Urgent Mac purchase help please..

[rp2000]

Macbook Pro purchase options (Apple Store, Higher Education, or Business Store)

Hi,

I am thinking of buying something from the Apple Store for Business online. I am VAT registered etc. Has anyone had any experience buying through their business who can offer me guidelines etc. Is there any difference in terms of aftercare/warranty etc, in comparison to the normal apple store or retail outlets.

Any help much appreciated. I am going to get the 15.4 MacBookPro (middle spec one, no optional extras of any sort). I have not kept up with the hardware since last spec refresh. (I recall the GPUs got bumped and also the screens are now OLED or something). Is there any gaping flaws in the hardware I should know about?

The one thing that I am really unsure of is whether to get glossy or matte screen, but I guess that is a personal preference thing, and not something I can change once I take the plunge. I will watch some media content on it, but mostly be using as a Windows XP/OSX machine (boot camp or parallels etc). I do not plan on doing any photo/video editing so can anyone recommend the best screen based on that?


rp2000

 

[rp2000]

Having had both finishes I prefer the glossy.

There's no substitute for viewing them in person, so if you can, I suggest you check out the nearest store that stock's the model your after.

I believe you can claim the VAT back on business purchases, but then, if you just want to save money.. use the HE discount;

You get 3 years hardware cover (parts and labour) AS STANDARD, whereas you'd normally get 90 days

Are you sure? I can offset the purchase against corporation tax that works out as 20%, but are you saying there is differences in the warranty between the "types" of purchase.

From your previous threads I know you know a lot about this stuff and discounts etc.

coudl you clarify what state of warranty etc I would get from:

1) Apple Retail (curiousity)
2) Apple Business (20% discount)
3) Apple HE (15% discount)

I am in a position to order any of the 3.


rp2000

 

[rp2000]

Few more questions from me (I make no secret of the fact I will probably be unbearable and ask severral n00bish questions that google could answer until I get my MBP).

I got a mate at uni to take a screenshot for me:

Any thoughts anyone re warranty etc. I don't mind paying the £59 quid for the 3 year warranty, but EVH has mentioned you get one automatically etc. Has anyone here bought one recently with the HE discount who can comment?

What if i want to give the laptop away at a later date? Basically does the type of purchase (HE/Retail etc) only affect purchase price, and after that you have a standard Apple Warranty? Just in case I am not happy with it say 6 months down the line, and there is a 2.5 years warranty remaining.

More questions in a bit after I think a bit more. Definitely popping into an Apple store today tomorrow, to see the glossy/matte in person. I have used both types of screens before with otehr Sony/Dell/Tosh/HP laptops. But never seen the same model side by side. Hopefully with funky lighting in the shop it should give me an idea of worst case scenario etc.



rp2000

 

[rp2000]

Another quesition:

I have a mac mini 1.83ghz (pre core2duo with Tiger). I use that for Fontrow connected to HDTV and use the remote. Obviously I will get a new remote with *** MBP as well.

Will they interfere with each other? Is there a way to just use one? etc etc.

I'm sure someone here must have more than 1 mac product in their house.

Also what would happen If I bought a universal dock for my Nano (which also comes with the same remote!)

Options please.



rp2000

 

[rp2000]

rp2000, as there's a new MBP coming soon, can you wait? It'd be pretty annoying to buy one then have an improved model come out 6 weeks (or so) later.
Obviously you'll still be getting a great laptop, but faster/bigger processor Ram etc is always welcome.

Is this definite? I mean I am looking at midrange edition. So with the savings in price, I am happy to get the 2.6ghz cpu upgrade, which surely will become the "middle edition" in the upgrade.

Do you know for certain about this upgrade? Is there some sort of Mac Expo in Jan?

Ironically one of my family works at Apple HQ in USA, so maybe I will tap him up to see if he knows more. (He told me about the ipod touch concept 1 year ago, and I laughed at him!!).


Still confused about this warranty issue, I deffo wnat the 3 yeasr hardware support, as Phaser had to pay.

The 20% thing is if you own your own company and pay for it through your company. You can't claim back VAT (bit of an urban myth and hard to explain really). But you can offset the cost against your corporation tax bill. An accountant will explain it much better, and confuse you (as mine has done to me!). Corporation Tax for small businesses is calculated at 20%. Obviously it is then an asset of your company etc. So I could buy something today for saay £1000 and when my corporation tax is calculated I would pay £200 less. Obvioulsy it is not like HE discount which you pay less up front, with this it's the other way round. Totally legitimate.


rp2000

 

[rp2000]

If he knows anything he won't tell you, and anything he tells you won't be fact. Unless he doesn't like his job.

You quoted a section that directly contradicts your statement.


rp2000

 

[rp2000]

I recommend the glossy screen. That's what i have on my 17" model. I was so glad i went for the glossy, makes everything look clearer including simple colours etc.

Boot camp is very good and will run fine from my experience.

Any other question just ask.

Josh

Going shops tomorrow to compare in person. It's an entirely personal thing, I have used both glossy and matte before and I am undecided.

I am not buying till maybe Monday at the earliest.

Have you installed Vista via Bootcamp? Or XP. I know it is fine for XP as I have that on my mac mini, but it is Vista, which I wish to start to use. Currently I have it on a tower that never gets booted up, but I hope once it is on my everryday machine (the MBP) it may get used more.

I work in IT so need to stay up to date with current technologies. I will defeinitely be installing VMWARE and or Parallels as well to faff around with Windows server etc.

