My son’s been saving up for a mac and he now has enough to buy one.

I know there’s the option of doing the ‘education pricing’ thing and I’ve gone through that online and they haven’t asked for any proof of ‘education’ so far so what’s the deal on that? Is there going to be a catch just before I complete the transaction? Seems to easy to get money off.

2nd questions – is there any reason not to buy now? Any major upgrades round the corner in the next couple of months?

Lets not turn this into a pc/mac debate please and before you make them, the ‘funny’ comments you make aren’t funny at all 😆

Ah one more question – is it worth paying the extra £150 to ‘upgrade’ from 4gb ram to 8gb?

I can answer the last one. No, buy the ram from Crucial UK instead..much cheaper

For the education pricing you need to buy from within a school/university network i think.

start here;

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/education_routing

looks like uni/FE college pricing is IP dependent – only works on site.

Full details here;

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/open/salespolicies/edu

Funnily enough I googled mac memory and was just looking on the Crucial UK site.

Regards any upcoming upgrades or new releases its worth keeping an eye on sites like Mac Rumors

OWCare worth looking at for upgrades. They sell in the US but prices work out pretty cheap. From what I can gather importing isn’t too much hassle either. I’m planning to buy some memory from them in the near future.

The education pricing probably requires student and college ID info. Ring an Apple Store to find out.

There are always rumours about Mac refreshes, but a quick Google returns some activity forecast between April-June for a major refresh. Don’t quote me on that though. Have a look at macrunors.com and see what they’re saying. The nice thing is that whether you buy now or the newest in 6 months it’ll still be a great spec and will last well for many years.

+1 for Crucial. Don’t buy the Apple RAM, get the Crucial and fit it yourself, or have a friend do it.

Above all, your son will have fun using it.

fotting memory is really easyy, loads of yooutube vids. I went from 4 to 8gb for about £35?.

Not sure if this still applies, but I have a macbook pro, wife has regular mac book. mine is hd, cools a bit better (gets hot still).

get biggest screen you can!

Just called and yeh he just needs to bring in some school id if we buy in store. The macforum does say ‘don’t buy’ as a refresh is due soon.

Any thoughts on pricing if there’s a refresh – likely to be the same?

Now not sure what to do, if I advise him not to buy now he’ll be gutted.

“get biggest screen you can!”

Incorrect…Get the screen size that suits your needs.

He’ll be less gutted when he is in the possession of a better machine for his hard saved pennies after the refresh.

His universe won’t implode if he waits a little longer.

He’s a child, he’ll be disappointed. Perfectly understandable.

You considered refurbished from apple?

Without wanting to state the obvious, get decent theft and damage insurance cover, apple protection and a back up device like time machine.

A friends daughter had hers stolen, it’s likely to be fellow students.

Cannot really add much more.

Mrs LMTTM bought a macbook instore (Cambridge) on the educational offer. Got a free iPod too and very, very cheap warranty.

All she had to do was show her student card.

I can second (or third) crucial too – very easy to deal with and well priced.

Never once regretted the decision o get a Mac.

The refreshes are minor at best, normally just a small bump in processor which is totally unnoticable by 99% of end users. Although the refresh will probably have a new graphics card which might come in handy if he wants to play games.

Im about to sell my 2011 15″, theres good resale value on them even years down the line.

Well he won’t be playing games on it so the graphics card upgrade won’t matter that much. I’ll give him his options and let him decide, but without a confirmed date for a refreshed model he’ll most likely want to buy now.

Crucial site looks good 8gb ram upgrade for £35, that’s a no brainer.

Looks very easy to do but potentially nupty question here.

The one he’s looking at buying has 4GB (two 2GB) memory chipc, so I presume that’s in two slots. If I buy the 8gb memory from crucial which is 2*4gb chips will I just be able to slot them into two spare slots, giving me 12gb memory in total or would I replace the two 4gb chips?

I believe there to be only two slots, so the 8gb would have to replace the 4gb. Again with the ram though, the difference between 4 and 8gb is negligable.

At the same time, its £35quid and takes two minutes and 8 screws.

