only go to the cardholder's address. Well it's been four days now and I'm no longer working at the northern office, I'm back home again. "Yes please" I reply. Next day the order status moves to "awaiting processing". And that afternoon an identical email arrives asking me to confirm my cardholder details...

So on to the online chat I go to try to work out what the real order status is. Can't help. You can only contact the security people via email. Perfect. Can you just tell me if they are expecting more information or if there is some other action required on my behalf? Nope. Genius. The security people don't tell me what the problem is but instead send me a standard email twice...

Fortunately you kind chaps have already provided me with a list of alternative sources for the Pro and some superior prices too

I've had good and bad experiences with Dabs.com in the past and this is not the worst. I think I've officially given up on them now though. They appear to be victims of their own success...

On the plus side it looks like another rave review for the peeps on Pistonheads

[TheStoat]

One final post and then I'll shut up. I promise

I'm posting this on my new Macbook Pro - popped in to John Lewis in Reading yesterday and I haven't looked back since! A big thanks to all who have contributed to this thread and the many others on getting started with a Mac. It really is simple to get set up on a Mac and I'm so glad I did.

Thanks again chaps,

Andy