Apple Macbook buying advice sought

O

Oakhill Horn

250+ Posts
We are buying my daughter a new 13" Macbook Pro for college. We are trying to decide between two options for purchase:
1. Direct from Apple
2. From Best Buy.

Background:
We plan to get the 13-inch: 2.26GHz, 2gb RAM, 160gb HD.

Apple is running a promotion for a free (after rebate) 8gb iPod Touch. We can get the student discount of $100. We can also open up an account through Apple for a Visa card with 12 months no interest.

Best Buy is currently running a promotion for an 8gb iPod Touch free instantly with purchase of the Macbook. The computer will be $100 more, due to not getting the student discount. However, I have an inactive BestBuy account that we can utilize to get 18 months no interest.

We would prefer to stretch this purchase out as long as possible, rather than pay up front. Would we be better off to go directly with Apple or buy from BB? Assume we stretch to 18 months. Then I would assume the BB deal is better.

Thanks in advance to you HF financial wizards for advice.

As a side note, would anyone advise bumping up the RAM to 4g for $90 and the hard drive to 250gb for $45 dollars more?

EDIT:
Also forgot to mention sales tax...
Through Apple it is 9%, at Best Buy it is 10%.
 
I recommend the HP DV2. Ultra portable laptop. 3.8 pounds, < 1 inch thick. And $550-650 in price. You can buy 2 for the price of 1 Apple. 250-320GB HD, 2-4GB RAM. Single or dual core processor. Black or white too.

DV2

DV2
 
Fortunately, most Apple buyers realize that you get what you pay for and in the case of most Apple products, more.

The 13" MacBook Pro is a fantastic machine. Excellent choice for a college student. The free iPod Touch is also a sweet product. Amazing what you can do with it that has no relation to music.

I'd go for the Apple deal to save the $100 unless stretching the purchase out for an extra 6 months is more important.
 
Good choice on going with the Mac. You really do get what you pay for.

Sounds like paying it out over time through BB is what will work best for you, so do that. It's a nice option to have.

For a student's machine, I think 2 GB of RAM should be plenty. If she's going to be doing advanced photo or video editing, go with the extra RAM -- otherwise I don't know that the cost is justified. Same with the hard drive. 160 GB is quite a bit of storage for a student and should be adequate for several years.
 
FYI, the DV2 won 2009 best laptop at CES this year. Macs are great machines but they are also very expensive. I wouldn't buy one for a college kid.
 
The DV2 may be a nice machine, but it has to run Windows which is its Achilles Heel. Why would you want to burden a college student with all the issues that come with that? Besides, what college student doesn't want to be cool on campus with a new MacBook Pro and iPod Touch?

BTW, check with your homeowner's insurance. You may be able to register the laptop against loss due to theft. There are also modestly priced programs available to track a lost or stolen laptop such as LoJack. I don't care where you go to college or what laptop you buy, theft is a concern.
 
just got a 13 inch mbp. it's my 5th mac, 2nd mbp (2 desktops, 15 inch mbp from 2006 and 13 inch black mb - only one not working due to water damage) what is it going to be used for? i wouldn't think adding the ram would be noticeable for regular use.

one thing i would suggest, get apple care. the deal on the 13 mbp is different than the regular mbp and it's cheaper.
 
I bought the HP DV2 a couple of weeks ago and am very impressed so far. I run Vista 32 on it but cannot wait for Windows 7 to come out. I am consistently getting 4hr + battery life.

I understand many people are Mac people and that's great. I am throwing out another option.
 
Thanks for the input, everyone. My daughter is a singer/songwriter. She has wanted an Apple for some time. She has had a couple of friends that have Macs and she liked messing around with Garage Band. I haddownloaded some similar programs for Windows for her to do some recording, but she did not like them.

We promised if she earned at least a full-tuition scholly that we would buy her a Macbook. TheFied, I am still a little averse to the intial cost of Apples, at least in terms of the machine specs. However, I am justifying the expense due to the user interface (At least, that's what the Apple fanboys have convinced me to do
wink.gif
) I will look into your suggestions for a replacement machine we are looking for at home.

Now for you Apple experts...
Does her recording up the ante on the memory or HD? My first thought was go with the basic system and upgrade later. I know the upgrades looked fairly easy on the plastic Macbook, but am not sure about the new smaller unibody MBPs. I could get 4g of memory for about the upgrade price, then I could still have the original modules to sell. Same thing for the hard drive. However, I am not sure how much I could get for the salvaged parts or if it would be worht the effort.

Honestly, one of the higher end MBP models would serve her well for future recording and other endeavors, but we are not prepared to spend that kind of money right now.
 
you can shop around for the RAM chip upgrade and EASILY do it yourself. You may save $15-20 doing it like this.
 
