Due to unforseen circumstances, I need to buy a computer, and it needs to be an Apple Macintosh. I know that Apple is strangely fixated on not having any fluctuation in their prices, so even though you can now get Macintosh Computers at Best Buy, you will not save any money vs. buying them direct.
Are there any ways to get more than a tokenistic discount or savings on a new Macintosh computer?
dealmac.com is your best source.
The apple store occasionally sells refurbs. I’ve had good luck with those. The discounts are usually in the 20-30% range.
I’ve also had good luck with refurbs from small dog dot com [in way no way associated with them], especially if you don’t mind something top of the line from last year.
Perhaps you know a student who can buy it for you. Apple gives discounts to them. Pretty good discounts from what I hear, although I don’ t know first-hand.
Eh, they’re not that great. Usually about $100 less than everyone else pays.
Refurbs through the Apple Store are the best deals.
Right now the student discount on a Mac Mini is a whopping $20. I’ve seen refurbs as low as $430, but there aren’t any right now.
I’ve been thinking of getting a used Intel-era Mac Mini. I’ve been telling myself I won’t buy a new Apple computer until either my Emac breaks, or Apple gets their heads out off their asses and builds a desktop computer. (In other words I’m broke.) I’ve used Apples all my life and I like the OS, but the hardware is ridiculously overpriced shit. They don’t make any home desktop computers, just a workstation and two miniature novelty computers.
(If you complain about this in a Mac forum, people will act like you’re crazy and come up with several arguments I won’t recount here. Sometimes they say a Mac Mini is enough for most people; that’s true, but so is a used $150 Windows computer, and I’m not going to pay $600 for that.)
Ditto that. I ordered an external HD from them last year. They’re this nice little company in Vermont, and they send you a little toy dog with your order. Their prices are decent.
Well that’s no discount! I thought it was a lot higher.
You need to go complain! Tell them that the hard-working youngsters of today NEED lower prices. 
-chaoticbear, whose macbook hasn’t even made it to his house yet, and would be upset if Apple suddenly increased the student discount.
I bought my Macbook Pro last year, before I resumed being a student, and I was hoping for some nice student discounts on associated hardware. Alas, George Brown College has precious little in the way of hardware discounts for Apple gear, only around 10% at most. A $20 discount on the one-terabyte Time Capsule, for example.
And my friend’s cousin, who works for Nameless Big-Box Electronics Retailer (I can’t remember which one) says they don’t get much of an employee discount on Apple stuff, either.
They have a couple physical stores near me. I’ve never been, but I hear they have great customer service. The sales/tech people are all Mac fanboys and know their stuff. I imagine they are all lamenting that they can’t get an iPhone.
Apple just introduced new MacBooks & MacBooks Pros today, and the refurb store apparently has some impressive price drops.
I bought a Macbook at a good discount from UBMicro. It was near the end of the run for that particular model, but it was a very good deal.
Why not?
The Apple Store: Refurbished Macs up to 41% off, from $479 with Free Shipping
(some deals already dead)
The Apple Store has Refurbished iMacs, MacBook Pros, Mac Mini, and Mac Pros on Clearance with Free Shipping. All refurbished computers from The Apple Store carry the same 1-year warranty as new units.
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (Refurb) $1649
MacBook 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - White (Refurb) $949
Mac Mini 1.83GHz Core Duo 512MB Memory, Superdrive (Refurb) $479
Mac Mini 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo (Refurb) $479
Mac Mini 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 1GB Memory, Combo Drive (Refurb) $499
Do you know anyone that works for Apple? Employees get 2 or 3 computer discounts of 25% per year.
Agreed.
I buy from them whenever I can. Their prices are usually decent, but you should check around. Sometimes they do get out of whack. But usually you do well with them.
Apple’s education discount on most computers is 10%. Both faculty and students get that. I don’t know what their policy is for institution pricing. You can also get some discounts on iPods and accessories, though that’s lower. I think 7% and 5%, respectively. Take a look at the online Apple store and go to the store for education. Should be linked in the sidebar on the main site. Once you go through the couple of screens for policies and agreements, you’ll go to the education site. All the displayed prices will have the discount already applied.
If you’re a currently-enrolled student, you can get a one-time steep discount of 20% on “pro” Macs, like the Mac Pro or MacBook Pro. You have to enroll in the Student Developer Program. Enrolling in that gets you the latest box version of OS X, and a nifty t-shirt in the typical developer plus-size of XL. Details of the hardware purchase requirements are here. The regular student discounts apply for other purchases you make at the same time, but the 20% is only offered once in your life, period, and does not apply to consumer-level models like the white or black MacBook and iMac.
This is obviously meant to promote Mac use by CS students and get them hooked early. Developer tools for creating OS X software are available as a custom install on any Mac, which is one of the reasons you see so many shareware, freeware, and student-created software products.
Oh, and riker1384, if you go to System Shootouts which compares the Mac lineup to similarly configured systems from Dell, you’ll find that the prices for Apple’s hardware are not inflated. In quite a few cases, you get more for your money with the Macs. Sure, you could probably get a stripped system for less, but honestly comparing feature for feature Macs are not at all overpriced. Especially if you look at the pro-level workstations; they’re actually cheaper than Dells.
Well, I’m mainly talking about the Mac Mini and the Imac. I’ve heard good things about the laptops, but I don’t use those. That site compares the Mac Mini to other “small form-factor desktops,” but the whole point is I don’t want a miniature computer. They’re made with laptop parts and however good they may be, they would always be better (or cheaper) if they were made with desktop parts. Anyone can go into Best Buy and see how much it costs to sell a desktop computer, usually with bigger hard drives and better graphics than the Mini. Attaching the screen to the Imac is wasteful when you want to replace one or the other, and some people like an all-in-one but it shouldn’t be the only option.
The insistence on novelty form-factors is bizarre to me, and it’s not how it’s always been; they used to make towers and “pizza box” cases. They have the best OS in many respects, but you can’t get at it because of this new obsession with “style” even if it means specifically avoiding the most common and effective way to build a computer.
Yeah… I got a pretty good hookup through an employee a few years ago.
Must it be new? Because if you can go a year or two older, there’s plenty of good stuff on say, Craig’s List.