Best Buy store a good place to buy an apple computer
Hello. First apple purchase was a 3G iphone. Now I'm going to buy an apple computer. My sony vaio P4 laptop, which i am typing on now, is near its end (hd has 500mb left) LOL!
Leaning toward buying from best buy store to take advantage of the 2yr no interest plan. Will purchase it tonight or tomorrow depending on the advice of my fellow forum members. If there are any problems with the imac (no fault of my own), can i visit the apple store or do i need to take it back to best buy? I plan on buying the low end imac model as it will be primarily used for:
Surfing the web
iTunes
Watching dvd's
Email
Also is the low end imac capable of running handbrake as I want to watch my dvd movies on my iphone ...and is it also capable of editing non-hd video or do i need to purchase final cut express.
As for the memory, will 1 GB suffice or do i need more for the above tasks? And any advice for an external hard drive? Looking for 1TB. Seagate, WD, Maxtor? Will store photos and videos of my young children. Thanks.
Leaning toward buying from best buy store to take advantage of the 2yr no interest plan. Will purchase it tonight or tomorrow depending on the advice of my fellow forum members. If there are any problems with the imac (no fault of my own), can i visit the apple store or do i need to take it back to best buy? I plan on buying the low end imac model as it will be primarily used for:
Surfing the web
iTunes
Watching dvd's
Also is the low end imac capable of running handbrake as I want to watch my dvd movies on my iphone ...and is it also capable of editing non-hd video or do i need to purchase final cut express.
As for the memory, will 1 GB suffice or do i need more for the above tasks? And any advice for an external hard drive? Looking for 1TB. Seagate, WD, Maxtor? Will store photos and videos of my young children. Thanks.
Comments
Hello. First apple purchase was a 3G iphone. Now I'm going to buy an apple computer. My sony vaio P4 laptop, which i am typing on now, is near its end (hd has 500mb left) LOL!
Leaning toward buying from best buy store to take advantage of the 2yr no interest plan. Will purchase it tonight or tomorrow depending on the advice of my fellow forum members. If there are any problems with the imac (no fault of my own), can i visit the apple store or do i need to take it back to best buy? I plan on buying the low end imac model as it will be primarily used for:
Surfing the web
iTunes
Watching dvd's
Email
Also is the low end imac capable of running handbrake as I want to watch my dvd movies on my iphone ...and is it also capable of editing non-hd video or do i need to purchase final cut express.
As for the memory, will 1 GB suffice or do i need more for the above tasks? And any advice for an external hard drive? Looking for 1TB. Seagate, WD, Maxtor? Will store photos and videos of my young children. Thanks.
The warranty is called Applecare for a reason, any problems, go to Apple.
One gig of ram is definitely not enough. Go with as much as you can afford. My MacBook Pro routinely uses 1.5 gig and i use it in the same way you do. Apple charges a lot for memory so I recommend going to Crucial.com to buy it and then install it yourself, its easy on iMacs
I would NEVER EVER, take Mac to Best Buy for service, for any reason, at any time, period. The Apple Store is the place for that. If you are buying AppleCare, compare the Best Buy price with Apple's own price.
The low end iMac display is not as good as the display on the 24" models. That might present a problem with your photography. As to ram, no, 1GB is not going to be anywhere near as useful, as 2GB, and if you're doing video work, then you'll want 4 GB. What you don't want is to buy extra ram from Apple. There are many excellent third party vendors that the same quality memory as Apple, with a lifetime warranty for much less money. Below is one great place to buy, you can get 4 gigs, that's 2X2GB modules, for $102. To get the best performance the memory modules should be matched, that is both modules should match. That means not using the 1GB that comes with the iMac.
http://www.datamemorysystems.com/
Good luck.
RAM is very inexpensive (as long as you don't get it from Apple [and probably Best Buy, I don't know]), just get as much as you can.
The iMac will have iMovie installed, which can edit both HD and SD stuff. Many people prefer the older version of iMovie, which can be downloaded here.
On the external HDD front, I think these are great. If you're going to be using the external drive as additional storage rather than just a backup of the machine's internal drive, you shouldn't even consider a single-drive external.
QUOTE]
AppleCare, from Apple, is $169 for three years, or $119, if you qualify for the education discount. Best Buy charges $199, and I wouldn't let them mow my lawn, let alone service any of my Macs.
