Opinions of local OSX dealers?

[chris at logsoft.com (Chris Marget)]

> For the usual various reasons, I'm strongly contemplating getting  an
> OSX  laptop

Do it!

> and  start  comparing & contrasting it with my two linux
> boxen.  A bit of research has resulted in the general impression that
> the  various  online  sources  don't  have  any  discernable price or
> support advantages  to  apple.com,  though  I  probably  missed  some
> evidence.

apple seems to control the prices of things.  about the best you can
hope for buying from an independent dealer is that they'll throw in
extras (free memory, airport card, inkjet printer...) for free.

when i've had the choice, i've purchased from apple, rather than
another dealer because:

a) the apple store/website has stuff in stock
b) they sometimes have sales/closeouts not authorized elsewhere
c) i want apple to make it, so i'd rather support the local
   apple store or pay MSRP right to apple.com than buy from an
   online dealer.

> There's  still  the  question  of whether any Boston-area
> retailers would be better than ordering via the Net.  So does  anyone
> have any comments pro/con any local Apple outlets?

a couple of anecdotes:
 - my iPod broke.  i took it back to apple store cambridgeside.  they
   took 5 days to get me a (probably) refurb unit.  if i'd bought it
   across the corridor at BestBuy i'd have walked in with my broken
   pod, and walked out with one of the swanky new style pods.
 - my 17" powerbook came from microwarehouse.  they took my (company's)
   money, but didn't have a powerbook to ship for 7 weeks!
 - everybody seems to love small dog electronics http://www.smalldog.com

> The advent of  OSX  does  seem  like  a  challenge  to  the  historic
> separateness of the Mac and Unix crowds. I suppose it's just a matter
> of time until we start seeing a merger.

i've been using unix for 11 years, and a sysadmin for 9.  i've switched,
and i'm not looking back.  i'm still partial to solaris and linux for
server tasks, but it'll be fine if i never sit in front of KDE/GNOME
again.  this message was composed on a linux box, but i'm logged into
it from an xterm running in X11 in aqua on my powerbook.

/chris