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Buying an iMac in Russia: Experience, Tips, Pitfalls

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Introduction


About a year ago, I collected my thoughts, found free time and installed Snow Leopard on a recently acquired Mac OS X 10.6.6 computer, or more simply, “created” Hakintosh for myself. I will not describe the installation and configuration process, just the facts: a characteristic - how it worked. The characteristics of the hack were as follows:
Kykin1965 already wrote about hakintoshs in his article “Hakintosh” - is the game worth the candle? therefore, on the questions “what? as? why? ”regarding hackintosh, I will not focus. (Ask if you have any questions about this hardware under the hack.)
Having sat on this animal for about a year, having updated later to 10.7, I finally decided to buy an iMac. This fine process will be discussed below.

Intelligence service


Starting to delve into the abundance of proposals, my jaw at first fell away from the number of zeros in price. After which I did the following: I went to the apple website in the Apple Store USA and the Apple Store in Hong Kong . The second is considered to be one, if not the cheapest, Apple Store in the world.
For example, the minimum price for iMac = $ 1199 ~ 37406 rubles. - in the USA, 9188 HK $ = 36783 rub. - in Hong Kong. The difference is not great, but in our case, the penny saves the ruble.

Performing not complicated actions, I assembled the computer I needed in the designer at both sites. The results were as follows:

USA: iMac 27 "Core i7 3.4 Ghz, 4 GB RAM * , Radeon HD 6970M 2GB, 256 GB SSD + 2 TB HDD = $ 3049 or 95,123 rubles .
')
Hong Kong: iMac 27 "Core i7 3.4 Ghz, 4 GB RAM * , Radeon HD 6970M 2GB, 256 GB SSD + 2 TB HDD = 23698 HK $ or 94873 rubles .
* - I deliberately indicate the minimum configuration of RAM, the reasons for the below.

And now, it turns out that almost top-end iMac 27 " (except for RAM) costs an average of 95,000 rubles.

Everything is relative

Having received the initial data, we begin searches in the domestic market, according to this characteristic. Immediately it is worth making a reservation that it is difficult to find just such a characteristic. As a rule, a different digit RAM, or more often, the inscription: “this configuration is made to order”, but this does not prevent us from carrying out an approximate analysis.

Here is what was found in our market:
... the list can be continued for a very long time, its essence, I think, is clear. There are more or less adequate stores like DeepApple and MacSolutions, and they are completely brazen, represented by those who raise the price almost 2 times.

With the state of affairs in the domestic market, everything has become more or less clear.

Dilemma


Having carefully analyzed the market, the question arose: to search for acquaintances, intermediaries or firms that would bring the beast from the states, or agree with our prices. Again we start to read and dig information. And that's what happens.
For all that we bring from abroad, and that costs more than 1000 Euros, you need to pay 30% of the excess amount.
95000 rubles worth iMac, while we will reject the cost of transportation and so on. Suppose we personally brought it.

It turns out that at the border they will charge us: (95000 - 41955) / 100 * 30 = 15913 rubles .
95000 + 15913 = 110 913 rubles. The cost of iMac + import it to Russia. + ticket price, accommodation, hemorrhoids with a visa, etc. = the amount is growing rapidly and has every chance to cross 170 thousand rubles, which are requested by our sellers.

Even if we use the services of intermediary companies, we will still pay, and the amount will be about 120-130 thousand, depending on the intermediary, and the company that will bring you the long-awaited purchase.
We should not forget about the nerves and worries that you spend during transportation, the time it takes and of course the risk of getting the stones in the box instead of the desired product. Yes, yes, the Russian Post may be like that.

Selection


After carefully weighing all the pros and cons, assessing the state of my nervous system, and the risk of getting stones by mail, I decided to buy iMac in Russia. Because The prices I was most attracted to DeepApple and MacSolutions, I began to study the reviews about these resellers. Both of them have the status of authorized resellers and servits-centers Apple. After reading many reviews, different, my choice fell on MacSolutions.

Purchase Process and Feedback on MacSolutions

On their website, there is a configuration designer similar to Apple; trifle, but nice.
As I already wrote, the configuration I needed cost 133400 rubles. I called on Skype in their office, got on a young man named Ilya, he introduced himself as their general director. He told me that he was ready to make a discount and round it up to 130 thousand rubles. The difference in price has not changed much, but you must admit, this is nice. It was a Saturday, it was possible to order delivery only on Monday. But I was already on courage, and I was ready to go on foot after him, so I said that I’d take it out today, on my own iMac.
Because I live in Moscow, and get on time somewhere, the task is difficult, even on a weekend, I called on the way and warned that by 5 pm I did not have time to drive up and asked to wait. They agreed. Having detained people for almost an hour, at work, I even got to the MacSolution office, paid off, got my iMac, and happy went home through Moscow traffic jams.

In general, I really liked the company, its employees, the attitude to the client and of course the quality of the product itself is at its best! And I am already writing this article from this iMac. =)

Underwater rocks. Or how to reduce the cost of iMac


Because iMac is a candy bar, and Apple's. So, the possibilities to “stick” something new there, or to upgrade something, are very limited, but they exist. Therefore, to the insides of our future beast, you should pay special attention.

RAM

Immediately it should be noted that despite the fact that Apple itself offers only 16 GB of memory, the iMac supports 32 GB. (4 x 8 GB).
But no matter how it was there, if you plan to increase the memory of the iMac, you should not do this in the service centers and when you purchase. Buy with a minimum of 4 GB of memory, (2 x 2 GB). And buy the memory separately. To make it easier to understand, I will give an example:
Install 16 GB of memory in MacSolution - it costs 10,000 rubles, both with the purchase, and simply if you bring your Mac.
But STOP! The real cost of this memory does not exceed 4000 rubles. For example me, 4 kingston DDR-3 SO-DIMM PC10600 1333Mhz slats cost 3280 rubles, and one cost 820 rubles. The replacement process, described in the user manual that comes with the iMac, you need to unscrew the 3 bolts, and tighten them.

You can keep with you 6,720 of your blood! You decide.

SSD drive

Any service center has a service to add an SSD disk to the iMac if it allows it. Apple offers a 256 GB SSD drive, and no choice. Moreover, the choice of this item in MacSolution adds 23,000 rubles to the cost. In the store, a disc of this size can be taken for ~ 12,000 rubles, + 4,500 rubles is worth installing it in the service center (in this case, talking about MacSolution).
The bottom line: you save ~ 6500 rubles.

Let's sum up



How not to spin, but buying Apple equipment in Russia, we are forced to overpay. The only question is how much. By my own example, I showed you that you can buy this expensive product, and save your money to the maximum. I hope my experience will be useful to you.

PS Calculations are made at the rate of Euro, Dollar, and Hong Kong dollar on 11/23/2011 number.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/133652/

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