Oct 22 - Apple iPad event

Creamy Goodness

whiterebel wrote: »

What's with the dogooder crack? You should also point out that if you get caught coming through customs with more than €430 worth of goods, you pay VAT on the whole lot, not just the one item.
Customs are getting much tougher checking inbound baggage these days, so there is no point in complaining if you have to pay 23% extra on top. It doesn't look quite the bargain then.

also not to mention, avoiding customs tax is against the law and having methods explained how to avoid it can land boards in hot water.

we don't want boards to disappear do we?

prettyboy81

I am thinking of selling my iPad 3rd Gen 32gb & going for one of the new mini's with Retina, oh decisions. I am in the US in December so will try & sell iPad before then & just pick a mini up when over there.

siobhanoh

whiterebel wrote: »

What's with the dogooder crack? You should also point out that if you get caught coming through customs with more than €430 worth of goods, you pay VAT on the whole lot, not just the one item.
Customs are getting much tougher checking inbound baggage these days, so there is no point in complaining if you have to pay 23% extra on top. It doesn't look quite the bargain then.

To be honest I never knew about this law! :eek: And I know you can't claim ignorance of the law so I'm pretty lucky I've never been stopped!

joostl

just put it in your bag without packaging nothing to hide then

_Redzer_

Why is the 13" retina macbook pro 1,349 euro on Apple.ie, but $1,299 on the US site?

murpho999

_Redzer_ wrote: »

Why is the 13" retina macbook pro 1,349 euro on Apple.ie, but $1,299 on the US site?

Well they are always dearer here and in Europe but don't forget that Irish prices include all taxes whereas the US ones don't and state and federal taxes get added at checkout.

pfurey101

_Redzer_ wrote: »

Why is the 13" retina macbook pro 1,349 euro on Apple.ie, but $1,299 on the US site?

Its been like that since Marconi stated selling his wired radiotronical device. It was $4.99 in the US and £59.99 here.

I tried to battle Sony Ireland in the early 90's over the price of a camcorder.

I gave up.

_Redzer_

murpho999 wrote: »

Well they are always dearer here and in Europe but don't forget that Irish prices include all taxes whereas the US ones don't and state and federal taxes get added at checkout.

I always knew it excluded tax there, but still! I never knew it was like that all the time, always assumed they were more accurately priced for the currency.

murpho999

_Redzer_ wrote: »

I always knew it excluded tax there, but still! I never knew it was like that all the time, always assumed they were more accurately priced for the currency.

I know it's terrible

Either way I'm always shocked at Mac prices.

15" Mac Pro is either €2049 or €2649. :eek:

No wonder they're giving Mavericks for free.

boreder

murpho999 wrote: »

I know it's terrible

Either way I'm always shocked at Mac prices.

15" Mac Pro is either €2049 or €2649. :eek:

No wonder they're giving Mavericks for free.

In fairness, the MacBook Pro is a powerful machine aimed at people who need powerful desktop-standard performance on the go.

It's not meant for people writing word documents and looking at Facebook.

_Redzer_

boreder wrote: »

In fairness, the MacBook Pro is a powerful machine aimed at people who need powerful desktop-standard performance on the go.

It's not meant for people writing word documents and looking at Facebook.

That's fine. From what I've seen they're very much worth it for high end work in photo and video editing, I'd just wish they'd reflect the exchange rate a lot better. Even €150 cheaper making it on par with the American price would be great. I'd definitely get a 13" for €1200, but really couldn't afford any more.

murpho999

boreder wrote: »

In fairness, the MacBook Pro is a powerful machine aimed at people who need powerful desktop-standard performance on the go.

It's not meant for people writing word documents and looking at Facebook.