I don't see a problem with buying the machine at best buy, just don't let any ignorant employees convince you you've made a mistake with your decision to go Mac.
AppleCare, from Apple, is $169 for three years, or $119, if you qualify for the education discount. Best Buy charges $199, and I wouldn't let them mow my lawn, let alone service any of my Macs.
Extended warranties are for mugs.
If you really want one, it's cheaper to buy it from a third-party insurer. At least, that's the case in the UK and I imagine it's the same in the US.
However, over your lifetime if you get an extended warranty on every electrical product you buy, you'll end up paying well over the odds overall. Take what you would have spent on an extended warranty and put that in a savings account instead. You'd have to be extremely unlucky for it to work out cheaper for you to have bought all those extended warranties rather than just paying for any repairs out of that savings account.
If you know what machine you want, I fail to see the problem getting it from Best Buy if they have more attractive finance options available.
What about Amazon.com? Do they have good offers on Macs at the moment?
AppleCare - I usually wait until 1 month before my free warranty expires to buy AppleCare. I upgrade my stuff to newer machines a lot, for no good reason. If you upgrade to a new machine prior to the end of your normal warranty, then you've bought AppleCare for no reason. However, that being said, having AppleCare on your machine gives it better resale value or at least helps it to sell quicker.
Don't buy the AppleCare from Apple, unless you cannot find it elsewhere cheaper. I usually pick it up on eBay for a quite a bit cheaper. For example, I just bought MobileMe for $31 on eBay.
Use a student discount to buy the Mac and get a free iPod. What? You don't qualify for a student discount? Sure you do. Just go down to any technical college, and register for any class. Basket weaving classes are usually about $13. That's money well spent. And, take the class. It might be fun. I did this just to qualify for Creative Suite 3 and ended up taking a Dreamweaver class. I had fun, learned something and even created a decent site (www.midwestbikerides.com/2009).
Extended warranties are for mugs.
If you really want one, it's cheaper to buy it from a third-party insurer. At least, that's the case in the UK and I imagine it's the same in the US.
However, over your lifetime if you get an extended warranty on every electrical product you buy, you'll end up paying well over the odds overall. Take what you would have spent on an extended warranty and put that in a savings account instead. You'd have to be extremely unlucky for it to work out cheaper for you to have bought all those extended warranties rather than just paying for any repairs out of that savings account.
If you know what machine you want, I fail to see the problem getting it from Best Buy if they have more attractive finance options available.
What about Amazon.com? Do they have good offers on Macs at the moment?
We are talking about iMacs here, not toasters, or dishwashers. Have you ever had an iMac repaired by Apple? I have, and it's not cheap, there's now way that the cost of AppleCare would have begun to cover it. I would not buy AppleCare for a MacPro, and I wouldn't buy an iMac without it. YMMV
Things in the UK are not the same as here.
We are talking about iMacs here, not toasters, or dishwashers. Have you ever had an iMac repaired by Apple? I have, and it's not cheap, there's now way that the cost of AppleCare would have begun to cover it. I would not buy AppleCare for a MacPro, and I wouldn't buy an iMac without it. YMMV
Clearly you do not understand what I'm saying. Yes, on the occasion that you have to get a repair done, it would have saved you money to get the extended warranty. It's all about the likelihood of a problem occurring. If you have a problem, it would have been cheaper to buy the warranty, and if you don't have a problem, the money you spent on the warranty was wasted money. On average, if you don't buy extended warranties you come out on top, including factoring the odd repair you'll have to pay for over your lifetime.
If you think a problem with an iMac is that likely, why recommend one? Shouldn't you try and buy something a bit more reliable?
Are you telling me it's impossible to buy extended warranties/breakdown insurance from third parties in the U.S.?
Clearly you do not understand what I'm saying. Yes, on the occasion that you have to get a repair done, it would have saved you money to get the extended warranty. It's all about the likelihood of a problem occurring. If you have a problem, it would have been cheaper to buy the warranty, and if you don't have a problem, the money you spent on the warranty was wasted money. On average, if you don't buy extended warranties you come out on top, including factoring the odd repair you'll have to pay for over your lifetime.
If you think a problem with an iMac is that likely, why recommend one? Shouldn't you try and buy something a bit more reliable?
Are you telling me it's impossible to buy extended warranties/breakdown insurance from third parties in the U.S.?
