Recommended changes for the Buyer's Guide

[mahonmeister]

Before I started coming to Mac Rumors really often, I used the Buyer's Guide to get a general idea of what products where currently a good buy. It was very useful and I got a great overview of the Apple's products. I think some changes could make the guide even better though.

A few ways in which the guide could be improved:
-Split the iPod section into three sub-sections: video iPod, iPod nano and iPod shuffle. One section starting with the original iPod and ending with the video iPod. One section starting with the iPod mini and ending with the current iPod nano. And lastly one for the iPod Shuffle. The U2 iPod would be included in the video iPod section.
-Include the PowerBook and iBook into the history of the MacBook Pro and MacBook respectively. The Mac Pro section includes the Power Mac in it's history because they are clearly the same machine, just with a different name. The MacBook is clearly the replacement of the iBook and same with the MacBook Pro/PowerBook.
-Include Apple software in the Buyer's Guide. iWork, iLife and the other consumer apps. I don't think the pro apps need to be included because of their nature. Perhaps even the operating system versions here too.
-Other products like Airport, iSight, iPod Hi-Fi might have one section total that shows when the product was introduced and some info on them.
-Information about the education discount and refurbished products included in the introduction to the guide.
-Perhaps a list of trusted vendors.

What do you think? Anything else you would change?

 

[WildCowboy]

The Buyer's Guide is in the process of moving over to the Guides section where people can edit the Wiki version of it. This has been a long process, and I'm not sure what the status of it is.

 

[miloblithe]

I wouldn't include iLife and iWork, because they get updated once a year in January. Other than that, sounds like a bunch of good ideas.

 

[mkrishnan]

-Perhaps a list of trusted vendors.

Depending on any commercial issues involved / Arn's opinion, some sort of testimonial section for online vendors might be really good.

 

[mahonmeister]

The Buyer's Guide is in the process of moving over to the Guides section where people can edit the Wiki version of it. This has been a long process, and I'm not sure what the status of it is.

That sounds like a good idea. Will there still be a dedicated tab to the Buyer's Guide like there is now? I've viewed some of the guides and they are helpful but short and incomplete. The buying guide is an important part of this site, imo, because many of the people who go here are interested in purchasing a computer in the near future. As such, I personally would like to see the dedicated section for it stay, even if it is just copied from the wiki section. Perhaps I'll try and build some basic wiki skills and help out. The only thing I've done is change a letter on a Wikipedia article. I imagine there isn't much to it.

Thanks for the input. Cheers.

 

[WildCowboy]

I think that's one of the issues...the new page within the wiki Guides is distinct from the one on the tab. But since the URL of the one on the tab is widely linked around the web, they're trying to figure out how best to link the two versions together. Would the tab just be a summary of the longer wiki version or should the tab URL just forward to the wiki page?

I haven't been in on these discussions, but I've seen mention of some of the issues. So again, I don't really know where things stand right now.

 

[Eraserhead]

The buyers guide tab just needs link to the wiki, if you want to add the pages to the wiki for these hardware/software products feel free to. Creating new catagories, Pro Software, Hardware Accessories, Consumer Software, is probably best.