- We went to Best Buy Wednesday night to look at Apple Notebooks. Kelly was looking to buy a new notebook and I tried to sell her on the new Thinkpad X41 Tablet convertible, but the look is just too "plain jane" for her. So we decided to venture out to have a look at 12" notebooks. In the back corner of Best Buy, next to the Geek Squad, there's a small display of Apple computers. They've got the new iMac, the G5 tower, and they also had a 12" Powerbook. While the Powerbook comes in at $1699, the iBook, which also has a 12" screen comes in at $1250. Big price difference for a small difference in CPU speed.
- Aside from the hardware differences, and aesthetics of Mac OSX which I've spouted off about before, we had some serious questions regarding compatibility with Windows environments and applications -- the foremost being:
- is there a browser for OSX which has premium client compatibility for Outlook Web Access 2003 (premium clients yield full-blown Outlook 2003 desktop client look-and-feel, and usually, even on Windows platforms, only IE6 fits the bill)
- is there an office productivity suite which has something like Outlook and which is compatible with both Exchange server and PDA/handheld synchronization
- can you access Windows-based network shares, open documents, and print to Windows-based printers?
- Over comes representative number 1, from here on in known as Sleepy. Sleepy asks us if he can help us, to which we reply that we are looking for some information about Macs. "Do you have iBooks?", we ask, to which Sleepy quickly responds that he doesn't know anything about Macs, and he's going to have to get Edmund, who we'll call Grumpy. Grumpy, who's sporting full Geek Squad garb, then approaches and asks what we'd like to know about Macs. Kelly asks what kinds of software they come with, to which Grumpy quickly answers, "none, they don't come with anything". "How about an office suite, any word processor like applications?" -- "No, there's nothing like that". "What about internet explorer, can you get that, or download it?" -- "Nope, there's no such thing, doesn't exist" Grumpy says, and then continues to say "They're pretty much useless".
- That's great. Continuing onward, we ask about whether they carry iBooks, and what the pricing is. "Uh, no we only have Powerbooks". Disappointed, Kelly and I start to play with the 12" Powerbook that's on display. Of course, it's logged out, sitting at a login screen which is the most useful configuration for it to be in for customers who'd like to try one out. At that moment, another representative, who will aptly be known as Bashful, walks by carrying an in-box 12" iBook. Quickly, Kelly and I follow him as he strolls towards some other customers and ask, "Hey, you have iBooks?" -- "Uh, yeah, we do... they're on the wall past the networking gear", and he points to where we just were. We go back thinking we obviously missed the display. Meanwhile, Sleepy and Grumpy have disappeared. After moving boxes, looking up and down, sideways, backwards, there is no sign of an iBook, either on display, or boxed. Getting more frustrated now, we walk back over toward Bashful, who's now trying to push a 2-year extended warranty on the future owners of the iBook he's holding.
- While we stand there, not wanting to interrupt, up comes yet another Best Buy employee, who we'll call Dopey. Dopey asks if he can help us, to which I reply, that he more than likely can't, because so far, the three other people we've spoken to have been so helpful already. So we mention we're interested in a Mac, and quickly his demeanor changes -- "I don't really know about Macs, I'm new and I haven't been trained on that particular section yet, but I'll try and help you. But if you'll notice that there is only a small section of Apple computers, on that wall over there ... and see this other space (as he gestures to the 500 square feet or so of Windows desktops and notebooks), there's a reason it's all Windows stuff, because it just works better.". Absoutely enlightened, we tell him that's nice, but we really do have some questions about the Macs, and if he could maybe find someone who knows something about them, that would be good. So he points us back in the direction of Grumpy, who is "certified" and who comes over again and asks what it is we want to know.
- "Well, you said you don't carry iBooks, and yet Bashful, your manager is in the process of selling one right now. Do you have any more, and what's the difference between the iBook and the Powerbook?" -- "The iBook is faster than the Powerbook, is the main difference" he says, and quickly I ask "So if the iBook is faster, why is it $450 cheaper than the Powerbook?" and off he wanders again, to find Bashful.
- So now we're standing in the back of the store, stupider than when we walked in, with not one, not two, not three, but FOUR Best Buy employees trying to figure out whether they have stock of an item they don't apparently carry, and why it's faster but cheaper. In the meantime, as if we aren't annoyed enough, someone else has decided to test out an in-store anti-theft device and apparently doesn't know how to disarm it. Loud sirens and whistles are going off -- but there are many other dwarves who apparently can't hear the anti-theft device.
- Eventually, we approach the four horsemen, who are still conversing (hopefully about the conundrum they've gotten themselves into). Bashful, now available for questioning, asks what we need to know. "We wanted to know what the differences between the iBook and Powerbook were, because Grumpy was saying that the iBook is faster, yet it's cheaper". Grumpy then pipes up that "No, I said that the Powerbook was faster". "Whatever, so what other differences are there?" -- "Well, the Powerbook has more RAM", Grumpy retorts. "Oh really? It says that they both have 512MB". "So they do, it looks like", he says. "So", turning to Bashful, "can we get an office suite for Mac OSX?" -- "Yes", he says, "It's in the software center". "Great! How about an Exchange server? Can you configure something to talk to Exchange?" -- "I'll have to check it out" says Grumpy, who wanders off into the Geek Squad lair.
- In the meantime, we ventured over to the software center, where Doc and Sneezy were chatting up a storm. So we asked about Office for Mac, which they had, and about any other software, which they didn't have, and then headed back over to the Mac section.
- While we'd been gone, Grumpy had determined that Entourage, a component of Office 2004 for Mac, would talk to an Exchange server no problem. We'd also determined this by looking at the product box in the software center. So we thanked him and continued to look at the Powerbook -- not even a minute later the seventh and final representative who we'll call Happy interjects with "That Powerbook is the last one, so if you want it, you're taking that one", he says and continues on to say "But I should let you know that they've been discontinued also.". "Do we get a discounted price then, because it's all banged up?", we ask, and he says he has to look into it. Minutes later, he comes back and says "$1699 regular price, since it's open box the best we can do is $1609".
- "Thanks, but no thanks."
- Just as we're getting ready to leave, an innocent by-stander approaches us and says "You should go to the Apple Store, over in Yorkdale, they have way cheaper open-box items. Don't buy it here".
- Being 8:45PM, and seeing as the Apple Store closes at 9:00PM, we decided we'd think about it and head over to the Apple Store the next evening.
- The Apple Store at Yorkdale is huge. It has the largest display of Apple merchandise I've ever seen. And there are multiple displays of each item. Each notebook we looked at had useful software installed, had Internet connections, and customers were given free reign to do whatever they wanted to to help make their purchasing decisions easier. And then there's the lineup. As a passerby, one might have thought that they were giving away their hardware.
- To make a long story short, they indeed had "fire-sale" items, and one was a 12" Powerbook, 1.5GHz G4 CPU, with 512MB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive, brand new, unopened, for $1199.
- Suffice it to say, we're the proud owners of a new Apple Powerbook -- and, that it obviously takes more than seven Best Buy employees to successfully sell an Apple product.