Mac Book Pro 15-inch: 2.53GHz

Sunshine12

OH wanting to buy one. Is there anywhere you can get one cheaper than from Apple (not Ebay). Think Apple are quoting about £1650.

Thanks

Snooze

No. £1000 of that price you've quoted is just because it says 'Apple' on the case. The £650 is the actual value of the spec you're getting. Macs are a waste of money.

Hammyman

Snooze wrote: »

No. £1000 of that price you've quoted is just because it says 'Apple' on the case. The £650 is the actual value of the spec you're getting. Macs are a waste of money.

Seconded - from a Macbook Pro owner. I got the 13" Macbook Pro for £780. The performance/price is equivalent to other brands (not including bargain bucket ones such as Dell/Acer etc) , taking into account the aluminium unibody and 7hr battery life.

Marty_J

I'd love to find an i5 laptop with a metal unibody construction, an LED display, multi-touch trackpad, 9 hour battery life, back-lit keyboard, photo, video, music, website and DVD creation software, that's immune to 99.9999999999% of the viruses in the world and made a company with the highest customer satisfaction rating and the best customer service of any manufacturer, all for £650.

My credit card is right here. Hit me with a link and I'll buy it.

Anyhow, Apple's Refurb Store is the only place to consistently find Macs at a discount.

Sunshine12

Snooze wrote: »

No. £1000 of that price you've quoted is just because it says 'Apple' on the case. The £650 is the actual value of the spec you're getting. Macs are a waste of money.

He wants one so dont really think he will deviate from it. I think he likes the look of it more than anything else. He never uses the laptop he already has but is adamant he wants one.

Snooze

Sunshine12 wrote: »

He wants one so dont really think he will deviate from it. I think he likes the look of it more than anything else. He never uses the laptop he already has but is adamant he wants one.

Cheap Apples don't exist...

He's a pretty sad individual if he's willing to pay a grand extra just for the look of it, imho. My advice to you would be to talk some sense into him. :cool:

RobertoMoir

Snooze wrote: »

Cheap Apples don't exist...

Good value ones do though.

I'm on my 3rd apple laptop. The first one sold 2nd hand, after I had added a memory upgrade and had it for 3 years, for more than I purchased it new. The second one was sold after 3 years and sold for about 45% of what I paid for it new...

The one I have now I purchased at the end of 2008 or thereabouts... It still looks, feels and performs like brand new. I don't regret buying it at all and I expect when I come to replace it with a newer model I won't have too much trouble selling it to cover a decent portion of the price of the new one, either.

No, they're not cheap. But I think they're worth every penny - if you plan to use it properly that is. As the OP says the last laptop wasn't used then no laptop is good value if all it's ever used for is a door stop or a paperweight.

Scrilla

Sunshine12 wrote: »

He wants one so dont really think he will deviate from it. I think he likes the look of it more than anything else. He never uses the laptop he already has but is adamant he wants one.

Your OH needs to think clearly about how best to spend his money. I'm very pro Mac, but only for the right reasons. From what you say, your OH is wanting one for the wrong reasons.

If he really does want a "shiny Apple" to play with, consider an iPad. It'll have the shiny Apple logo on, it will do what he wants it to do (assuming on the rare occasion he uses a laptop, it's for surfing the web and smaller tasks rather than photoshopping for example), and it will cost a lot less than a MacBook Pro (£430-£700 depending on which one he wants) saving you money.

Bottom line: based on what you've said, your OH shouldn't be looking to get a new laptop, Apple or not.

littlepanther

If a laptop is what your OH wants then Apple does make sense. Forget the initial outlay and that similar windows computers are a lot cheaper. I have a five year old MacBook pro still working as it did when I got it. It has not slowed down and not needed any fixes. It has outlasted any windows laptops bought at about the same time.

Anyone with windows usually runs into trouble costing them for IT support and valuable time. Customer support from Apple is better than anyone else in the market.

Look at the overall picture and the cost over the lifetime of machine.

If you want proof just look at this forum, compare the number of threads with problems with windows and PCs with those having problems with Macs.

C_Mababejive

I am also an anti Macbook evangelist.

I know two peeps who both bought 14" ibooks.

I know they bought them for fashion,style,looks and bought into this thing of Macs being "easier to use".

Fast forward 3 years or so..one of them has packed up and the other is a regular source of frustration to the user. The broken one has been replaced with a windows netbook.

Whilst here i have my Tosh Sat A210-12U lappy bought 3 years back for £480 still working perfectly and doing all it needs to do.

Snooze

littlepanther wrote: »

If a laptop is what your OH wants then Apple does make sense. Forget the initial outlay and that similar windows computers are a lot cheaper. I have a five year old MacBook pro still working as it did when I got it. It has not slowed down and not needed any fixes. It has outlasted any windows laptops bought at about the same time.

Anyone with windows usually runs into trouble costing them for IT support and valuable time. Customer support from Apple is better than anyone else in the market.

Look at the overall picture and the cost over the lifetime of machine.

If you want proof just look at this forum, compare the number of threads with problems with windows and PCs with those having problems with Macs.

Absolute rubbish.

Everytime one of these discussions comes up the pro Mac brigade always use Windows as the excuse that supposedly makes Apple's far superior. This is just complete BS. There isn't any requirement for Windows on any machine you buy as a quick press of the 'format' button and an iso for a Linux distro instantly fixes that.

Windows PCs don't suffer any more problems that Apple's do either. The vast majority of the so-called problems you read about on the forums are PICNIC issues (Problem In Chair, Not In Computer). You only have to take a look on the Macbook forums to find that there is an equal amount of people with problems with them as well.

I will quite happily get into a p!ssing contest with you over reliability and "outlasting other laptops" if you wish. I have a fully working ThinkPad 760ED here which is nearly 20 years old. I've had it for at least 12 years and nothing has ever gone wrong with it except needing a new rubber nipple on the mouse which cost me 99p for 3 off ebay. :cool: Never had any problems whatsoever with my Compaq D31vm tower (~ 12 years old), nor my ThinkPad T61p and nor either of my Compaq 6720s lappies either (although in fairness one of them has developed a screen inverter fault, but that can be fixed for about £12 off ebay).

Meanwhile over on the macbook forums I am seeing threads about faulty screens, bezels falling off, boot problems, wireless connection problems, sound problems, and that's just browsing the first couple of pages :eek:.

It's just complete BS to say that Mac's are better than PCs/Notebooks. Both types suffer from similar problems are this is hardly surprising when internally they are the virtually identical to each other - the only difference is the casing and logo, and that is what half of the price tag is paying for. ThinkPads may not be particularly aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but they will out-do ANY Mac you put them up against in terms of reliability and build quality. They are the best laptops ever made and whilst not particular cheap, they're still cheaper than an equivalent spec Mac.