I know what you're saying but when you look at the software they were promoting at the event, garage band, iLife etc, even how notifications were changed, it is not just pitched at professional user.

boreder

_Redzer_ wrote: »

That's fine. From what I've seen they're very much worth it for high end work in photo and video editing, I'd just wish they'd reflect the exchange rate a lot better. Even €150 cheaper making it on par with the American price would be great. I'd definitely get a 13" for €1200, but really couldn't afford any more.

But unless you're doing photo or video editing, it's probably not the best machine for you. If you are doing work that warrants the performance, you'd find the extra €99 from somewhere.

There is always going to be a difference in price from USA, same way there is with virtually every other product out there. It would be nice if it were a bit closer, but there's a cost to doing business overseas for them, and that has to be passed on.

Having a quick look, we're in a better boat than the rest of europe on the MacBook. The ex-vat price for us is less than UK, Germany, France. It's out government's 23% VAT that makes it more expensive to buy. Bare in mind (has already been said), the prices you're looking at on the US store are ex-tax too.

murpho999 wrote: »

I know what you're saying but when you look at the software they were promoting at the event, garage band, iLife etc, even how notifications were changed, it is not just pitched at professional user.

Not sure if I understand. They were demo'ing OSX and iLife, iWork, etc. That's software. Available on all the machines from Mac mini to Mac Pro. They weren't specifically showing the performance value of a MacBook Pro.

FourFourRED

boreder wrote: »

but there's a cost to doing business overseas for them, and that has to be passed on.

Less cost for them to sell over here because of their tax strategy.

murpho999

boreder wrote: »

Not sure if I understand. They were demo'ing OSX and iLife, iWork, etc. That's software. Available on all the machines from Mac mini to Mac Pro. They weren't specifically showing the performance value of a MacBook Pro.

From my point of view, the only mac I would want to switch to is a Macbook pro because of the screen size regardless of the any other offering's spec.

My current windows laptop is 15" and I wouldn't want smaller. I think a lot of users would be of the same opinion.
Only option with Apple is the pro and I think it's price is very expensive and excludes a lot of people despite Apples attempts to attract them with these software offers.

Sad Professor

Wow!

Dont be at yourself

Would like to see where the new Mini fits in there!

Sad Professor

The Retina mini is rocking the A7 chip as well, so unless they've downclocked it to preserve battery, it should be the same.

Dont be at yourself

Sad Professor wrote: »

The Retina mini is rocking the A7 chip as well, so unless they've downclocked it to preserve battery, it should be the same.

Yep, that's my question (along with levels of RAM). If it's the same tech spec-for-spec except for the screen, I'd be quite tempted.

Sad Professor

I reckon they'll both have 1GB of RAM. Initially I thought the Air might have 2GB, but that seems unlikely given the iPhone still only has 1GB. The first-gen Mini has 500MB, so the second-gen needs at least 1GB to power the Retina display.

Internal specs aside, I still can't decide between them. The Mini is very tempting, but after using a regular size iPad for so long I think I'd find it very limiting as well, especially for reading magazines and typing. Then again my iPad 2 WiFi never leaves the house and a Mini with cellular would open up a lot of new usage possibilities.

FourFourRED

Very detailed review of the iPad Air. It's convinced me that I will buy this over the Mini.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7460/apple-ipad-air-review

cuilteanna

Sad Professor wrote: »

Internal specs aside, I still can't decide between them. The Mini is very tempting, but after using a regular size iPad for so long I think I'd find it very limiting as well, especially for reading magazines and typing. Then again my iPad 2 WiFi never leaves the house and a Mini with cellular would open up a lot of new usage possibilities.

Most magazines aren't too bad on the current mini, ones like the Economist, Macworld, and my craft magazines are fine. It's web pages that do my head in! I don't like mobile sites and reading full sites on the smaller screen is annoying (especially with older eyes). I'm trying to decide if it's worth the trade off in size to have the larger screen or if the retina display will make that much difference to the mini for reading tiny fonts. I suppose I'll have to wait until the retina mini appears to decide. I really do love the size of it and am rarely without my mini.