Buy at Apple Store, or MacMall?

2

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 41
    lfe2211lfe2211 Posts: 507member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Soul_Survivor View Post


    I just ordered my 24" iMac with 2 GB RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive.



    I'm so excited.



    Congrats! Apple ,Mac Mall or other?



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by icfireball View Post


    Retailers like MacMall usually throw in shitty deals like, "Buy a mac and we will give you a FREE PRINTER!! OMG!"



    What they don't tell you is that these "free" printers have tiny ass ink cartridges which you have to pay through the nose to replace every time they run out. LAME.



    Icy, I rarely ever print to paper anymore. Except for days like yesterday (IRS day), almost everything gets printed to a PDF file. Saves a lot of trees, no need to pay for overpriced ink cartridges and reduces clutter.
  • Reply 22 of 41
    kingmekingme Posts: 70member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lfe2211 View Post


    Icy, I rarely ever print to paper anymore. Except for days like yesterday (IRS day), almost everything gets printed to a PDF file.



    You use Acrobat or something else?
  • Reply 23 of 41
    lfe2211lfe2211 Posts: 507member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KiNGME View Post


    You use Acrobat or something else?



    Acrobat Writer on the Wintels, built in PDF printer on the Mac. Recently, I've been using the PDF function in Papers , a great little Mac App for us scientists.
  • Reply 24 of 41
    kingmekingme Posts: 70member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lfe2211 View Post


    Acrobat Writer on the Wintels, built in PDF printer on the Mac. Recently, I've been using the PDF function in Papers , a great little Mac App for us scientists.



    There's a BUILT IN PDF printer on my MacBook Pro?! COOL!
  • Reply 25 of 41
    lfe2211lfe2211 Posts: 507member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KiNGME View Post


    There's a BUILT IN PDF printer on my MacBook Pro?! COOL!



    Yeah King, it's a Mac! Despite the lack of software for Macs, you don't have to fork out $100 for Acrobat writer as you do on an XP Wintel.
  • Reply 26 of 41
    I ordered the computer from the Apple store.



    It's the 24" iMac with 2 GB of RAM, 500 GB hard drive.



    I've already ordered 2 Fantom 500 GB external hard drives (Firewire) to go with it.



    I want plenty of room for my projects.
  • Reply 27 of 41
    lfe2211lfe2211 Posts: 507member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Soul_Survivor View Post


    I ordered the computer from the Apple store.



    It's the 24" iMac with 2 GB of RAM, 500 GB hard drive.



    I've already ordered 2 Fantom 500 GB external hard drives (Firewire) to go with it.



    I want plenty of room for my projects.



    Cool. Welcome to the party.
  • Reply 28 of 41
    kingmekingme Posts: 70member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Soul_Survivor View Post


    It's the 24" iMac with 2 GB of RAM, 500 GB hard drive. I've already ordered 2 Fantom 500 GB external hard drives (Firewire) to go with it.



    1. Welcome back from the dark side!

    2. Can I borrow your bank account for a while?! You definately have more cash than I have and you need!



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lfe2211 View Post


    Yeah King, it's a Mac! Despite the lack of software for Macs, you don't have to fork out $100 for Acrobat writer as you do on an XP Wintel.



    Actually, I think it's more. A few months ago I bought a PDF writer (that actually lets you edit a PDF file) for something like $89 and I thought it was a bargain.
  • Reply 29 of 41
    FYI, if you purchase products from online stores, they dont charge sales tax inless they are in your home state or if they have any outlets in your state. Techincly you are supposed to clam this on your tax return but I dont think most states have anyway of finding out or dont care if its not a substantal amount of money.



    Apple charges sales tax online because they have outlets (Apple Stores) in almost every state. If your state doenst have an Apple Store, then they cant charge you sales tax.
  • Reply 30 of 41
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MacSuperiority View Post


    FYI, if you purchase products from online stores, they dont charge sales tax inless they are in your home state or if they have any outlets in your state. Techincly you are supposed to clam this on your tax return but I dont think most states have anyway of finding out or dont care if its not a substantal amount of money.



    Apple charges sales tax online because they have outlets (Apple Stores) in almost every state. If your state doenst have an Apple Store, then they cant charge you sales tax.



