Nerve Endings Firing Away

We made our first Mac convert today. Ash’s sis is in the U.S. now for her grad school. She will be joining Cornell for her PhD in Economics. She was in the market for a shiny new laptop and Ash after her experience with the iPad couldn’t stop singing praises of the Mac platform (and people call me a fanboy). Although her sister seemed impressed, she was dithering on the price aspect which can be a real hurdle since she was paying for it herself. But that’s where the education discount offered by Apple and back-to-school sales promotion comes handy.

She did some research online and was getting more ‘bang for the buck’ for PC laptops but the Action Shoes-Nike analogy was dropped. Also, I recommended getting a Lenovo (used three before I got a Mac) or a high-end Dell if she really wanted a PC. But both could only be bought online and worked against instant gratification needs. One visit to Best Buy ^[1] where she played around with the Mac sealed the deal. Much thought was spent on the warranty aspect. I believe in AppleCare but Best Buy was also offering accidental damage coverage which seemed enticing for the accident-prone user. But upon clarification, we were told we could buy the accidental policy separately for $99 a year otherwise it was $449 for three years including tech support and accidental damage. Geek Squad is not particularly loved on Consumerist hence I was a little wary of relying on them.

But here is the kicker. Best Buy may be a better place to buy a Mac product than the Apple Store. In addition to the $100 education discount to university students, staff, and faculty, Apple also offers a free iPod Touch (2nd generation) worth $199 free with the purchase of any Mac computer. But in order to get it free, you have to first buy it at retail value and send in a rebate form to be reimbursed. This takes anywhere between 6 to 8 weeks so unless you really want an iPod Touch, it is a freebie that most are not interested in but get it anyway. It is a nice way for Apple to get rid of previous generation iPods before launching new ones in September. However, Best Buy in order to match that offer gives you a $199 store gift card that you can be used instantly toward any purchase in the store. So after taking into account all discounts, her 13″ MacBook Pro cost her $974 including sales tax (original price $1199 plus nearly $100 in tax); just below her threshold of a $1000 dollars. To me, that was an awesome deal and I now wonder why didn’t I do that last year ^[2].

Footnotes:

1. No Apple Store in town and the local authorized retail store was closed on Sunday; talk about sacrificing business at the altar of religion [↩]
2. I hook my Macbook Pro to an external monitor most of the time anyway so the laptop screen size doesn’t really matter; a 13″ would do just as fine [↩]