Buying an Apple the hard way

5 thoughts on “Buying an Apple the hard way”

  1. Sorry to hear about the issues over in SA, I recently arrived in Aus, went to the Sydney Apple store and within 1 hour they had my Mac customised with what I required.

    I was walking out the door with a new wireless HP printer for $150, with a $130 cashback rebate too.

    NICE.

    To save loads of frustration and get a nice holiday to boot, fly anywhere outside of SA where they have sunny weather and a Apple Store. It’s far more relaxing going through a full body search than trying to get a Apple in SA

    🙂

  2. Hi Craig

    I am sincerely sorry to hear about your experience whilst dealing with Questek. My name is Justin and I am the General Manager of Questek Broadcast. Please email me your details and I’ll contact you immediately to discuss.

    Regards,

    Justin

  3. Hi Craig

    Justin (MS FORZA 2 launch) nice to see you onboard, how long before you Bootcamped Vista hehe. I’ve also just purchased the exact same model from iStore Menlyn Core group and must say the guys were on the ball, I did not quiz them on customization to be honest but I felt with a good felling. First thing guy told Dawie think his name was, was that I should jot down some questions and come see him after a few days with my Macbook PRO. To be honest it has been a breeze getting to learn OS X and anyone with some basic knowledge of Windows will adjust in little to know time.

    Warranties here is where I have a HUGE problem standard fair is the 1 year warranty which is understandable but when you are paying close to R30000 for a laptop a little extra cover beyond the standard one year protection would be nice. Here is one thing I cannot understand if you bought said laptop in the U.S/Europe and added a Apple care plan extra two years Core group must warrant the care plan in South Africa should that laptop break down within allotted period. I have spoken to CORE Group regarding this and frankly have not gotten a satisfactory answer from them, in my view it looks like CORE group just do not have the infrastructure in this Country to handle any sort of Apple Care plan which is standard fair in the regions where Apple products are sold. I’ve also spoken to all the third party resellers not going to mention names but they all seem to treat CORE Group with some level of distain, looks like CORE Group is the only Apple that fell out the basket. Digicape a third party reseller selling so called “grey” products does sell a type of care plan BUT only on hardware bought trough them which is understandable and a step in the right direction but leaves us so called legit customers high and dry.

    So as you can see it’s a very strange predicament and with popularity of Mac’s growing on a daily basis in this Country CORE Group will have to look stop looking at Mac products as some kind of fashion statement reserved for elite few that can throw money at the problem at a drop of the hat and start looking at it’s product line as a very worthy opponent to the PC market, be it a Mac running OS X or Windows OS via Bootcamp Vmware or Fusion. I read somewhere that 80% of laptops used at academic level in the US are Mac’s that’s huge here is seems that Mac’s are still for a very….very select few. “It’s the Rand/Dollar” and excuse retailers love to band around to explain the high prices in this Country, it seems Mac’s are still reserved for the elite few that can afford a stigma I’m sure the big wigs at Cupertino would love avoid. Compare Mac’s spec for spec in the US you will notice that they are actually cheaper. One thing I can never understand is that Electronic resellers in this Country seem to think that your average consumer in this Country has not heard of the internet and that 1 year warranties are some sort of holly grail and if you buy products from the likes of eBay or any one of the hundreds of online retailers you going to get burnt, quite frankly if I knew I was going to get the same product for a few grand less including shipping I would take my chances ESPECIALLY in these times.

    To close off another thing you will notice is that prices for Apple hardware in this Country as if by some sort of magic all seem to be the same, how can that be ? surely Grey product should be somewhat cheaper than its so called legit counterpart, not so in this Country here it seems you have one bad apple making the other apples rotten to the core, call it price fixing call it greed all I know is that the end user is getting the bad end of the stick.

    I’ve complied a lengthy email addressing a few issues with our so called legit distributor and will be sending it off to Apple HQ hopefully I will get some positive news I can share with you.

    All the best….

  4. Hi Craig,

    Don’t waste your time with the ZA Core, their prices went up last year in ± November 2008 due to the ‘exchange rate’ and they are now ridiculous! If you take any product on the UK or US Apple web and convert it with current exchange rate – that is what our prices were before they went up!
    I purchased my Mac Book Pro from my local Mac shop at a very good price and the service I have received from these guys has been outstanding. I have also dealt with the ZA Store and unfortunately it was not a pleasant experience.

    I believe that if ZA Core continues with these high prices they will eventually kill the SA market.

    Regards
    Norman

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