    Apple can charge sales tax if they aren't in your state, but they cannot be required to do so unless they do have a presence.



    Use tax is required for out of state purchases that aren't charged sales tax, but as you say, it is hard to enforce. As such, my state has a very low cost amnesty program so you aren't asked to track the items under $1000 each. I am supposed to declare use tax for items over $1000, but outside of a car, which is taxed on title transfer instead, that issue hasn't come up yet for me.
  • Reply 31 of 41
    icfireballicfireball Posts: 2,594member
    Go to Alaska!



    No Sales tax!



    W00t!
  • Reply 32 of 41
    .... No spamming ....
  • Reply 33 of 41
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Soul_Survivor View Post


    my 24" iMac with 2 GB RAM, and a 500 GB hard drive.




    didn't realize Apple still had any refurbs after all this time.







    Quote:
    Originally Posted by KiNGME View Post


    There's a BUILT IN PDF printer on my MacBook Pro?! COOL!



    in Tiger if you do print preview it uses PDF and you can do a save as to keep a copy. or in leopard there's a 'save as PDF' function in the print window
  • Reply 34 of 41
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post


    in Tiger if you do print preview it uses PDF and you can do a save as to keep a copy. or in leopard there's a 'save as PDF' function in the print window



    Yes, it's very nifty. It really cuts down on paper use and improve organization, or at least make it easy to find.
  • Reply 35 of 41
    sequitursequitur Posts: 1,910member
    Going to your site and clicking on the following button sends me to the Apple Store which tells me that the price is the same as if I didn't activate the "Activate Button". I see no "storewide coupons and promo codes." What's the trick here?



    Activate Coupon

    8% Off + Free Shipping

    Up to 8% Discount for Students, Teachers with Free Shipping
  • Reply 36 of 41
    clioclio Posts: 1member


    Buy from Apple if you want to latest hardware. Buy from MacMall if you want to save some $ but don't care to get the latest.


     


    I bought a 15 inch MacBook Pro with 768 GB SSD from MacMall in July/2013. For what appeared to be the exact same specs MacMall was about $3,000 and Apple about $3,500. The obvious choice was to go with MacMall.


     


    Unfortunately, my Mac Book Pro runs really hot even if I watch just 10 mins of YouTube or even go to a web site with lots of ads or animation. A colleague bought a similar machine from Apple and did not have the same issue. We actually ran a side by side test running the exact same video and mine got a lot hotter.


     


    Upon further investigation we found that my MacBook was built Mid-2012 and his was early-2013 even though we bought it about the same time. We also found that Apple had made two hardware upgrades between Mid-2012 and Early-2013 presumably correcting some of the heat problems.


     


    I presume that MacMall is able to offer better price by selling older unsold inventory. It would have been ethical of MacMall if they had mentioned this fact. I would rather pay more than buy year old hardware.

  • Reply 37 of 41

    Apple Store.  If you buy at MacMall, they will hold the shipment until multiple "Account Execs" phone you telling you that you should upgrade, you should add on xxxx item, etc.  It's a total upsell approach and these Acct. Execs have the power to hold your order, even after "credit" has already submitted for payment to you bank (as indicated by checking your cc account).

  • Reply 38 of 41
    akacakac Posts: 512member

    I've bought many a Mac at the Apple Store and at MacMall. I've never had them call me for anything other than a verification of who I am. Last time I bought two MBPr on Monday and got it on Wednesday.

  • Reply 39 of 41
    marvfoxmarvfox Posts: 2,275member

    Never heard of this before at any Apple store.

  • Reply 40 of 41

    This is a really really late reply, but hope this helps someone who is looking into buying from mac mall.  I bought my macbook pro retina 13.3 inch from mac mall on Black Friday and got it for $1000.  Was super happy about the saving.  The laptop came, it was great.  Looked good worked good everything good.  Then I ordered a case for it, and .... the case didn't fit.  I thought it was the case, but it turns out my macbook pro is only 12 inches in length.   Like I feel so ripped off right now.  IDK if apple even  make a 12inch version.  SMH.......   now I gotta spend a lot more time and energy trying to return this and finding one to buy at a good deal.       Disappointed!!!  

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