When's the best time to get a MacBook?

[Quillz]

I have a laptop a little more than a year old, but I've really wanted a MacBook for a long time now. The prices are acceptable, but I'm wondering if Apple ever has any sales on the MacBook, especially around September, during back-to-school shopping. Also, since Leopard is being released in October, do they offer a further discount and/or a free upgrade to Leopard if you buy before the OS is released?

[Floris]

Mac Book Pro just had an update, I think iMac is soon to change too, and if you don't want to go for the pro one, wait for the next update of the Mac Book, and enjoy those new things. Currently, the mac book is awesome hardware setup. It's just fine as it is. I expect them to move to the new setup just like the pro version within matter of months. I am curious if we can expect a new version of the mac book, (not pro) with solid state hard drives (as a test). If the latter is the case, I'd buy the current setup, and skip the first generation of anything new. It really depends on how long you wish to wait. Now that the mac book pro is out, I'd personally wait until the next cycle of the mac book, before I'd get a mac book. I assume it will get updated before 10.5 gets out. But the current system is really a good solid solution with proper config, and not a first cycle/generation - known issues are fixed, and the config it runs is pretty good.

[Chousho]

I was looking at getting one a while back. I seem to remember them having discounts for students. There are also refurbished ones that are quite a bit cheaper.

[Floris]

I wanted to buy nearly $1100 worth of stuff from apple.com almost 5 days ago. But they can't ship it to the NL, and the NL store doesn't have anything refurbished. I used the money for something else that I really needed and some other things (for the xbox). Their loss .. quite a shame.

[JakeS]

Quillz, you should buy what you want when you want it, or rather when your ready.

[Quillz]

Quillz, you should buy what you want when you want it, or rather when your ready.

But the idea is that I can buy it today, or I could wait three months and buy it then. I'm just wondering if waiting three months will be worth anything, if there will be any more minor hardware updates, like maybe a LED backlight or something. The current setup is fine, certainly better than my older laptop, it's just that for $1,999, I want to make sure I'm getting my money's worth for a good amount of time before the hardware gets updated yet again.

[JakeS]

But the idea is that I can buy it today, or I could wait three months and buy it then. I'm just wondering if waiting three months will be worth anything, if there will be any more minor hardware updates, like maybe a LED backlight or something. The current setup is fine, certainly better than my older laptop, it's just that for $1,999, I want to make sure I'm getting my money's worth for a good amount of time before the hardware gets updated yet again.

As things get older they get cheaper give it a year and it'll be pretty cheap .

[Quillz]

Too late, I went ahead and bought one.

Of course, now it says there's an issue with one of my credit cards, an Apple representative will contact me within 24-48 hours. I can't think of what went wrong, though...

[WurkAnimal]

Always wanted one of them iMacs, looks pretty sound

[Quillz]

Yeah, I really like my iMac. Parallels Desktop is great, I can run Windows Vista when I need it and Ubuntu Linux as a hobby.

[WurkAnimal]

Yeah, I really like my iMac. Parallels Desktop is great, I can run Windows Vista when I need it and Ubuntu Linux as a hobby.

Nice, a friend of mine runs XP, Vista and his Mac OS, awesome little gadget to have - why would people need to buy a PC aswell??

[Chroder]

I usually go by http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

It shows you the usual release cycle so you can know if it's likely if an update is going to come 10 days after you buy According to that site, buying a MacBook now is a good idea.

I got my MacBook back in February (after getting my first Mac, an iMac, in Sept 06). Love it! If you like your iMac I have no doubts you'll love the MacBook, too

[Quillz]

Nice, a friend of mine runs XP, Vista and his Mac OS, awesome little gadget to have - why would people need to buy a PC aswell??

The reason I bought the Dell last year instead of the MacBook was the Dell was a little cheaper, and that's the only reason. Since then, I've really not enjoyed the build quality at all, everything creaks, especially around the screen, and did I mention the screen has some hairline scratches on it? Apple may be more expensive than the rest, but I do believe they make the best notebooks in the industry, the build quality is just amazing. Everything feels so solid.

[Floris]

Very cool that you bought the little mac laptop Enjoy it.

[Quillz]

Very cool that you bought the little mac laptop Enjoy it.

Thanks, I will. I've wanted it for well more than a year now, I think now is probably the best time. I got $100 off, better than the usual academic discount, and it's not a bad price for a 2.16 GHz Intel C2D.