UK Student

[Todd234]

Hi, I'm a university student in the UK and I am looking to buy a Macbook Pro in the summer. I'm going to upgrade to full spec. My questions are:
1. Will I be able to order it from an Apple high street store using the Higher education discount?
2. Will I be able to order an upgraded mac from the high street store and get it delivered? I understand that they only sell standard models.

Thanks for your help.

 

[72930]

The HE discount is not applicable in stores.

 

[RevolutionOne]

You can use education discount in Apple stores, all you need is either your student ID or NUS card as proof. They will also ask for the post code of the university to check if it is on the list. If the the university is on their list you will get roughly 15% (last time i checked) off a macbook pro, if its not listed then its about 6% off.

The only options you've got in store to configure is the RAM which is very expensive, use crucial instead! You can also choose whether you want a matte or glossy screen. So pretty much standard configurations like you said. Some stores might carry a few of the 2.6ghz models occasionally.

The stores won't deliver either. What is the spec of the machine you want? Why wouldn't you just collect it on the day?

Another thing I would recommend is AppleCare. It's usually £279 but Apple do it for £58.75 for students which is an awesome deal

 

[chrispayne47]

The HE discount is not applicable in stores.

Incorrect I believe.

Last summer I bought my MBP with the full HE discount upon showing either my NUS/Loan Approval Form. They have a list of different universities behind the desk and seem to have slightly different discounts depending on what university you are at.

 

[Todd234]

Thanks for replying, the spec I want is:
15"
2.6GHz
4GB RAM
200GB HD 7200RPM

There's a phone number that you can ring on the apple site to use the discount so I guess I'll use that, I would have liked to see someone face to face though.

 

[bsheridan]

Apple HE discount is ~14% off the full price. Every apple product is available on the HE discount, so yes you can order any upgrade you wish.

Just note it is much cheaper (and realistic) to do upgrades yourself, it is really quite easy and there are loads of tutorials on the web. For instance apple offers an upgrade of RAM memory to 4GB for £200 with discount! But Crucial (a well respected make) offer 4GB for £65 at the moment (+ free shipping too)

What I would advise you to do is buy the highest processor MBP; 2.6GHz, and just stay with the baseline hard drive and ram, because apples prices are extortionate. You'll save a bomb doing it yourself.

The discount is also available if you buy in store, just show them your student ID, but I don't think you can buy without preordering custom made set-ups. Alternatively you can do it through the online store, which is the better choice, less hassle. Plus the online store did free delivery for my purchase.

Usually around the beginning of the new academic year apple offers little perks like 'buy a mac get a free ipod nano' so you might want to hold off until then until you buy.

B.

 

[Todd234]

Thanks for the advice, I might buy it complete from Apple to save messing around, even if it does cost more. I just really wanted to know if you can order customised models from instore and use discount, which it sounds like you can, so that's great.