Apple are hosting some conference in the 1st week of March where they’re likely to reveal the iPad3 (they revealed iPads 1 and 2 at this meeting on the last 2 years). I’d have thought it’s at least worth waiting for that to pass on the off chance that new Macs are announced at the same time.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/09/apple-announcing-ipad-3-first-week-of-march-anonymous-sources-t/?icid=maing-grid7

Most likely you’ll have to replace the existing memory. Apple provide very good instructions on memory upgrades – have a look here (assuming it’s Macbook, there are other pages for iMacs and tower systems). Once you’ve bought the thing there should be a link somewhere in “about this mac” that takes you to the right instructions.

Just spotted this story that implies the Mac updates are at least a couple of months away;
http://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/16/intel-delaying-mass-availability-of-ivy-bridge-processors-until-after-june/

Edit: who knows :shrug: 😉

I got a late 2009 Core i7. That came with four memory sockets. If you get a core i5 they come with two IIRC.

Second all the above. Make sure there’s a time machine drive too. Priceless if (like my mate) he deleted his whole years coursework accidentally….

Which model is he thinking of?

Strong (believable) rumours that the macbook line will have a new case design this year, almost certainly making the 13″/15″/17″ a lot more ‘air’ like. Expect them to lose the DVD drive – something most people use very rarely now.

I presume he’s thinking of a laptop? If it’s going to be carried around a lot it’s well worth looking at the smallest macbook air and adding a separate screen and keyboard for desk use.

He’s looking at a 21.5″ iMac.

He’s already got an iPad so this would be for home use only so need need for a laptop.

If you can wait, wait. But my white iMac still performs superbly, so you’ll not miss out on much performance with a minor refresh. The only significant difference between it and my supped up Mac Pro at work is the speed it can run social network analysis programs, and if i’ve got loads of programs open.

With PC/Macs there is always an upgrade along the line at some point. If you keep waiting you’ll just grow old and die before the ‘uber’ Mac comes along.

Just accept when you buy a computer there’ll be something new along 10 seconds later that 99.999% of people will feel they want but will never actually use to any potential.

I’m on an i3 4Gb RAm and I can’t imagine it getting any faster apart from video rips/encodes. In fact my Core2 2.33 2Gb is still plenty quick enough for 99% of my use, can play WoW on it on low detail (still looks OK).

He’s looking at a 21.5″ iMac.

Lovely machine – was just working on a brand new one yesterday. Screen is stunning. Much less likely to have a major revision this year than the laptops.

Bottom of the range model always looks best value. Depending on what you’re doing 4gb memory is probably plenty. Budget for an upgrade in a year or two.

Thanks for all the info folks. Just told him might be worth waiting a week or so to see if there’s any announcement beginning of March, his answer was ‘there’s no point’. Fair enough his money, he’s very excited about it.

I believe if they do an upgrade within about 2 weeks of buying a mac – you are entitled to a free upgrade to the new spec (probably worth asking in a mac store)

He’s not going to lose much getting it now, my main machine at home is a 2006 iMac, not bad getting 6 years out of a machine and it will last a lot longer. I’ve just started thinking about replacing it as you can’t run the latest OS on the first gen intel processors and a little more power and ram wouldn’t hurt.

Current gen iMac has 4 RAM slots, not 2 like the older ones and the MacBook pro’s. This means you can fit 2 additional RAM chips without replacing the originals.

Cheapest way to upgrade to 8GB of RAM is to find someone with a MacBook Pro (like me) who is upgrading to 8GB of RAM themselves, and buy their spare 2x2GB chips off them…

If you want it or need it then waiting might make no difference: after all you get to use it and there’s always a faster model around the corner. If you are interested, check out the macrumors.com buyers’ guide .
Buy the RAM upgrade on ebay or from crucial. It’s an easy upgrade on an iMac.

Consider a model equipped with SSD – this makes a difference to performance but adds loads to the price. Depending on what he needs it for, it should last a while. My Mac is 5 years old and runs the current OS nicely.

Consider a model equipped with SSD – this makes a difference to performance but adds loads to the price.

This!!

You can upgrade the memory in an iMac at a later date, but changing the HD is not a user-servicable task.