Overlooked the recommendation for Apple Care. Do y'all really think this is necessary? I thought the Apples were supposed to be pretty bulletproof in terms of quality, as well as easy to use. Do I really need to spend a couple hundred more for that 3-year support? How often would it be necessary?
 
You can get 4GB for <$60 so I'd wait on the RAM upgrade. Also, I've noticed that OS X swaps memory much faster than Windows to the point that' it's not noticeable. Can't say that for the Dell I have to use at work, but it's a good excuse to take a coffee break.

You can get a 320GB hard drive for $60 so I'd hold off on that upgrade, too. They'll only get bigger and cheaper. Depending on the size of her music library and desire to download movies, etc, 160GB should last her a good while.

AppleCare is good for people who have little to no support options. A college student will have no shortage of other Mac users or IT to answer questions. As far as reliability, Macs are pretty solid so I wouldn't get it for that alone. Besides, most hardware failures will be due to infant mortality and that will be covered under the standard warranty. The greatest risk to laptops is being dropped, spilled on, etc. and those failures aren't covered by AppleCare.
 
i've been burned a few times b/c i didn't have apple care (hard drive fried - 2 months after my warranty). i replaced it myself, but they would have fixed some cosmetic issues had i taken it to apple. i'm extremely hard on my computers. i work online and am pretty much on a computer all day. traveling is hard on laptops as well. i know if i were in college with a laptop i would do it.

go to applestore.com, select education store, enter the school, then select apple care on the left. the one you'd get is for macbook, macbook air, and 13inch macbook pro ($183.00). to me, it's worth it.

*i got apple care for my 24inch imac, 13 inch macbook pro, and iphone.

in my 15 inch mbp, i had to replace a fan, replace a hd, and replace a cd drive. all this stuff would have been covered under applecare.
 
kmac, now you're scaring me. We had a cheapo hp/compaq bought from Wal-Mart that served fine for about four years with no troubles whatsoever until the screen just started flickering a few months ago. I am still using it hooked up to an external monitor. You MUST really be tough on your equipment. I am hoping for a little more durability/reliability for the price premium.

We're all of your issues with the one laptop? Maybe you got "lucky" and got a true lemon. Or were these problems on multiple machines?
 
You don't need to decide on AppleCare now. You can purchase it any time before your original warranty expires. It's lower cost if you get it with the education discount. Remember, it's like any other insurance policy. Chances are you won't come out ahead, but it will be there if you need it to avert a costly repair. While it won't cover damage due to abuse, Apple will typically cover things that wear out, like hinges.

A lot depends on how hard your daughter is on things. Is she very careful with things or does she treat things like they're indestructible regardless of what they are? My daughter is like the latter. She dropped her MB within 6 months (it survived, but had a damaged hinge) and then spilled water over it which fried the motherboard. Good thing I hadn't purchased AppleCare for it, because it would have gone to waste since the damage she inflicted wasn't covered and the machine only had limited salvage value. OTOH, my son had his MBP at UT for 5 years with no serious issues. He used it so heavily that he wore out the hinge which was replaced under AppleCare. Other than that it's still going strong although he recently upgraded to the MBP13.

BTW, depending on your daughter's college, she may be able to get applications at greatly reduced prices. For example, MS Office is around $20 at UT last time I checked.
 
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I bought my daughter a MacBook five and a half years ago, when she went to college. I just replaced it for her with the new version. Over the entire time she had it, we did not spend ten cents on repairs or upgrades...and she used it nonstop, for everything...papers, music, video, photo storage, etc. When she got her new one, I got the old one. I took it to my Mac guy, spent $80.00 to have it checked out and updated. It works like new.












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don't let what i said scare you. i'm really hard on all of my computers. one is with me all the time, traveling and whatnot.

like someone mentioned, you have until your warranty ends to add applecare.
 
Apple care - worth it! Have experience with 4 diff Macs, two used AppleCare at end, one serious and one cosmetic. Two no probs ever. Enjoyed them all, even the ones with the probs.
Cannot say the same for my PC experience at work or personals.
Hookem
 
Does AppleCare cover things like broken screens and spills? If so, it might be worth it. Even if she is careful, you have no idea about her roommates and guests. **** happens ya know.

I'd also look into getting her a nice pack to carry it around if you haven't already.

Don't spend alot on storage, there's plenty of devices out there for hardly nothing that provide a terrabyte of storage.
 
MacBook is great for a college kid. I got one for my daughter 2 years ago, and have had no problems. You probably don't need the MacBook Pro, but I would get AppleCare so you won't have to deal with problems (your daughter will) if they crop up.
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