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Buying a Refurbished Mac from the Apple Store
By admin | April 29, 2007
One of the biggest hurdles to switching over to a mac from the windows world is the cost. I have heard many arguments that the new macs are now more inline with the pricing from other PC makers like Dell and Sony. I agree that for the money, you get a great computer, but it is limiting that the bottom line computer from Apple does not dip down in price as low as come competitors.
I started to search for a way to get a good deal on our first Mac. Mac computers are in such high demand and the paths of sale are limited that the prices tend to be driven up. Ebay was of little use - used computers were within a stones throw of a new computer from the Apple store. I checked on Amazon as well, but didn’t see a significant deal to be had. That is when I stumbled on the refurbished section of the Apple store online.
You can get to the refurbished section of the apple online store by going to the store tab and then looking for the red “Save” tag on the right side. We purchased a refurbished 15″ Macbook Pro in November of 2006. The purchase was made right after the release of the Core 2 Duo (and upgrade from the Core Duo). You will ususally find the best deals immediately after an upgrade when purchasing the previous model. We saw a savings of over $600 compared to the cost of the new unit. The bottom line is that purchasing from the refurbished store allowed us to get a Macbook Pro with no more money than a good Macbook would have cost us new.
Our computer came in a plain brown cardboard box with all the same accessories that you would expect from a brand new unit. Yes, it was a bit of a letdown not having that cool colored box, but that is not worth $600.
Cosmetically, the only issue I saw with our computer was a slight bend in the bezel near the latch release. This is apparently a result from the computer being opened, probably in the factory. Not a big deal. Other than that, everything has been perfect both in appearance and function!
Amazon is also a good source for Mac compuers if you want a discount from the retail prices. Also, purchases from Amazon will be tax free in most states, unlike purchases from the Apple Store.
Topics: Macintosh |