My iBook success story in 1 act
I have a wild story for you. This is pretty cool. Just happened last night.
Prolog: Been looking for years for a killer deal on a small iBook. Tried wheelin' and dealin' with friends, refurbs, eBay, etc. Never could lock one down. Couldn't quite find a nice laptop that was right for me. Until now.
Cut to me, Kansas City, Last night: I stumbled into a MicroCenter here in KC on a rainy Sat PM. I never have luck with them and tend to feel that their prices, while lower than CompUSA, are hit-and-miss. Well, usually.
So I go to the Apple Mac section, and I see the usual iBooks and PowerBooks. I expect to see the usual $1100 iBook G4, but I notice an extra iBook 900 MHz G3 12" on display too, and I ask about it. These were replaced in October 2003 by the new iBook G4. They retailed for up to $1299 at the time, and go for almost as much now on eBay. Of course, the sales guy was a little flaky, but not bad. He was helpful, and was on my side. Good guy too. I ended up getting a lucky deal! They happen to have 5 iBooks left that were part of a bigger Apple Education deal. I guess they were from a "Educational deal that went south" to be more precise, according to the MicroCenter manager, and they were all "custom" (?) Apple configs with full 1-year warranties. They also had an Epson printer combo deal for free. This was an actual Apple-Epson promo, not a lame MicroCenter the usually painful mail-in-and wait-voodoo-rebate (I hate those). Here's what I got:
900 MHz iBook G3. One of the fastest G3s made. Not a G5, but hey, come on.
40 GB Toshiba ATA hard drive. Big enough for me.
12" LCD @ 1024x768. I expected at least 1 dead pixel, but the screen is imaculate! Not a single boo-boo. Sweet. There is hack on the Net for this iBook to power my 19" external LCD monitor and the iBook LCD at up to 1280x1024! Cool beans!
ATI Radeon 7500 AGP 2x 32 MB video card. Not bad for a laptop. and it runs Apple's Quartz Extreme 2D/3D APIs!
New iBook case. Its the crisp white composite case and Titanium chasis, not the older plastic iBook design. It's actually the same design as the new iBook G4s. They look identical.
Suprise! Voila'! Airport card (802.11b) installed free. I fired up my iBook right out of the box and BAM! It "saw" my Airport LAN at home. I didn't specify I wanted Airport (and it wasnt mentioned on the box's specs, so I called the sales guy at MicroCenter back and told him about the "mistake" and he said "Oh yeah, some of them had Wi-Fi dude. Congrats." Free Airport?
RAM: Since the Airport was "beefed up" by Apple, I decided to check the RAM config...Whoo-hoo! It should have been 128 MB, but it was doubled! 256 MB RAM (128 on-board and an extra 128 free installed) I wish it was more, but it was free! No complaints here. I scored again!
Sony Combo drive (CD, CD-R, and DVD): tray-load (wish it was slot-load, but no biggie). Combos are sweet.
Plus the usual compliment of ports:
USB 1.1
FireWire 400
10/100
etc
Another bonus: Even though the iBook came with 10.2 (Jag), Apple gave me a free copy of Panther with the iBook (taped to the outside of the box). I didn't notice it until I got home! Score!
Inital cost: $799!
And I used my MicroCenter credit card and got ANOTHER $100 off at the cash register!
New cost: $699! Ching!
And I had a $40 MicroCenter gift card from Christmas I forgot about, so I used it too! I didn't think they would let me but the Manager said I could.
Final cost: $649! Yowza!
Now, the free Printer:
I totally was not looking for a printer at all, even though my printer at home is slow, loud and kind of yucky. But...
I was able to buy the iBook and get a great printer free. Not a crappy $29 Lexmark printer but a nice, fast and VERY quiet Epson C84 USB 4 color (CMYK) inkjet printer. It was valued at $100.00. When I got it home I was totally impressed on how fast and quiet it was. I have never heard such a quiet printer. Another perk: The inks are in seperate tanks, so if you run out of cyan, you don't have to thrrow out your yellow just to refill it. The inks are also very bright and water-proof too! It had ink and cables too. No hidden costs. The printer is silver and has cool tinted compartments. I am never impressed with consumer USB printers, but this is damn cool. I love it. Its worth $100 I bet.
Did I score or what?! I never have this good of luck!
So, bottom line: I got a new pimped-out iBook and printer for $649. I am very happy. It seems fast for my needs and very portable. I love it. Besides an extra AC adapter and maybe a 512 MB DIMM, I am good to go!
Prolog: Been looking for years for a killer deal on a small iBook. Tried wheelin' and dealin' with friends, refurbs, eBay, etc. Never could lock one down. Couldn't quite find a nice laptop that was right for me. Until now.
Cut to me, Kansas City, Last night: I stumbled into a MicroCenter here in KC on a rainy Sat PM. I never have luck with them and tend to feel that their prices, while lower than CompUSA, are hit-and-miss. Well, usually.
So I go to the Apple Mac section, and I see the usual iBooks and PowerBooks. I expect to see the usual $1100 iBook G4, but I notice an extra iBook 900 MHz G3 12" on display too, and I ask about it. These were replaced in October 2003 by the new iBook G4. They retailed for up to $1299 at the time, and go for almost as much now on eBay. Of course, the sales guy was a little flaky, but not bad. He was helpful, and was on my side. Good guy too. I ended up getting a lucky deal! They happen to have 5 iBooks left that were part of a bigger Apple Education deal. I guess they were from a "Educational deal that went south" to be more precise, according to the MicroCenter manager, and they were all "custom" (?) Apple configs with full 1-year warranties. They also had an Epson printer combo deal for free. This was an actual Apple-Epson promo, not a lame MicroCenter the usually painful mail-in-and wait-voodoo-rebate (I hate those). Here's what I got:
900 MHz iBook G3. One of the fastest G3s made. Not a G5, but hey, come on.
40 GB Toshiba ATA hard drive. Big enough for me.
12" LCD @ 1024x768. I expected at least 1 dead pixel, but the screen is imaculate! Not a single boo-boo. Sweet. There is hack on the Net for this iBook to power my 19" external LCD monitor and the iBook LCD at up to 1280x1024! Cool beans!
ATI Radeon 7500 AGP 2x 32 MB video card. Not bad for a laptop. and it runs Apple's Quartz Extreme 2D/3D APIs!
New iBook case. Its the crisp white composite case and Titanium chasis, not the older plastic iBook design. It's actually the same design as the new iBook G4s. They look identical.
Suprise! Voila'! Airport card (802.11b) installed free. I fired up my iBook right out of the box and BAM! It "saw" my Airport LAN at home. I didn't specify I wanted Airport (and it wasnt mentioned on the box's specs, so I called the sales guy at MicroCenter back and told him about the "mistake" and he said "Oh yeah, some of them had Wi-Fi dude. Congrats." Free Airport?
RAM: Since the Airport was "beefed up" by Apple, I decided to check the RAM config...Whoo-hoo! It should have been 128 MB, but it was doubled! 256 MB RAM (128 on-board and an extra 128 free installed) I wish it was more, but it was free! No complaints here. I scored again!
Sony Combo drive (CD, CD-R, and DVD): tray-load (wish it was slot-load, but no biggie). Combos are sweet.
Plus the usual compliment of ports:
USB 1.1
FireWire 400
10/100
etc
Another bonus: Even though the iBook came with 10.2 (Jag), Apple gave me a free copy of Panther with the iBook (taped to the outside of the box). I didn't notice it until I got home! Score!
Inital cost: $799!
And I used my MicroCenter credit card and got ANOTHER $100 off at the cash register!
New cost: $699! Ching!
And I had a $40 MicroCenter gift card from Christmas I forgot about, so I used it too! I didn't think they would let me but the Manager said I could.
Final cost: $649! Yowza!
Now, the free Printer:
I totally was not looking for a printer at all, even though my printer at home is slow, loud and kind of yucky. But...
I was able to buy the iBook and get a great printer free. Not a crappy $29 Lexmark printer but a nice, fast and VERY quiet Epson C84 USB 4 color (CMYK) inkjet printer. It was valued at $100.00. When I got it home I was totally impressed on how fast and quiet it was. I have never heard such a quiet printer. Another perk: The inks are in seperate tanks, so if you run out of cyan, you don't have to thrrow out your yellow just to refill it. The inks are also very bright and water-proof too! It had ink and cables too. No hidden costs. The printer is silver and has cool tinted compartments. I am never impressed with consumer USB printers, but this is damn cool. I love it. Its worth $100 I bet.
Did I score or what?! I never have this good of luck!
So, bottom line: I got a new pimped-out iBook and printer for $649. I am very happy. It seems fast for my needs and very portable. I love it. Besides an extra AC adapter and maybe a 512 MB DIMM, I am good to go!
Comments
There's no such thing as a good Apple deal in the UK. Stores don't seem to have the same promos that I always hear are going on in the US
Congrats, tho
iBook 900 mghz G3
256 MB Ram, 60 GB HD, Combo drive and Airport....$799 plus the free C84 printer. Bought the same for my sister except 40GB drive.
As you said, not the latest and greatest, but perfect for their use. Surfin, email and iPhoto stuff.
Enjoy yours, they are enjoying theirs.
great deal, i will let you shop for my car, can i score a new 1yr old leftover lexus for like 12k?