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And Apple is essentially a non-entity outside the US, except for a few niches.

I wouldn't say that. Macs aren't nearly as prevalent as PC's, but they're hardly a non-entity; almost every electronics shop (inlcuding major chains like Fnac) carries Macs and especially the last few years they've gained inroads with the average public outside of academic and artistic circles.

A basic Macbook Pro here costs 3000$, a 50% markup over US prices.

A 15" Macbook Pro is $2,625 in the Belgian Apple store ($2100 without taxes). Weird, I thought we weren't getting ripped off this much...

I wouldn't say that. Macs aren't nearly as prevalent as PC's, but they're hardly a non-entity; almost every electronics shop (inlcuding major chains like Fnac) carries Macs and especially the last few years they've gained inroads with the average public outside of academic and artistic circles.

In the US, Best Buy doesn't carry Macs, Circuit City doesn't, and neither do the big three office supply stores (Staples, OfficeMax and Office Depot). Some of the above do carry iPods, but Mac distribution is much more sparse, and collectively, the above retailers represent a huge chunk of retail computer sales. Also, in the US, the trend has moved away from direct sales of PCs and back towards retail, so the fact that the above do not carry Macintosh computers is fairly material, IMO.

That said, Apple's own retail network is getting quite pervasive, and increasingly, in Southern California, anyway, it feels like every major mall has an Apple Store. There are two of them equidistant from my house, for example. Apple Stores aside, the only other major retailers I know of that carry Macs are Fry's Electronics and CompUSA (the latter of which started carrying Macs in seperate "store within a store" displays in the late 1990s in the early phases of Steve Jobs turnaround of the company).

RThurmont wrote: In the US, Best Buy doesn't carry Macs, Circuit City doesn't, and neither do the big three office supply stores (Staples, OfficeMax and Office Depot). Some of the above do carry iPods, but Mac distribution is much more sparse, and collectively, the above retailers represent a huge chunk of retail computer sales. Also, in the US, the trend has moved away from direct sales of PCs and back towards retail, so the fact that the above do not carry Macintosh computers is fairly material, IMO.

The last I checked, Office Depot does offer Macs, though it was through their online order service. I'm not sure how many stores actually have them for sale on display.

Bounty wrote:A 15" Macbook Pro is $2,625 in the Belgian Apple store ($2100 without taxes). Weird, I thought we weren't getting ripped off this much...

I really wish we had such prices down here. Things are getting better and you can find Macs in the main electronic stores of FNAC type and several Apple Resellers, but Mac prices in Brazil are still close to something insane. The 15' MacBook Pro is around $3,800. Welcome to the Land of Overlapping and Redundant Taxes...!

Wow, and I thought $1400 was overpriced for the little black mac my mom bought a few weeks ago.

Muhahaha!!!! I am now posting from Vista Ultimate x64! Bow before me!!!!

It installed fast (just under 30 minutes), has yet to bitch about my beta drivers, and feels much more responsive than XP. One thing I wasn't expecting was for the installer to give my Vista disk the C drive letter, since my XP disk has it as well; but its great, since both OSes thing they're on the C drive when they each boot. I've got Firefox and Avast installed so far, and now its time for Office and some games!.