Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

First Time Buyer

R

RobbieL

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 15, 2007
52
0
Yes, it's true. I'm a Mac virgin. Been a PC user all my life, mainly due to a PC Gamer, but have always wanted to get into the Mac side of things. I'll keep my PC for all my games, but will use the Macbook as my main source of all things computer related.

Anyway, there are a few things I'd like to get clear before I take the dive I purchase a Macbook. Firstly, I'm a student in the UK currently studying at University. Now I noticed that Apple offer three seperate types of Educational discount. I'm not entirely sure which one I'm eligable for, but I'm assuming it's Higher Education. Is that right? Also, is there a big difference in the discount price each type receives?

Secondly, I've been hearing that Leopard will be making an appearence soon. I would like to get the Macbook sooner rather than later, but would it make more sense to wait till the release of Leopard before I make my purchase?


Thanks for your time, much appreciated.
 
Hi RobbieL, congratulations first of all on your decision to buy a Mac- you will not be disappointed- I switched ~1 1/2 years ago and have not looked back since. :)

The higher education discount is the one that you want to use (all educations discounts should be about the same).

Leopard is slated to be released sometime in Spring, but if you need/want a new MacBook now, I would not hesitate to pick one up. You can always upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) later (albeit for an additional charge). :)
 
You are eligible for the Higher Educational Discount. You will have to be either on your University netowrk computers or connected via VPN or something like that to get access to the actual page.

Now one knows when Leopard will be released, it was slated to be Spring 07 which is still at least a month and a half away. Many people were expecting apple to demo Leopard some more on the (the at the Keynote but there was no mention of it. Take from that whatever you want. The discounts are slightly different from Educational store to educational store (makes sense).

Bottom end Macbook £749
Bottom end Macbook £643.90 educational

Ram upgrade
2GB £170
2GB £146 educational
2GB £166 from Orcalogic

You get a big saving and despite what people say from my expierence with the Higher Educational store the ram is either cheaper or within £5 of 3rd party sellers so i think it is best to get the ram upgrade from apple.
 
AnDi86 said:
hey man your in the same boat as me!! i making the dive myself but i think i shall wait to leopard comes out and then use my higher ed discount!!
Click to expand...

You get the discount on Leopard as well.

Assuming same prices as Tiger*

£89 vs £58.75






*Some people think the absence of iLife information means that iLife will be included with Leopard, if this is the case expect a price increase, but shouldn't be more than £35 (current price of iLife with discount)
 
I can access the Education Discount from home and I'm not even a student. I just enter in any Uni and it gives me discount. Not a huge amount though.
 
Cheers for the speedy response, much appreciated.

It would appear that I can only access the Higher Education discount from a computer within my University, and since I'm sitting at one as I type I thought I'd have a look and see what the discount was. The standard Educational discount took the price from £799 to £750. But the Higher Education discount knocked a whopping £100 of it! God bless Apple! Makes me wonder what the Further Education discount is, though ...

Aslong as I'm not eligable for the Further Education, I think I might go ahead and make my purchase tomorrow.

Just out of interest, what level of education does the Further Education cover?
 
xUKHCx said:
You get a big saving and despite what people say from my expierence with the Higher Educational store the ram is either cheaper or within £5 of 3rd party sellers so i think it is best to get the ram upgrade from apple.
Click to expand...

Really? It's 3rd party RAM? Aslong as the performance isn't noticably low, that isn't a big concern of mine.

As for upgrading my RAM from Apple. Do you mean if I select more RAM when purchasing the Macbook, it'll most likely be Apple RAM instead of some 4rd party?
 
Amber said:
I can access the Education Discount from home and I'm not even a student. I just enter in any Uni and it gives me discount. Not a huge amount though.
Click to expand...

That is not the higher educational store, you can actually enter anything to get into that store, for example try "sxdsdfs"


RobbieL said:
Really? It's 3rd party RAM? Aslong as the performance isn't noticably low, that isn't a big concern of mine.

As for upgrading my RAM from Apple. Do you mean if I select more RAM when purchasing the Macbook, it'll most likely be Apple RAM instead of some 4rd party?
Click to expand...

You misunderstand me.

People usually say that it is cheaper to buy ram from somewhere like Crucial or OrcaLogic and install it yourself.

However with the higher educational store it is actually cheaper (see my numbers above) to upgrade your order at the time of purchase. It will be "apple" ram when you purchase it this way.
 
RobbieL said:
Really? It's 3rd party RAM? Aslong as the performance isn't noticably low, that isn't a big concern of mine.

As for upgrading my RAM from Apple. Do you mean if I select more RAM when purchasing the Macbook, it'll most likely be Apple RAM instead of some 4rd party?
Click to expand...

Apple has RAM (2GB for the Macbook) priced at $157, which is a very fair price. I'd just get it from Apple, then if there are any problems later on, they can't blame it on your faulty RAM.
 
xUKHCx said:
That is not the higher educational store, you can actually enter anything to get into that store, for example try "sxdsdfs"




You misunderstand me.

People usually say that it is cheaper to buy ram from somewhere like Crucial or OrcaLogic and install it yourself.

However with the higher educational store it is actually cheaper (see my numbers above) to upgrade your order at the time of purchase. It will be "apple" ram when you purchase it this way.
Click to expand...


Ah yeah, so I did. My mistake.

Well, seems I'm all set to go. Will probably make my purchase tomorrow afternoon. With the 3 day shipping, I should hopefully have it in time for the weekend.

Cheers for all the help folks. I'd imagine you'll be seeing me around these areas alot more soon. :)
 
xUKHCx said:
You get the discount on Leopard as well.

Assuming same prices as Tiger*

£89 vs £58.75






*Some people think the absence of iLife information means that iLife will be included with Leopard, if this is the case expect a price increase, but shouldn't be more than £35 (current price of iLife with discount)
Click to expand...

Hmmm you raise a very valid point... something to ponder this evening then
 
Sitting here in Uni, with my Debit Card out, ready to order my Macbook. Just one little thing I wanted to make sure before I buy it.

Is jumping from the standard 512MB to 1GB highly recommended? It's £643 with 512mb, and £687 with 1GB. I'll be using it for mundane tasks, such as web browsing, chatting etc ... along with Uni and web development work. Will the jump to 1GB help with these tasks?


Cheers,

RobbieL.
 
Well, I finally did it. The Macbook has been purchased, and I'm awaiting its arrivial.

There is one thing that does slightly concern me, though. When I ordered it, the confirmation page stated it would somewhere between 3-7 days delivery. But when I just checked there the delivery status, it says that the estimated delivery date is the 31st January.

I understand that is an estimated date, but even so, it's a fair way off there "3-7 days" delivery they claimed when I bought it. For all those that have purchased an item from the Apple store before, is their estimated delivery date usually that for ahead?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back