<p>Well, I've decided that I will be buying a 13inch MacBook Pro. But the problem lies in the fact that I am international student and will be buying the laptop when I visit the States in May for a holiday. I will have a chance to buy the laptop in either New York, Houston or Columbus. </p>
<p>My questions are-
1. In which of the above mentioned cities will the laptop be cheaper?
2. Is it cheaper to buy it from an apple store or any other reputed dealer?
3. Will I get better rates than what they are showing on the apple website?
4. Is apple launching any new/updated laptop soon which I should wait for till I start college in the fall?
5. How difficult is switching to apple's new OS from vista? I have never used the apple OS before.</p>
<p>I’ve shopped for the same computer, and I can tell you that it is pretty tough to get any super deals on it. My guess it the NYC may be cheaper than Houston or Columbus, but at best you will save $100, but probably more like $50. One thing I have noticed is that rather than lower the price, some stores or web sites offer a printer, speakers, case or something like that, for no additional cost.</p>
<p>Apple stores sell this computer for the same price you see on Apple’s online store. Have you been to Apple’s education store site? Click on ‘education’ in the left column of the front page for Apple’s store web site. If you can show that you are enrolled in a particular college, you can save about $100 over the regular Apple store (on-the-ground or online) price.</p>
<p>I am not aware of any big changes coming in the Macbook Pro line - they were recently updated. I would wait as long as possible, because Apple may ‘bump’ the processor speed during the summer, they’ve done that before. It probably won’t be a big change, something like an increase of 0.2GHz, but it generally doesn’t change the price.</p>
<p>It will take you a couple of days to get used to Mac OSX if you are currently a Vista user. Many things are similar, but the way windows open and close are a little different. If you are used to having tons of Vista windows open and then switching between them with the tabs at the bottom of the screen, you will have to change how you operate. Also, closing a window never quits the application. This has been a problem for me in Vista, where if you close the last window for a particular application, it closes the whole program. You will have to get used to actually quitting an application instead of just closing windows. In general though, I suspect that you will end up much happier and be more productive.</p>
<p>Apple stores have, as far as I know, the same prices everywhere. On the adjustment thing. I just went mac a month ago. Let me just say this: Once you go mac, you never go back.</p>
<p>I’m not as convinced on the “once you go mac, you never go back.” I bought my Macbook Pro a few days ago. I’ve had it on campus two days now and spent half an hour each day with tech support to get it to work with my university’s wireless network. If it happens tomorrow, I’m taking it back, eating the $150 return fee or whatever it is, and buying a pc instead. it is supposed to be so easy but yet all I do is fight with it.</p>
<p>it will be the same price anywhere you go in the US. the only discounts you can get is educational discount. Apple WILL be refreshing the product line with the new intel core i5 processors at an unannounced date, possibly January 27th. The 13inch macbook pro is showing its age, wait til the refresh</p>
<p>Hold off the laptop purchase as long as you possibly can. These things deprecate very rapidly, and any savings you get by purchasing in a particular city (if any), will be almost be invisible compared to the price drops due to aging technology, even with just a couple months.</p>
<p>Plus, you don’t want to be taking a laptop across international borders if possible. Customs can make things a pain. You can wait until after college starts to purchase a laptop.</p>
<p>I think this is more like: they’ll never let you go back. Cuz once you use a mac, you are stuck with the mac softwares, so you constantly use a mac… same goes for iphone and ipod. Apple’s a one crazy tactician.</p>
<p>Also, May would be a great month to buy a new macbook pro because supposedly a new macbook pro line is coming up this month or the next few, and it usually takes them about 2 years for new ones to come out.</p>
<p>Definitely wait until after Wednesday, when Apple is holding a special event announcing a new product. They may also announce updates to their laptops at the event.</p>
<p>My recommendation to get a deal: Wait until Apple offers its yearly free iPod promo. You buy a Mac, get a free iPod touch. You can then turn around and resell the iPod touch on eBay for $175 or so.</p>
<p>MacBook Pro generally has a 6-9 month update cycle, and the last update was in June. At this point I’d wait for the next update unless you need it now.</p>
<p>just today apple “updated” their laptops, but i don’t see much of a difference. if you wait until fall, like the others said, you’ll get a student discount of about $100 and they might be offering the free ipod touch again. the price is the same everywhere but buy it in whichever city has the lowest sales tax…i think columbus has the lowest, but i’m not sure.</p>