You know anything about future MBPs due?


rp2000

 

[rp2000]

The Macrumours site is pretty good at buying advice as they track previous updates and give an analytical approach to buying. Currently the MBP was updated 180 days ago and they recommend only buying if you have to.
Check here to read up.
To be honest I would rarely recommend ever waiting for the 'next thing' (certainly in PC's or gadgets etc) but Apple tends to wait a fair amount of time in between upgrades, 180 days is certainly a mature product. No one can predict exactly what sort of update it could be, it could be a whole new case, or just a speed bump, but as the MBP has cosmetically been the same for a while now, I would've thought a major update would jut be around the corner. Sorry if that makes your decision process slightly harder!

I'm primarily a PC guy but am very happy running my Vista 64bit inside VMware, the performance hit is minor (yet still runs extremely well), but the features and flexibility of having OSX there are superb. (Vista 64bit won't work correctly on Bootcamp, but the 32bit has supported drivers.)
I'm also running 64bit Ubuntu Linux through VMware too and it's a doddle to set-up and maintain.

Cheers, I just wanted boot camp so Vista has access to the full hardware set as in a virtual machine obviously only some hardware functions will be supported. But am willing to try in both.

I will speak to someone today re the update (obviously I won't post the details here). I too have thought the big upgrade will be a solid state macbook o mbp tbh and maybe it will be 14 inch etc.

For MBP I envisage 17" getting LED backlight and all the others getting a cpu boost of 0.2ghz. With the £500 saving I may get over retail price, I may get the 2.6 upgrade anyway. It is unlikely they will get a RAM boost as 4gb is overkill. So I will wait a day or two and see what happens.

As it stands I think I will get with through the HE offer and then try to offset against my company as well, so money won't be an issue. I guess the HE discount will still be aroun in Jan if I find out there is a new model coming.

Cheers for the help guys, I will keep this thread updated.


rp2000

robbiemc: can you give me some details about your vmware setup. I am familiar with Vmware on PC platforms as well as Virtual PC and MS Virtual Server. What reources do you allocate to it (what spec is your mac mahcine?). On a 2gb Machine, what would you allocate to the VM. Also what is actuall emulated in terms of the hardware functions of the actual Mac? (I assume virtual nic/vga etc but can it emulate anything like the camera, usb, remote etc). Also what is full screen access like? VNC style lag or does it feel like you are on the machine ala TerminalSservices/RemoteDesktop? Are you Leapord or Tiger? I have *** Vista Ultimate upgrade DVD (32&64bit) so I think vmware/paralleles may be my only option as the only way tomake it work is to install it over itslef to count as a valid upgrade, I don;t even know if boot camp would support that? It has been a while since I looked at it but may try the beta one on my Mac Mini if it hasn't expired!! cheers again.

 

[rp2000]

The past few weeks have been quite a learning experience for me with the macbook (Im running Leopard).

Ram resources
VMware allocates its own resources and seems to do an excellent job. I have a total of 4gb ram (at £90 for 4gbs, it seems silly not to) and it allocates 1gb for Vista, which seems to be ideal.

Hardware resources
The initial VMware setup seems to recognise most the Apple hardware with no problems once in Vista you then have the option of installing drivers for the Apple remote and the iSight. Vista recognises the remote and successfully installs the driver, but I presume Vista will need software to run it..I've not looked for that yet.
The iSight needs to use the Bootcamp drivers, but they don't have 64bit drivers at the moment, so I can't get that working.
It seems to run USB as 'passthrough' so should work as a generic PC should (that's in the marketing info too, so seems to be a key feature).
If you need to have Vista support for all the Macbook hardware, 32bit seems to be the only choice.
I'm running an external Vista PC as a Media Centre/Server and Fusion has no problem joining my workgroup and accessing servers, which was key to me.

General performance
Coming from a home-built overclocked Core 2 duo 6600 I was skeptical that Fusion would give me the performance I'm used to. I'm very pleased to say however that it's surpassed all my expectations!
I'm running my Macbook connected to an external 23" display and it will run Vista full screen on the large monitor (with OSX still running as an extended desktop on the laptopm screen) with ZERO lag. I'm familiar with how VNC runs (laggy mouse movement etc) but it's nothing like that at all, in fact I really can't tell the difference between my pc and Fusion whilst doing 'everyday' tasks in Vista.
I was honestly prepared to accept some compromises, but it really works so well I have no complaints at all. I can even run Ubuntu Linux, Vista and OSX alongside each other and VMWare does an excellent job of resource allocation.

Vista 'upgrade' install.
Although I've got an OEM version, I've just done some reading on this and it is possible, athough it's not as streamlined. Have a read of the VMWare forums here for a run down of how to install Vista upgrade (as you're in IT I'm sure you won't mind a small challenge!).

I think that's everything for now!

Cheers, now I just need the MBP. How hard is the ram upgrade? Are the slots "exposed" like traditional Windows laptops?


rp2000

 

[rp2000]

No probs.
Ram upgrade easy on the Macbook, and although the Pro is slightly different it looks to be a doodle.

Seems simple enough. Can't see the need for 4GB initiaily though. Now if i could install Server 2003/Longhorn natively through Boot camp 64 bit that would be a different story. Through VM can't see the benefit of installing a 64 bit OS as the main tangible benefit of a 64bit OS is the ability to address more than 3.5gb of RAM which would be pointless as Mac OSX would need at least 1gb for itself. The rest of the benefits/performance would be lost through the Virtualisation layer. But I will test this when I get it, to confirm.

Might be worth considering if I use Vista fulltime in VM or Server 2003 (So I could give them 2gb and OSx 2gb, which I will decide once I get the machine. (Hope the RAM prices don't go up by then.!!). How much do you reckon the RAM that came with MBP would fetch for? Is it "decent" RAM?

Cheer for all the info.


rp2000