Anyone left the glossy screen off?

[Leon Kowalski]

Don't call them and say here is what I want. In other words, don't call them and tell them about the high-end system you want to have when you are done on the phone. Start at the bottom and let them up-sell you. Be a tough sale.

That's nothin' more than common sense -- if ya didn't just fall off the turnip truck. But you were comparing discounted Mac Pro prices to jacked-up above-MSRP iMac numbers pulled out of ...uh, an unspecified orifice.

$2500 > $1924, 750GB > 320GB, 320GB > 250GB

Even Bubba on the turnip truck could prolly figure that out.

Back to the Mac Pro I purchased. I went into the conversation going after low-end. I let him talk me up. When we got to the system I was after, he tried to sell me on the WiFi and BlueTooth. I wasn't interested since I don't use that at all (I don't even like it). So, I let him work to get me to take it.

Yep, you sho-nuff outfoxed that poor defenseless Apple salesdroid. Your invoice proves beyond a doubt that you paid only $2.00 more than the docile little spinster-lady librarian from the local elementary school -- BT and WiFi included.

http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/routingpage.html

...most formidable!

LK


"Ten for that? You must be mad!"
-- Monty Python, Life of Brian

.

 

[flyinmac]

That's nothin' more than common sense -- if ya didn't just fall off the turnip truck. But you were comparing discounted Mac Pro prices to jacked-up above-MSRP iMac numbers pulled out of ...uh, an unspecified orifice.

$2500 > $1924, 750GB > 320GB, 320GB > 250GB

Even Bubba on the turnip truck could prolly figure that out.


Yep, you sho-nuff outfoxed that poor defenseless Apple salesdroid. Your invoice proves beyond a doubt that you paid only $2.00 more than the docile little spinster-lady librarian from the local elementary school -- BT and WiFi included.

http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/routingpage.html

...most formidable!

LK


"Ten for that? You must be mad!"
-- Monty Python, Life of Brian

.

Well, I hadn't bothered checking to see what the educational or corporate discounts are before posting.

So, if I got a discount that placed me paying just a little more than an educational customer, then that's not bad.

Anyway, don't you need an account or something to check those prices? I was just comparing what I paid against the prices published. Hadn't even bothered seeing if I could get into the educational or corporate pricing.

The decision to consider the Mac Pro was made based on the price difference between the iMac and the Mac Pro from Apple's retail sales page on their website.

So, discounts had no factor in my decision of which to purchase (after-all, you can't predict what they'll be willing to negotiate until you talk to them). The original decision of which machine to buy was based on the prices I found online (whatever they were at the moment) and comparing what I could get for the price.

Naturally, once I get on the phone to order it, I'm going to see how cheap I can get it.


But, if we go based on the prices you provide (since I haven't bothered to go to the website):

Mac Pro $2499
My memory and hard drive add-on's: $300
Two monitors at $160 each
WiFi and BlueTooth: $79

That still brings it up to $3198

Still a pretty fair amount under the $3500 to $3800 you mentioned. And, since most people probably only need one monitor, dropping my second monitor would still place the system at $3038 for most people. And, that would still provide a pretty decent price when comparing the things that the iMac would still not have:

Such as:
still being 1 GB short
still having 2 less processor cores
still being stuck with a marginal display
still not being expandable internally beyond what it came with - except RAM,
and still not being able to open it up and blow the dust out regularly

And, the price difference still falls into being approx. $500 as mentioned before.

Or, $660 if you want the second screen like I did.

Being able to open the Mac Pro easily, automatically makes it worth the price difference to me.

The added specs help quite a lot to make the price difference even easier.

Knowing that if my monitor dies that I'm not looking at paying Apple around a thousand dollars (if out of warranty) to repair it, makes it even easier yet.

And, knowing that my system's resale value (if I decide to sell it) is not affected by potential display issues is comforting.

But, really, I weighed easy opening and cleaning highest in the equation. I'd have already had to pay someone to open an iMac and clean it for me if I had purchased an iMac.

It only takes a few service calls to eat-up the price difference. Unfortunately, blowing the dust out of the computer is not offered as part of the warranty. And, I didn't want my computer to die early because of dust bunnies. And, I know what it would look like in my environment. It would die quick.

 

[psonice]

Perhaps you have a dud.

I've had 3 of them, and none of them have demonstrated what you describe. And, I've looked them over with multiple different solid colors that are both light and dark shades, and can't find any dead or stuck pixels. Every once in a while I think I've found one, then I discover it's just dust and I blow it away.

I did have one that I came home with that had some odd bright spots (like a cloud) and uneven backlighting. I called the store, and they said just bring it in and they replaced it.

Perhaps you should have taken yours back to the store for an exchange.

But, I've had 3 of them, and used around 4 others. None of them had a single stuck or dead pixel that was visible. And, they all had great and consistent color.

The brightness is still at the marginally comfortable level. Hadn't thought about turning it down. I may go ahead and try that.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with the hanns.g screen, it's great for the price and I'd recommend it. I've certainly not got a bad one - the backlighting is very even, colours are good, no dead pixels. I'm very happy with it. I'm just saying that the imac screen is WAY better in pretty much every respect.