Last first. I'm telling you that I would not let any PC repairmen near any of my Macs. As for third party Apple insurance, that would be a company servicing PCs, and the uninformed Apple owners. Checking prices, nobody offers the same warranty as Apple for the same money, and none have the same level of service as Apple. Those are companies adding a service contract to a sales contract when they sell the Mac, I've never seen third party service contracts for Macs, nor would I buy one, if they did exist here.
I recommend iMacs because they're a good value, and will be enough computer for all but heavy video, or scientific apps. One of my BILs and I bought 3 iMac G5s a few years ago. 2 of the 3 had an issue with the power switch and power supply. I took mine to the Apple Store one afternoon, and had it back the next morning, completely repaired. My BIL doesn't have an Apple Store where he lives, and had to go to an authorized repair station, the local Apple reseller, and he didn't get his back for over a week. They had to ship in the parts. Both machines, his and mine, were well over a year old when this happened, and as it turns out, it was a fairly common problem with that model. There were also some heat issues with some of the G5 iMacs, that only showed up after prolonged use.
I just bought a new iMac in June, and yes, I paid the $119 for 3 years of AppleCare. If you don't want to buy AppleCare, then don't, but I will continue to recommend it for iMacs.
Last first. I'm telling you that I would not let any PC repairmen near any of my Macs. As for third party Apple insurance, that would be a company servicing PCs, and the uninformed Apple owners. Checking prices, nobody offers the same warranty as Apple for the same money, and none have the same level of service as Apple. Those are companies adding a service contract to a sales contract when they sell the Mac, I've never seen third party service contracts for Macs, nor would I buy one, if they did exist here.
I was also enquiring about third-party insurance. You pay an insurance fee; if something breaks, you get Apple to fix it and the insurance company reimburses you the cost. The insurance premium in these cases is usually cheaper than purchasing an extended warranty.
I recommend iMacs because they're a good value
Are they still "a [sic] good value" if you (apparently) have to purchase an extended warranty with them because they're almost guaranteed to break within three years?
Both machines, his and mine, were well over a year old when this happened, and as it turns out, it was a fairly common problem with that model.
Indeed. If it was that common, Apple should have extended the warranty on all iMacs for that specific issue as a matter of course. I can't remember if they did; I do know that when a similar problem hit early MacBook batteries, the warranty was extended on them.
Go back and read what I said
[quote}Are they still "a [sic] good value" if you (apparently) have to purchase an extended warranty with them because they're almost guaranteed to break within three years?{/quote}
Go back and read what I said, I'm not in the mood to repeat everything.
Indeed. If it was that common, Apple should have extended the warranty on all iMacs for that specific issue as a matter of course. I can't remember if they did; I do know that when a similar problem hit early MacBook batteries, the warranty was extended on them.
A fat lot of good that did for the people that had the problem early on, before Apple extended the warranty. I know that you think you know best how to spend my money, but, you must trust me when I tell you that day will never come.
I was also enquiring about third-party insurance. You pay an insurance fee; if something breaks, you get Apple to fix it and the insurance company reimburses you the cost. The insurance premium in these cases is usually cheaper than purchasing an extended warranty.
Go back and read what I said
That won't help me because you haven't said anything about insurance. You've talked about getting third parties to repair your Mac, I'm talking about Apple repairing your Mac and an insurer paying for it.
Are they still "a [sic] good value" if you (apparently) have to purchase an extended warranty with them because they're almost guaranteed to break within three years?
Go back and read what I said, I'm not in the mood to repeat everything.
Again, it won't help me to re-read what you said, because you've not addressed the question. If the iMac is so unreliable that an extended warranty must be purchased with it, is it still good value? Why are you so happy to buy such an unreliable product?
A fat lot of good that did for the people that had the problem early on, before Apple extended the warranty.
Presumably Apple refunded anyone who wrote them a polite letter about it.
I know that you think you know best how to spend my money, but, you must trust me when I tell you that day will never come.
You can spend your money however you like. But you are recommending to someone else that they should purchase AppleCare, I am presenting the other point of view that it (along with all other extended warranties) is a waste of money.
That won't help me because you haven't said anything about insurance. You've talked about getting third parties to repair your Mac, I'm talking about Apple repairing your Mac and an insurer paying for it.
Again, it won't help me to re-read what you said, because you've not addressed the question. If the iMac is so unreliable that an extended warranty must be purchased with it, is it still good value? Why are you so happy to buy such an unreliable product?
