Hi All

Been looking at apple for a while now, since the release of Tiger decided to look very closely.

Went to the Apple Store in Regent street and

My Brother left with a 15" Powerbook 1GB RAM, Office 2004 and Photoshop
My Mum is getting a mac Mini
And when i have the cash im also gonna go for a mac mini and Powerbook

If you live in the UK and are thinking of converting or adding a mac then go to the store in london, they are the most helpful Enthusiastic people ive every met in a store.

They had loads of mac's and apple stuff on display including a G5 with 2 x 30" Cinema screens very impressive!!

I have been using windows since 3.1 before i used windows i used DOS. After using a mac with some excellent advise from the apple ppl and info from this site i am a convert. We have been loading sites up in Safari and are just dumbstruck at the speed web pages load up compared to WinXP + IE6. I use a wireless netgear router and the mac just found it, we entered the wep code and we were straight on. No problems not third party crap no messing about, job done.

Love Office 2004, i dunno why microsoft ships the best office on a max, but im not complaining

Your looking at one happy family of mac converts

Amen, good on you man!

I too am a convert and I will never be going back to Windows, that's for sure. I am so disapointed I have to use Windows when I'm at work.

I got my first Mac in January, it was a Mac Mini and it has served me really well so far. As it was always my plan to upgrade once I had the in's and out's of OSX my brother and his girlfriend are having my whole setup for their flat.

I'm upgrading to a new 20", 2 GHz iMac G5. Hopefully it will be here by the end of the week and I cannot wait!

Always great to hear from a new convert! Congrats mate!

good for you -

i use both, they both have pluses and minuses.

i actually like windows tho

I agree, i never quite got why ppl were so excited about the change until now.

I also agree that i could never get rid of windows as i do like to play the odd game and use the odd application, but it's hard to use it after OS X

My friend works in applestore, he gets me some staff discount sometime

I keep meaning to go and check that place out, did you take any pics?

Went there a couple of days back to test Tiger before buying it.

Seeing dual 30" ACD's next to a dual G5 makes me weep

Also surfed on Neowin from there - left it open full screen in Safari before I was leaving and people were reading the articles on the front page

More sucked in by Neowin

Radish™

Heh, I went to the Apple Store in London to get my iBook, it was a 200 Mile drive, but worth it.

I'm not the only one that drives a long way away just to buy their Macs! I drove about an hour and a half from here just to buy my Dual G5 & converse with the staff there at the Apple Store. They're quite nice.

**** the staff, I wanted to hang out and look cool in da Apple Store.

im going to get an apple computer next year too...
im gonna spend like around 1000 euros (=about USD 1333, almost 1337 )
im not sure yet what to buy... a portable one or a on-the-go solution... mhh

g2g
-fm

me too I think OS X UI is sluggish ...at least on my iBookG4/Panther

It's not on my system. Besides you're comparing a UI from OS's of different generations almost...

the UI is much faster on Tiger.

Congrats on the purchases! (how come he got Office instead of iWork?)

i went for office myself because of excel and because my university uses MS Office 2000 so i have to make sure my document is going to look EXACTLY the same

Exactly above ^ he will need to share documents with other ppl, and ive only heard good reviews re: office 2004. After using it for a while, i find i prefer it to office 2003! The only thing missing was MS Access (i have thought about filemaker, but access is such a good data dumping ground).

Regarding the travel, i took the train which is a little over an hour as we wanted to make double sure that the switch was gonna be ok. The guys in there certainly know there stuff!

Didn't take any pictures but will do on the next visit (which will be soon).

The UI on the machines i used (Tiger + power books, imacs and G5's) was really snappy. I did "try" a powerbook in PCWorld a couple of years back and then i did find it a little sluggish. Now however it's MUCH faster than windows, including the little graphic candy such as the genie effect on minimise.

I know it's a little strange, but the effects like the genie minise and the other little animations also got me hooked. I know it should matter, but we are in the 21st Century so i would like the computers i use, look nice with effects and high quaility icons etc..

The strange thing with the 30" dual monitors, is that being from a windows world i would have thought i would have been impossible to use them (icons/fonts to small at that resolution). Even standing approx 30cm away from them, there was no flicker, and the fonts and icons were sharp and very easy to read. (The desktop real estate was unreal )

It's just nice to walk into a store where the staff are actually interested in their own product.
PCWorld is just "over there mate" "dunno mate try this phone number"

radish, i did the same
I have a screenshot from the 30" ACD of it:D

everything ive exported to .doc looks fine under Office

I'm getting a lower interest rate Credit Card next week. As soon as that baby gets in my hands, I'm gonna buy a 17" iMac G5. Can't wait. It'll be 7.5 or 8% instead of 18%.

It is just me or are a lot of people buying Macs now with the release of Tiger? It seems, if you fell like I do, MS has really hit a big road bump in usability and Longhorn won't be able to provide.

I have a quest too: the Apple Education store asks for your student ID. Do they ask you to fax in a copy of your student card or proof of enrollement as well. I AM a university student. I haven't finished the checkout process yet, but it doesn't ask for further proof.

your ordering by telephone or online? if so they just ask where you go to school. I dont even think they check it.

well the apple store offers six months interest free is that will help DrunkenMaster, thats the UK store.

Yep i have tested loads of docs and there hasn't been one slight glitch

I made a second trip to the store on thursday and my mums now a convert, and ive just ordered mine. so thats it, we have all made the plunge, and it's well worthwhile.

Some pics

Front1
Front2
A cool bag for a cool comp
Theres only so much 30" Display you can take before a recharge
The Store 1
The Store 2
The Store 3
The Wirless hotspot Demo theatre
Apple Gurus Helping

My only small gripe is that because all of the apples in the store are connected to the internet, by about midday you find the store does turn into a cybercafe. And because it's free everyone is in there chatting on yahoo and using hotmail. I know this is a ploy to get more ppl using mac's. But it would have been nice if some of the machine were disconnected from the web, which would leave them just for the ppl interested in purchasing them.

So if you wanna be able to move around and check out all of the machines, i would recommend going early in the morning.

Apart from that minor point, go apple.

well congradulations, its cool isnt it! i love os x, its so awesome just wish it had the same game support, but well have fun!

I agree about the staff at the Apple stores. At the Bullring store I dont think Ive ever met a more clued up and enthusiastic group of employees.

i just looked at those pics and i must say, u guys are so lucky. the closest apple store to me is bout i dunno 30 to 45 min a way and its in a mall, actually inside the mall so no awesome entrance or cool building owned by teh crown, heh.

It's not just you. I bought my 12" PowerBook (first Mac) last week mainly because of Tiger and I am loving it. Tiger rocks and it just plain works prefectly.

Also, I went for the Apple Credit in store and was approved for a rate of around a little more than 11% which is the lowest they offer. And I have 3 months of no interest so it should be paid off by then, if not I can always transfer the balance to a lower interst card. Not hard and I get my Mac without waiting (not there is anything wrong with waiting).

When I was buying mine I was going to order it online. I rang up Apple saying I was thinking of placing an order online but wanted to know how long it would be before I received it?

The guy said if you want to do it now I'll put it on priority order & knock off £58 ($109.24)
'Done!' I said & 2 days later it arrived

I must agree, the apple store in regents street is awesome, i have been there a few times, whatever i ask the employees there, they can always answer. very nice place (except the last time i went when people were hogging the machines without even needing to be there, meaning I, the person who wants to BUY a machine couldnt get to use one, i know if i actually asked one of the apple store workers to use a machine they would have kicked someone off, but i didnt want to cause any problems for anyone )

Yeah i had the same problem, i was showing one of my friends around the apple store, but they were all being used for hotmail

well im traveling down to the local one in charlotte this tuesday to get my 17inch powerbook (finally after a months wait, heh). ill see if traffic has increased since the last visit or not. last time i went with a friend it was packed, but i could still try out the 30 inch displays, and wow, ut2k4 never looked better, lol

Traffic's worth it, to play with the 30" displays + G5

MonkeyClaw you lucky guy. I've made it my goal to mount an exedition to the Charlotte Apple Store this summer

I agree all

Apples Customer Service is A++. Day before yesterday it was the last day to return my Cinema Display and Mac Mini. I had to go to NY that day and thought I would do it on the way back that night. But I had to stay for a while and I wouldnt be home till midnight so I thought I'll try it out the Apple Store in NY. So I go there told them I want an iMac instead of the Mac Mini and ACD. They didnt ask any questions and gave me a iMac. No hassle whatsoever. Very helpful people.

Just another quick update, went out and brought an iPod. I finally understand what all the fuss is about.

Coming from the windows background it was hard to understand why ppl went for these, why bother when you could get a zen etc.. cheaper with large capacity.

It is the most straight forward, easiet MP3 player i have ever used (Archos, Zen, PMP). It is exactly how i would design and use an mp3 player, love the way iTunes sync's everything. And the quality is top notch.

Just one question what did you guys do with the stickers