Sucker ;)

Apple looks like they will be the leaders for the next ten years or so. I dont think your investment will go astray.

Cam
I agree. There is no buyer's remorse. The jump needed to be made so that I can continue to do the thoughtfactory work.

Gary, as a remote person who is an experienced Apple re-seller for 25 years call Steve
Cheers from mal E

gary - I am just amazed at the expense, arrogance, lack of genuine knowledge and plain snobbery of the Apple stores. I first encountered it some years ago when the first born was doing graphic design. This year the second born is doing animation/filmaking and we did the rounds of the Apple dealers.

I can't remember when I was last so badly treated as a potential customer. Theres not many places left in the world where you can walk in ready to spend $2,000+ and be ignored, then spoken to rudely and condescendingly and then be told blatant bullshit.

I'm surprised that the retail price maintainance of Apple doesn't get challenged. It is near impossible to find a $10 price difference between dealers on a $2,000+ purchase.

Luckily it turned out my local pc dealer also has another store in another suburb that has an Apple dealership. So I was able to drive 15 ks away to get a professional response and advice about getting non Apple peripherals, portable hard drive etc, for about 30% of the cost of apple add ons.

FXH,
Luckily I bought my Macbook through a photographic store that was connecting computers to digital photography, so I avoided the arrogance, spin and elitism. They were interested in getting the photography customers to come back.

I've had to buy an Apple mouse, keyboard and USB hub from the Apple dealers so that I could get things up and running asap. It was top retail dollar and it annoyed me that they did not have good (well designed) docking stations.

Since I managed to stick with the BENQ screen and Lacie hard disc I already had I felt that I had made the transition as painlessly as possible. I will avoid the Apple stores as much as I can in the future. You have to be a very informed and focused consumer to go into one of those---some are pushing the iPhone on expensive Telstra plans (only option) without letting consumers know about the excess broadband charges.

FXH, I haven't hit that in either Virginia or Arizona. I think the Apple elitism/snobbery is a stereotype. IIRC the company I work for has about 60% IE, 20% FF and 8% Safari. So the Apple users are growing in number such that any elitism that exists will have difficulty remaining.

Cam
It is not a sterotype in Adelaide. Apple produces well designed and well made gear, at the top end of the market. so there is no need for the arrogance and indifference.

It is disconcerting when so many are making the shift to Apple from the PC world.

cam - it might be different in USA but I can say the arrogance is pretty par for the course here. Certainly for the average punter - it might be different for a big graphics or film shop where they order in 10 machines at a time.

Its weird because with Apple's rigid price fixing the only thing dealers have to compete on is customer service.

The elitism bullshit is partly built into the system - when I'm being told that a stick of ram is twice as dear because its "special apple ram" or a hard drive is a "special apple harddrive". C'mon. It's normal old ram ram and standard hard drive manufacturers.