I'm Looking into buying a Mac?
Answers:
Best place to buy a Mac is at www.apple.com. They have an education store. You get a discount on the MacBooks etc. plus a free iPod Nano. The discount is around $100 a computer. My daughter is an illustrator/designer, she uses her Mac for her work. I have an iMac and a MacBook, I use them for my photography classes. All of them work well. The entry level MacBook is $999, it comes with all the software you need and is wi-fi ready. You may want to move up to a MacBook Pro with a bigger screen and faster processors. Check www.consumerreports.com, they have the MacBook Pros top rated for battery life and tech support. The only thing you may want to add is Word or Open Office, plus Flip4Mac and Firefox and a version of Photoshop.
Apple offers educational discounts on their computers, and they also offer refurbished machines which are a fair bit cheaper than new, and I've heard they're as good as new. There are several places other than actual Apple stores where you can buy Macs, like Best Buy or other such retailers. If you're going into advertising, the Mac will have a lot of what you need right out of the box, but you will probably want to consider some professional-level graphics software like Adobe Photoshop. You have not heard wrong, though; Macs have long been the platform of choice in most creative industries, and for some good reasons. Hope you enjoy! :)
If you are an advertising major and will be using Photoshop religiously, you NEED the MacBook pro. It will be a bigger investment at first, but you will keep it longer and it will be suited for the work you will be doing.
Do NOT get a MacBook, you will outgrow the computer way too fast and will need to get a new one within 2 years. The investment will be better with the MacBook pro.
As for discounts, they vary on the computer. It is between 5-10% off. Apple is not big on giving discounts on the machines, but you can get some major discounts on Apple software though.
If You Go To apple.com, You Can Get A Student Discount For Like $100. And You Can Get A Free Printer If Its $100, And A Free iPod Nano. You Would Save Like, $350! Make Sure To Get It From Apple. Thats Where I Got Mine And There So Helpful. If Your Going To Use It For Designing Things or Things Of That Nature, I Might Go For The MacBook Pro. I Have The Regular MacBook, And It Works Fine For Me. I Was A PC Guy For Years. First I Got The iPod, Then I Was Hooked. I'll Never Go Back To PC! Now I Have Had 3 iPods, A MacBook, And I Will Soon Be Getting The iPhone. Hope This Helps!
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