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a-fine-mess

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Ok ladies and gents, I'm switching over (thank God!) to a MacBook this week. I am going to march right on down to my local Apple store and retrieve my birthday present with pride. However, I do have a question.

Has anyone used the personal shopping experience? I know what I want, but I'm wondering if it would be beneficial as a persona who has used Macs off and on, to go through the personal shopping ordeal? Or should I just skip all over it and get what I know I need?
 
I used the service when I bought my MB and I found it invaluable, though I had never used a Mac for more than a few minutes at a time at uni. The store was really busy so it was nice to have that guaranteed time to play around with the products and have someone to answer the questions I had. Although I knew more or less what I was probably going to buy, the personal shopper service basically just galvanised me and made me absolutely 100% sure that it was the right product for me.

I didn't use the service for my iMac but the store was virtually empty so we ended up having an impromptu chat with a couple of the staff instead, but you can't really do that at peak times!
 
When I purchased my iMac in December I used a personal shopper and I found it both helpful and useless. I went in knowing that I wanted the 24in. iMac, 3.06, but I left there with the 2.8mHz iMac. The guy told me that for what I was doing the 3.06 would be overkill and would not need that much of a machine. Only problem with that is when I left the store I was unhappy with my purchase. Even though the guy tried to save me some money I wanted the superior machine. So, I went back a few hours later and exchanged it.

If you know what you want I would say just go in and purchase without using the personal shopper. If I went in there the first time with what i wanted to purchase it would have saved me a trip back to the Apple store.
 
Ok thank you guys! I'll probably just head on in and grab it. I'm pretty new to Macs but I have the feeling everything they would tell me I already know for basic using.

Thanks again!
 
Thank you for the suggestion techound, but there are so, so, so many issues with my school's mailroom that I don't trust them for a second. The extra $100 gives me peace of mind knowing that I will pick it up harm free from the store and I don't have to stress myself over wondering why in the name of God my mail people lost it in a tiny room.
 
Yes so far since January, I am still missing three textbooks (totally $300) because the mailroom can't find them. They claim they were never delivered, except for the fact that I tracked them, and they were delivered. I most definitely DON'T want that happening to my MacBook. I also have to get everything off this laptop onto the MacBook so I can give my brother my current laptop. But yeah, the mail room staff sucks.
 
You mentioned school, are you a college student or faculty? If so, be sure and ask for the education price when you go to the Apple store. 😎 There is money to be saved by doing so and that might give you teh cash to buy something else!
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