Presumably Apple refunded anyone who wrote them a polite letter about it.
You can spend your money however you like. But you are recommending to someone else that they should purchase AppleCare, I am presenting the other point of view that it (along with all other extended warranties) is a waste of money.
That's your opinion, I don't share it.
I have addressed everything that you asked, and you managed to gloss over it. It's not going to help by you attempting to put words in my mouth. You said iMacs were unreliable, I said that I wouldn't buy AppleCare for MacPro, or an iMac without it. That is my insurance, and the way that I will continue to handle my affairs. I sincerely doubt that any policy from an insurance company, should one be found in this country, is going to be as convenient, thorough, or inexpensive, as AppleCare.
You said iMacs were unreliable
Not at all. It's what you're implying by saying an iMac shouldn't be purchased without AppleCare.
Hopefully we can both agree that:
If the iMac were guaranteed not to go wrong, AppleCare would be a wasted purchase.
And:
If the iMac were guaranteed to go wrong, you'd be a fool not to buy AppleCare.
If you can't see that by stating AppleCare is a "must purchase" with an iMac, that that necessarily implies that you believe it to be an unreliable product, then I can't help you. It's a very simple exercise in logic.
I'm saying that I don't advise others to buy AppleCare, because I think Macs are reliable enough not to need it. That's not to say that any given iMac is guaranteed to not go wrong, it's to say that, on average an extended warranty is not a good buy and it's better to save the money (literally, put it in a savings account). Do that for any product you buy that has high replacement/repair costs and over your lifetime you will save a non-negligible amount of money.
Not at all. It's what you're implying by saying an iMac shouldn't be purchased without AppleCare.
Hopefully we can both agree that:
If the iMac were guaranteed not to go wrong, AppleCare would be a wasted purchase.
And:
If the iMac were guaranteed to go wrong, you'd be a fool not to buy AppleCare.
If you can't see that by stating AppleCare is a "must purchase" with an iMac, that that necessarily implies that you believe it to be an unreliable product, then I can't help you. It's a very simple exercise in logic.
I'm saying that I don't advise others to buy AppleCare, because I think Macs are reliable enough not to need it. That's not to say that any given iMac is guaranteed to not go wrong, it's to say that, on average an extended warranty is not a good buy and it's better to save the money (literally, put it in a savings account). Do that for any product you buy that has high replacement/repair costs and over your lifetime you will save a non-negligible amount of money.
I saw what you posted, and I replied in the manner that expresses my opinion. My opinion has been developed over my near 70 years experience at life in general, and close association as a member with AMUG, who shares my iMac advice, BTW. If your profile is correct, you were 4 years old when AMUG was founded.
<http://www.amug.org/>;
Your remarks on this are anecdotal, gleaned from your posts, mine are from experience. Having said that, I'm still not going to say that iMacs are unreliable, and I will continue to enjoy mine, along with my other Macs. Now you can slice that any way that suits you, but you are not going to get me to say what you want me to say, something that appears to escape you.
Here in the USA I have not seen any type of third party repair insurance like you appeared to be asking about. There are extended warranties offered by the merchants which most of us stay away from for the reasons you state. But I have not heard of any electronic parts repair insurance policies. IMO AppleCare is the best solution to this type of problem in the USA.
Mr. H, you and zinfella seemed to be talking passed each other.
Here in the USA I have not seen any type of third party repair insurance like you appeared to be asking about. There are extended warranties offered by the merchants which most of us stay away from for the reasons you state. But I have not heard of any electronic parts repair insurance policies. IMO AppleCare is the best solution to this type of problem in the USA.
How is that different from what I said?
I bought the extended warranty from Best Buy.
My iBook died. I got a MacBook.
My MacBook is dying - it's going in for service and if they can't fix it I'll get a new MacBook.
*shrug* It's been fairly easy for me to deal with.
How is that different from what I said?
Not any different, just trying to say the same thing with different words.
Like I said, you and Mr. H appeared to be talking pass each other and were missing what the other was saying. (I blame the "two people separated by a common language" affect.) Mr. H was asking about third party repair insurance (like Allstate offering repair warranties for Apple products) while you went on about in-store warranties. I have never hear of any warranties being offered by anyone without a stake in the original purchase (manufacture, seller or credit card company), have you?