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This struck me as odd....

RichardI

RichardI

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 21, 2007
568
5
Southern Ontario, Canada
I went on a short trip yesterday to my local (1/2 hr. drive) BestBuy to see for myself how the new iMac screen looks. I found it odd in the first place that my hometown Future Shop did not have any new ones, but they did have the "old" ones on display. Anyway, I arrive at the Best Buy Computers department to find a 27" iMac only (no 21.5") and a 24" Cinema Display. Nothing else Apple! The odd part is that the 27" had a wired Mighty Mouse and a wired keyboard with the numeric keypad connected to it!? I asked the guy that was hovering around there why and he made some sly comment about the wireless ones 'disappearing'. There were no prices shown on Apple stuff. The screen is definitely brighter than mine, but not enough difference to cause me to start a savings account.
Man, I'd be surprised if anyone, in that environment, surrounded by shiny PC's with low price tags (as low as $399 Can.) would even consider a Mac. Maybe I should get a part-time job.....;)

Rich :cool:
 
The thing with best buy as opposed to the apple store is that they are just trying to sell any of their stock in order to make a good total profit. Theres no benefit for them to focus on making the macs look any more enticing than the pcs. In fact, its probably a more realistic comparison as there is none of apples strong branding and advertising around to make you feel like you need a mac over a pc.
 
I also dropped into mine yesterday, they had the new CD2 27 and 21 and an old 24 on display. Interesting thing with the 27, they had a white card spec'd out exactly for the stock i5 at $1999, however it listed the processor as a 2.66GHz CD2. I asked if they had this machine in stock and they said no.

Oh yeah...they also had all the new MacBook, MacBook Pros and Air. They clearly define the Apple section at my BB. Big black background with Apple all over it.
 
The wired mighty mouse is strange for a new Mac that would come with a Magic mouse... But whats wrong with the new wired keyboard with numeric key pad? I personally like it better than the cramped laptop keyboards...
 
The Best Buy I bought my iMac from had the new units on display but the old accessories connected to them. I made sure to double check the box to make sure I was getting a 21.5" though.
 
Strange that they didn't have many of the new products...

Makes total sense about the mouse and keyboard though. They opted for wired products probably to prevent someone pocketing the mouse or something and walking out of the store with it. :D

I've never been to happy with buying anything from Best Buy. Apple is the only company I ever buy fully built computers from. My recent iMac or my Original Macbook Pro and I knew what I was getting after doing my research online and bought them at the Apple store.

For any PC you're getting ripped off if you get it from BestBuy. Looking around online you'll find a better deal or if it's a desktop, learning a thing or two about building your own and you'll save almost 50% by purchasing parts from Tigerdirect or NewEgg and assembling yourself. Most of these companies have terrible service departments anyway so you don't have much to gain from buying a Dell or HP (anything but an HP).

If you don't know how to build one then read a book or just give it a shot. Make sure you're static free and just make sure your specs all match. Like processor is socket whatever, get a motherboard that fits that socket. Mother board says ram is 1666, get ram with that same speed. And so on.
 
Bryan Bowler said:
Best Buy has always been terrible at displaying products. No surprise here!
Click to expand...

I beg to differ. Depending on the location of the BestBuy or FutureShop stores some placements of Apple products are done VERY well.

Toronto: Dundas St & Yonge St - FutureShop has a particular table of Apple products seperated from the other PC's. Its somewhat in the open and more prominent than the Windows desktop PC's.

Toronto: Bay St & Dundas St W - BestBuy (just 1 block West of the above FS store): here there is a placement of MacBook, MBPs, and iMacs just in front of the display HDTV (52") - which I think is setup with iTV. What is great about this store is there is an isle before and after it with iPod's & accesories for all Mac products.

Yes the pricing is higher on Mac's, and so is the customer satisfaction (not just in service from Apple & support forums) but also in using the products! The issue with FutureShop is they're paid minimum wages and "encouraged" to sell products either on sale OR with a higher commission price (also listed in smaller numbers on the price tag; the code). And also to enforce the PSP = Product Service Plan (or whatever their calling it now); which is a complete rip-off as the stores management finds all kinds of excuses to replace the product.

Still I'd rather go into the Apple Store to get my first brand new MBP/iMac ... just for the experience and help in transfering everything I have from my current PC HDD.
 
Some stores are just better than others at displaying thier products. This is true not just for Macs. Have you seen some of the TV displays, they are horrible. I swear some of the Best Buy managers must have never worked retail and don't understand how to properly display products.
 
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