MacBook Pro - To buy now or wait?

Delta Skies

Delta Skies

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My lad is wanting to get himself a MacBook Pro and we can get educational discount which softens the blow (if only a little). However my wife found somewhere on the web (apologies not sure where) that there's a new model coming out sometime in the New Year.

The question is now do we.....
a - Buy now and beat the VAT increase
b - Wait until the new model comes out (with probably/possibly higher cost plus higher VAT)
c - Try and find a bargain current model being sold cheaper in the new year to make way for the new model
d - Try and pick up a second hand model when people upgrade in the new year
e - Wait until someone offers me one on TP ;)

Not wanting a Mac vs. laptop debate but some advice would be gratefully received.
 
http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro

I would just go for one now, make the most of the lower VAT.

I bought mine last September when I started Uni, using the discount, and a rebate on an iPod (Which you have missed out on) it cost me around £720 including 3 years apple care.

All I have done is upgrade my ram from 2Gb to 4Gb and it still runs exactly the same today as it did when I first bought it. Battery life has dropped a little, but it is still around 4.5 hours off a charge.

I'd just bite the bullet now. If a new one does come out, it's probably going to have a bigger HD and possibly 4Gb Ram instead of 2Gb and thats about it. The price will increase too.
 
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I'm in that boat mate, I was tempted by the Macbook air but couldn't do without a DVD drive. I think I'll wait and see what gets announced, I was hoping for a release pre Christmas so I'm twiddling my fingers...
 
There will always be a new Mac, they usually arrive just after you've bought one.
If you need one now and can afford it then buy now.

There is no guarantee that a new Mac will be cheaper or the same price as they are now, and the VAT increase will also inflate prices.
 
The MacBook Pro 15inch i5 is currently around £1500 or £1220 if purchased from pixmania and quidco!
Got mine a couple of weeks ago.

Being from a PC background it's nice to get something that 'just works'!
 
To be honest, I would just buy it now. Current models are good, and will be good for quite some time. :) And as we know Apple usually don't make huge leaps forward technology wise, each update is just a smaller step forward (like when MBP was Core 2 Duo, most of the time all that changed was faster clock speed). In October I bought the 15inch model, its a wonderful laptop and I think it will serve me long time. :)
 
Thanks for everyone's replies - it's really appreciated.

As this was being debated a Powerbook came up on this forum so I've grabbed it to tide him over to later next year and also it will be a great introduction to the world of Macs. As my son said "there's no going back to windows now" :)
 
I'd wait for the January sales. So that'll be this Monday.
 
neil_g said:
because..............?
Click to expand...

Well maybe I'm being a bit biased because of a bad experience myself. I got my first Nikon SLR from there, each week they would update their website saying the camera would be in stock within a week, after two months of waiting I emailed them to say I wanted to cancel my order. All of a sudden they couldn't cancel my order because they had magically found a camera out of thin air and it was already in the post. Also the instructions were in french, however I could download an english PDF from their website, which I couldn't.
 
current macbook pro with icore are pretty well spec'd and i doubt the new one will be leaps and bounds worth waiting for
 
Personally i'd wait until after the Macworld in January, just to see if anythign new is happening.

Can you not buy through a school or the uni? I did that with a machine and it meant i didn't have to pay VAT on it!
 
I'd say get one now, if you wait for the next "big thing", you'll be waiting forever.

I bought a 13.3" MacBook Core 2 Duo, in 2005, paid £750 for it, quite a lot of machine for the money back then.

Still using it today (in fact I'm typing this post on it), the only things it needed was a new hard drive and upgraded memory, oh and Snow Leopard OSX
 
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