Friend in the states at the moment and wants the above for a present for his daughter. Savings of circa £300. Asked (because I work in IT :roll:) is it a good deal.
Thoughts are:

1.Have to unpack it to make sure customs dont nab him for duty
2.Possible issue with warranty???
3.Power supply different but easily fixable
4.Possible issues with keyboard mappings??

Any more? basically anyone with any experience of doing this?

Ta muchly

1)Yeah, and send the packaging to yourself separately. Create an account on the box before flying back!
2)Apple offer a worldwide warranty
3)Different, but easy to fix
4)Yes, different kbd layout, but easy to get around

Thanks Codybrennan

Definitely worth the saving

Don’t bother – buy through the education store instead (there’s a link on here somewhere where they don’t ask for proof), then you’ll make a similar saving but with 3 years Applecare as well.

1.TBH if they want to pull him they can run the serial number or inspect for files of a reasonable date. Depends how aggressive they are.
2.What codybrennan said… it’s a global warranthy
3. Buy a holiday plug pack from Apple. Sorted.
4. I’ve used US keyboards in Europe for the last 6 years. No issues

Did it last January, saved about £600 then due to exchange rate. No probs at LHR, keyboard is fine, just remember where the £ sign is and warranty is global – go for solid state memory and it’ll never break anyway!

Apple might offer a worldwide warranty but when I tried to get support for my ipad I was only covered by the USA policy as that was where I purchased not the UK policy which was where I was.

Pissed me off no end but they gave me online support instead of store support which worked out in the end.

Either education discount as above or apple uk refurb store would be far simpler surely?

Education discount in UK is still less of a saving than buying in the US. Sales tax in Ny is 8.5% vs 20% here so a big saving immediately. If he can order in advance, eg for mail order delivery to a colleague or office you can order a us keyboard. Otherwise it’s fairly easy to live with. The power supplies have changeable plugs, if you have an old Mac book you can reuse the plug they just clip in. I understand Apple honour the warranty worldwide.

All the US sellers, eg best buy and Apple themselves will have sales the Friday after thanksgiving, even the UK stores are doing it now

Thanks everyone for your replies

If Apple do a Black Friday sale, then this is going to be an expensive holiday next weekend

Keyboard mapping won’t bother me, my MBP already has the @ symbol in the “wrong” place for the UK keyboards, so it must be just hunting out the £ symbol on a US one

You can order a UK keyboard in the USA. I have had a few from America with no problems, they also have a worldwide warranty on them.

Advise him no (for some made up technical reason if need be), because if he has any problems at all and has any hassle/cost then he’ll blame you.

And a quick look seems like £900 here and $1100 in US, so not a lot of saving, when if he really wanted to save money he could just buy a Windows laptop here.

Advise him no (for some made up technical reason if need be), because if he has any problems at all and has any hassle/cost then he’ll blame you.

And a quick look seems like £900 here and $1100 in US, so not a lot of saving, when if he really wanted to save money he could just buy a Windows laptop here.

It has to be the Mac book pro I am afraid. Dont worry I have made it clear that “on his own head be it”!