This morning these guys posted a deal at OzBargain — Free Australia-wide Delivery with PayPal so you can get your discounted Mac delivered to your home/work for free! Not just desktops and notebooks, it also works with iPods. For example according to Shopbot, the cheapest iPod Touch 8GB is $395 (as of 28/11/2007), but they are $393.86 at Getmac.

Deal expires on 20 December 2007.

For the latest PayPal deals, check out PayPal-Offers.com.au. They must be fighting hard against the banks trying to win over merchants by offering these deals. Well, consumer wins :)

Should you wait? For myself I have absolutely no desire of an Apple iPhone — at least not at its price point. However there are many who simply cannot wait, and have already started importing retail packaged iPhone from US, terminated the contract with AT&T, unlocked the phone and then used them in Australia’s GSM network! It did not take long for the entire process to be streamlined into a business, and “unlocked iPhone” deals started to appear on OzBargain.

08/09/2007 — $1,400 from Quikshop

Quikshop started it first. Actually I am not sure whether they were the first one commercialise this process but I spotted them first when I searched for iPhone on Shopbot. At $1,400 it is more than double the price of buying iPhone out-right + cost to terminate the contract. I am not sure how many suckers have bought from them at this price, and Quikshop has already dropped the price to $999.

17/09/2007 — $999 from ShoppingSquare

ShoppingSquare seems to be taking big orders of importing unlocked iPhones from US. $999 seems to be quite reasonable comparing to Quikshop and furthermore then are providing 1 year limited warranty in Australia. Not sure how ShoppingSquare does it but I think it should give buyers a peace of mind just in case your new iPhone turns into iBrick during an update. They have since dropped the price to $979.

20/09/2007 — $979 from OzBazaar.com

You know it! It did not take long for importers to compete on price. OzBazaar.com is bringing the price down to $979, merely $20 cheaper than ShoppingSquare but with unknown status on warranties. They did drop the price to $898 soon afterwards. Delivery is $19.95

25/09/2007 — $899 from Nobeta Place

iPhone under $900?! Only if you are willing to buy from an online store with no “About Us” section nor any ABN information. Nobeta Place is actually a Western Australia operation but will you part your hard earned cash ($899!!) with these guys? The price war has certainly started, and they have just dropped their price to $869.

25/09/2007 — $650 from VoiTech

I guess it is about time for a company to introduce extreme pricing to eliminate competition. VoiTech is selling locked iPhone for $649.99, provided that you are a Whirlpool or OCAU member (see the relevant iPhone buying thread at WP). You can also get unlocked version for $799.99, but why bother when there is already an Open Source GUI application that can do it for you?

Since the pricing has been posted, they have subsequently increased the price of locked version to $679.99, but also introduced refurbished iPhone at $639.99 locked or $749.99 unlocked. Cheapest by a big margin. Many people have received their phone on Whirlpool’s thread so they have to be genuine.

$640 for a refurbished locked iPhone + open source unlocking application — tempted? What I can’t understand is — why pay so much for a high-end phone when data can only travel at GPRS speed? Haven’t we all moved into HSDPA for mobile broadband already? What will you feel when all your pals with their latest 3.5G phone watching YouTube online, but your iPhone can barely make VoIP calls?

“But iPhone is so cool!” Here is an alternative — CECT P168 for USD$159 delivered from DealExtreme, and most people won’t be able to tell the difference from a distance. I think that will be the path I’ll go for, until HSDPA phones dropped down to $200 mark.

Update 28/09/2007: Just noticed that many iPhone related .com.au domains have been registered and ranked well when you search for buying iPhones related terms on search engines.

One interesting website is BuyIphone.com.au which came top in SERP, and sells 8GB iPhone for $950 (with nation-wide free delivery). It’s relatively expensive, moreover it is nothing but an affiliate site to Aussie iPhones with 10% commission. I have not yet been able to locate Aussie iPhones in MoneyBackCo’s database (probably a new merchant), but even at 10% moneyback it is still more expensive than the best offer.

Anyway. For all of you who want to make money online maybe it’s not too late to make affiliation websites that sell someone else’s imported and unlocked iPhones. However at OzBargain, we’ll just report the cheapest deal :)

Update #2: iPhone firmware update 1.1.1 came out, but don’t get your imported unlocked phone bricked. Not sure how are all these Australian importers going to handle all these bricked phones after the upgrade.

However I do recognise that an Apple is probably the hottest property a geek can possess. After all, who wants to use a PC anyway? As Apple has just released the latest MacBook Pro with Santa Rosa platform, maybe it would be good to evaluate where one can buy cheap Macs.

MoneyBackCo 3% MoneyBack

MoneyBackCo is having 3% moneyback on Apple products. Well, not exactly on Apple products, but everything you buy from the Australian Apple Store.

I know Steve has been chasing up these deals for a while so congratulation! It is offered through DGMAustralia to approved publishers. To get the 3% moneyback, you need to:

1. Get yourself a MoneyBackCo account if you haven’t.
2. Go to Apple’s page on MBC.
3. Click on the link at the bottom of page to go to Apple Australia.
4. You will get 3% moneyback in your MBC account on the amount you spend at Apple Store – GST.

Cheap Resellers

Apparently Apple is not the only one in town that can sell Apple products, as there are many authorised resellers. Many simply set the same price as Apple’s RRP, but some are passing on good discount to consumers.

Price comparison engine would be useful here, and a bit of search on Shopbot reveals quite a few resellers doing big savings over Apple’s RRP. For example,

• iPod Nano 4GB (from $259 vs. $299 from Apple)
• MacBook 2GHz (from $1,572 vs. $1,599 from Apple)
• iMac 24″ 2.16GHz (from $2,750 vs. $2,999 from Apple)

Do note that many resellers don’t include delivery cost, whereas Apple’s price includes delivery. Also you need to be careful with deals listed on these price comparison sites — some dodgy shops might not have stock at that price and want to sell you the same thing at a higher price.

