Students: You can now get a brand new 13" MacBook Air for less than $700

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You can now get a brand new 13" MacBook Air for less than $700

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thats still a ripoff

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Go to your local USPS and ask for a "movers package" or "Change of address package" you'll get an envelope with a 10% best buy coupon which stacks with the student discount.

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i tried to get one of those movers packages a couple months ago for a lowes coupon and I was told its all online now, and they don't have the booklet anymore

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That's about a 30% discount, depending on the model. For people that are considering an Air it absolutely is not a ripoff.

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Around here, apple is evil. Their products are trash and unless they are paying you to take it, the deal is a ripoff.

I still don't get it...

How long will this deal last?

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Around here, apple is evil.

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Well, it is supposed to be the Tech Board.

What do people expect?

Tech minded folks generally do not pay a 50% premium on products just because they like a logo.

I have to admit, Apple has the right idea with the way they sell it, even if it is underpowered and overpriced (It's actually not horribly overpriced with the discount). Besides the whole "omg-it's-so-thin" gimmick, the PCIe SSD is what creates the perception of superior performance, and you don't see too many traditional Windows PCs that are sold with lower-end hardware and a small SSD.

I mean, look at the base specs of the Air:
Dual-core 1.4Ghz i5-4260U w/ Intel HD graphics 5000
4GB of 1600MHz DDR3
1366x768 or 1440x900 resolution

Obviously unimpressive, but Macbook Air owners aren't power users, and the Air is not meant for that. They're students, casual browsers, youtube junkies, etc., going from place to place on battery, and 90% of the observable performance--in both speed and battery life--will come from that SSD.

Unfortunately, vendors of similar low-end Windows notebooks still try to sell storage -- a terrible 500GB 5400RPM hard drive instead of a 128GB SSD that might cost an extra $40 and add significant value and remove so much of the inaccurate stigma of Windows PCs slowing down over time. Most people aren't going to consider the idea of buying a low-end Windows notebook and swapping it out with an SSD from elsewhere.

When you factor in the significant student discount and the extra $60+ you'd pay to BYOSSD (bring your own SSD), it's actually difficult to find a comparable Windows-based notebook at that price point, all because of the poor decision of retailers to reserve SSDs for higher-end machines and the touchscreen ultrabooks.

When you type, I usually agree.

Easily I'm not an Apple guy because anything they sell I can configure and purchase at 30-50% of the cost.

But as usual you are spot on.

Because of the ridiculous assumptions you PC guys make about people that use Apple. We're sheep. We're fanboys. We buy them to look cool. We buy them for the logo.

How about because I think the OS is better. I work more efficiently and quickly on my Mac than my PC. I like the Finder better than the PC equivalent. I like the easy convert to PDF feature.

It's frustrating.