The colour shifting thing wouldn't be down to a dud monitor or not - hanns.g use cheap TN screens (which is why the monitor is cheap), and it's an effect of those panels. It's not really an issue unless you're doing serious photoshop work or something, and the 20" imacs now use similar panels. It's not visible on all colours, and when it is visible it's not a strong effect (you can see it's there, but only if you look for it). Even the IPS panel in the 24" imac has a tiny bit of colour shift, but it's negligible in comparison.

The calibration issue isn't really a problem either - you wouldn't notice unless you put it next to a better monitor.

Stuck pixels - that's just down to luck, you get them on any LCD screen. I think they tend to be more common on cheaper LCDs, but perhaps that's just my experience. I've not seen one on an apple screen, or a dell or hp for that matter, and I see a lot at work. For cheaper screens, it's important to buy them from a shop with a good return policy - I got my hanns.g from amazon and they let me exchange it for free, but I know people who've bought them from a cheap local shop who have strict policies (often that you can't return it unless it has 6 dead pixels!)

Brightness - use a black screen, turn it to full, then turn it down until the screen looks black enough (they always look a little grey with full brightness - that's why mine's set to 90% not 100), or less if you prefer it less bright.

 

[flyinmac]

Hey, there's nothing wrong with the hanns.g screen, it's great for the price and I'd recommend it. I've certainly not got a bad one - the backlighting is very even, colours are good, no dead pixels. I'm very happy with it. I'm just saying that the imac screen is WAY better in pretty much every respect.

The colour shifting thing wouldn't be down to a dud monitor or not - hanns.g use cheap TN screens (which is why the monitor is cheap), and it's an effect of those panels. It's not really an issue unless you're doing serious photoshop work or something, and the 20" imacs now use similar panels. It's not visible on all colours, and when it is visible it's not a strong effect (you can see it's there, but only if you look for it). Even the IPS panel in the 24" imac has a tiny bit of colour shift, but it's negligible in comparison.

The calibration issue isn't really a problem either - you wouldn't notice unless you put it next to a better monitor.

Stuck pixels - that's just down to luck, you get them on any LCD screen. I think they tend to be more common on cheaper LCDs, but perhaps that's just my experience. I've not seen one on an apple screen, or a dell or hp for that matter, and I see a lot at work. For cheaper screens, it's important to buy them from a shop with a good return policy - I got my hanns.g from amazon and they let me exchange it for free, but I know people who've bought them from a cheap local shop who have strict policies (often that you can't return it unless it has 6 dead pixels!)

Brightness - use a black screen, turn it to full, then turn it down until the screen looks black enough (they always look a little grey with full brightness - that's why mine's set to 90% not 100), or less if you prefer it less bright.

Yes, I am quite happy with mine.

I am one of those particular people that will see a given defect every time I see something.

My eyes just notice stuff that most people will ignore or forget. I can see the smallest imperfection from a distance that most won't see if they paste their eyes to it. It drives my wife nuts.

So, if I find something I'm happy with, it's usually a miracle.

I've been through a bunch of iMac screens. And, they were very disappointing. The way they looked out of the box was enough to make me regret the purchase of the whole machine. And, sadly they only got worse with time.

Apple isn't so generous when it comes to screens though. So, I ended up living with most of the defects. The one they did replace was one that etched it's image permanently into the surface of the screen. It was quite surprising. Shocked the service tech they had replace it in my house.

But, perhaps there are some who have gotten better iMac screens than what I've seen.

I remember mine had a lot of really dark spots that stood out (uneven lighting). I don't see that so much with the Hanns.G. You have to really, really, really strain to notice any change in brightness on mine. The iMac was obvious at a glance.

I like to buy my monitors local so that if I got a dud, I could just walk in and grab another one. The local Fred Meyer has a 30 day no questions asked 100% refund return on electronics. That includes screens, iPods, televisions, anything they have.

So, I buy my stuff there if they have it. I've gotten a couple of really nice televisions for a bargain, and my monitors, and lots of other stuff.

Yes, stuck pixels are a luck issue. I've fortunately never had one on a system I've owned. If I did, it would drive me absolutely nuts.

I'll have to tinker with the brightness a little tomorrow

 

[psonice]

If you're comparing imac and mac pro price-wise by the way, I looked into this before buying. For about the same price (£1500 - around $3000), I had a choice of:

2.8ghz dual core 24" imac, 320gb HDD, 4gb ram, radeon 2600.

2ghz quad core mac pro, 250gb, 3gb ram, whatever bottom-end video card apple do.

This was with education discount, and getting 1gb RAM and upgrading myself to save costs. So:

- the imac includes a good 24" screen, the pro would be stuck with my 19" hanns.g
- the imac would have 1gb more ram, 70gb more disk space
- the imac would have bluetooth and wifi, the pro wouldn't
- the imac would have a video card with the latest features and good performance, the pro would have a low-end slow card

Against that, the pro would of course be a LOT more flexible and upgradeable. And it would be a lot more powerful, if I'd spent maybe an extra $1000 on faster CPUs, more disk space, more ram, and a decent video card (although they only offer last-generation cards, so I think the imac would probably still win there).