Education Discount

samsoft24 posted a link on Apple education discount at OzBargain. I am fully aware of Apple’s education discount to students, teachers and academic staffs in K-12 schools, universities or TAFE colleges, and it is about the only reason for me if I ever want to go back to school (argh I hate exams and assignments).

Basically you enter into Apple Store using a special landing page, select the school/university/colleage that you are in, and you will be bounced to your school-branded Apple store with discount on almost every Apple product — well, except for iPod and Apple TV and some accessories. For example:

As you can see, there is quite a lot of discount which really makes Apple computers “affordable”. You need to be either a student or a staff member in order to qualify the EDU discount. Or, you are buying on behalf of your kids who is currently attending higher education.

Apple Certified Refurbished Products

If you don’t mind something “as good as new”, then Apple Certified Refurbished Products store, posted by John last week, might be a good alternative. They run clearance sales every now and then, and they are very cheap — to a point that you felt you are buying from that dodgy seller on eBay. But don’t you worry! All products sold at Apple, even refurbished ones, carry Apple’s 1 year warranty.

However, the obvious problems are

1. They don’t usually have the model you want.
2. Sometimes they are at least one generation behind.
3. The RRP price listed is when the product was sold “as new”, maybe 6 months to 1 year ago.
4. Refurbished is not new.

There are bargains to grab, and refurbished iPod can be substantially cheaper. You do need to be quick though, as the quantity is limited.

Shop Overseas

And guess what — the best way to save on Apple products is probably buying overseas. Duncan was wondering about the same thing as well — Mac Pro was so much cheaper in US than here, even if you factor in the GST. There are probably a billion reasons for the price differences (tax, hedging, economy of scale, etc). However the end result is the same — it sucks to be an Aussie shoppers.

Two cheapest Apple online stores are probably the US and Hong Kong stores, and I know Apple has international warranty on notebooks. Maybe put that into your overseas trip agenda. Or maybe you can ask your uncle in the States. Or you can use many services that let you shop in stores that only deliver to US addresses, and they will handle the delivery to Australia for you at a cost.

Summary

There is only one thing to remember — DON’T just browse into Apple Store (or walk into your local Apple Centre or Next Byte) and pay the recommended retail price. I did that when I bought my first iBook, but I don’t think I will repeat it again. Shop around, and there are many legitimate ways to get a cheaper Mac.

I just found out that Harris Technology is selling cheap Apple Macs — the slightly out-dated model. Still very nice, and quite a bit cheaper than the current line-ups.

Take this Macbook Pro for example.

• Intel Core Duo 2Ghz
• 512Mb RAM
• 80Gb Hard Disk
• DVD+RW Optical Drive
• ATI Radeon X1600 128Mb video card

How much? $2,299, but you have to pick them up, i.e. no delivery. How about this 13″ Macbook?

• Intel Core Duo 2Ghz
• 512Mb RAM
• 80Gb Hard Disk
• DVD+RW Optical Drive

Middle of the range 6 months ago — and now $1,649, cheaper than the current entry level Macbook with only 1.83Ghz CPU, 60Gb hard disk and CD-RW/DVD combo drive.

I guess the biggest difference is that the current Macbook Pro/Macbook has Intel Core 2 Duo processors, whereas the slightly older generation has Core Duo (without the 2 in the middle). Core 2 Duo should be slightly faster per clock speed, and most importantly it has EM64T support if you are keen to use 64bit operating systems (like installing Linux x86_64 or 64bit Windows). Not that much difference if you are stuck with MacOS X. Yet these out-going model is much cheaper.

But not all the out-going models are inferior. This very desirable Mac Mini begs to differ.

• Intel Core Duo 1.6Ghz
• 512Mb RAM
• 80Gb Hard Disk
• DVD+RW Optical Drive

IIRC Apple Mac Mini is still using Intel Core Duo, so the above system actually has better specification than the current entry level Mac Mini which has 60Gb hard disk and CD-RW/DVD combo drive. And the price? $799, that’s $150 cheaper than the current entry-level model.

There are actually more clearance item from Harris Technology, which I haven’t had a chance to do a “full scan”. Vote those deals on OzBargain here, here and here.

And somewhat related — noneother has reported that you can save $199 when you buy a Mac and an iPod at the same time — but only if you are a student (who already has big 10%+ academic discount from Apple). Nice, if you qualify :)

Domayne lets you bring home a 17 inch Apple iMac and test it out for 10 days. At the end of test driving period, you can either buy it, or return it. I presume that it would be the new Intel Core Due based iMac as it offered the options for purchase. However, there are two problems:

1. It requires payment of full price as security up-front (which would be AUD$2,000 for 17″ iMac).
2. It will be very hard to bring the Mac back after you have experienced it.

Apple iPod nano 1Gb white for $199 + $5 delivery

That is the cheapest I can find — for $204 total to have this beautiful MP3 player delivered to your door. That beats:

• Apple Australia RRP $219
• Getmac $205.86 + $7.50 delivery
• I.T.Box $209 + unknown delivery

Weird thing is that I cannot find that (or any Apple) product under DealDirect’s MP3 player category. Maybe something big is coming?

They sell the base model (1.67Ghz Intel Core Duo 15.4″ 512Mb/80Gb) for AUD$3007.06, plus standard delivery of $7.50. Quite a bit of saving from other resellers and Apple Store, who sells at RRP of $3199 (+ delivery for some). Not sure about the EDU price — can someone confirm whether it’s still a good deal?

Here’s are its detailed specification for the base model: