Every electronics/camera store in Brooklyn has been doing this for decades. They are all scammers and conartists.

Shanties and warehouses, or fake addresses, but websites with greymarket and fake products.

Examples of the stores im talking about:
http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/

The FTC has done nothing about it.

People place products thinking they can get it cheaper, and then when they talk to the store the sales people scream and cuss at them if they don't buy addons they "must" buy (like power cords and batteries).

For every 1 reputable company based in NYC and NJ there are hundreds which are ran y petty criminals.

Youre are bitching about firewire? really?

Who has used firewire in the last 5 years?

Ohh wait, that's another crap technology that Apple had to have because they lacked support for other technologies.

And yes, on the list,there is an option below for an additional 4gb.

I was comparing apples to apples. Advanced support is not by Apple standards so adding accidental breakage was not included in the price. They simply dont have it.

As always, users doing apples to oranges comparisons. And this apple has a worm in it.

Mine was totally comparible.

HP ProBook 4720s Notebook PC - i7 CPU, 8GB ram, 500gb 7200rpm HD, AntiGlare, 3yr support: $1948
MacBook Pro 17": i7 CPU, 8GB ram, 500gb 7200rpm HD, AntiGlare, 3yr support: $3348

That seems like WAY more than $100 difference.

Plus, AppleCare support SUCKS ASS!
Why?
#1 No accidental breakage coverage.
  - My wife's macbook LCD was broken by my kid, they wanted $750 to replace the LCD. Screw Apple.
  - We bought the LCD on our own and I repaired it for under $85.
  - I have dropped, crushed, etc my HP and Dell's with accidental replacement coverage and they replaced or fixed no questions asked.
#2 To get any sort of support and replacement you need to goto an Apple Store.
  - If I want, I can have a goon come out and hand deliver a part or replace it.
#3 For most repairs, the laptop is shipped out for repair.
  - My wife's piece of crap macbook spent over 2 months at the repair depot in 6 different repair issues, in the first 12 months owning it. Bad MB, and serious overheating issues, random poweroffs and blackscreens.
  - We evenually filed a lemonlaw case against Apple to have it replaced with a new one. The new one too had overheating issues, but at least wouldn't randomly shutdown
#4 No "you keep the drive" support option.
  - If I DO have to send my laptop in for repair, I do not want to have over all my sensitive business and personal material with it.
  - With the case of my wife's laptop, and others, Apple has wiped the HD and reinstalled the OS just for trying to diagnose issues such as random reboots. This was done without asking. Luckily, I had backups of everything on her system.

Other Reasons Apple is not Pioneering?
- iPod copied the design of players already out, and even removed features those had which are beneficial
- iPhone was just another smartphone, except it was the only one that could only run 1 app at a time.
- iPad, out of the box, is way behind on performance and ability of other tablets that have been out.
- 'Earthshattering' iPods/iPhones/iPads: no true usb storage support options. Limited embedded hardware codecs. No ability to email attachments from the mail app.

Yes, I own an iPad. If I couldn't have jailbroken/rooted/crosscompiled cli apps from linux over to it, I wouldnt have bought it.

Yes, among all the laptops and systems we own, we have a macbook for my wife. Yes it is one of the largest purchase regrets I have made in the last few years.

How the hell are a crappy set of cellphone, laptops that are 2x the price for the same specs, and media players that cannot play common formats considered earth shattering?

The only thing innovating about Apple is their ability to market to the tweens to Gen XYZ crowd.

Their hardware is subpar.

VMware is innovative and Earth shattering, Google is innovative and earth shattering. There was nothing like Google Earth of the scale of google maps prior.

Ive had flash on my iPad for a while now. Frash lets you do it pretty easily.

I discovered a large DoS within VMware 3.5-4.0 last march. I opened up a support case on it to at least find a workaround. The engineer closed the ticket after an hour or 2 as "unsupported OS".

The DoS reboots ESX/ESXI out from under the VM when you power the VM on.

This leads to serious issues, and the closed the ticket quick. No further investigation. This is a perfect example of releasing details and source to force the company to fix the issue.

I hate apple. I hate almost everything they put out. I hated the iPad. I still hate unrooted iPads. They are pieces of crap for concept.

They do have a beautiful screen. They are the perfect size. Rooted, with a terminal, iSSH, and logmein, they are an awesome sysadmin tool. (I can even use usb to serial cable with it) I rarely need my laptop anymore.

I have no degree.
I own no stocks.
I havent looked at a financial website in years.

I hate apple.

I love my rooted, hacked up, customized iPad.

I do extensive charity work. I give alot. Last year I did 80 photo sessions for multiple photography related charities. I have worked in food banks, I help people when ever I can.

I'm the typical good hearted, egotistical asshole bofh that people who work with me hate, and those that don't know me personally love since I'll do all I can to help them.

I do believe alot of the story. Typical Apple fanboy hippies who claim to be environmentalists, or just dumbass crunchy bloggers, are a bunch of self righteous idiots.

The site statistics and information are incredibly misleading. Simply because 1m hold TS clearance, or the right to gain TS clearance for an SCI level job, does not mean 1m people are actively working in the industry.

With so many contractors such as Lockheed, CSC, OAO, etc... you have thousands which may hold clearance but they are not at the moment on a project. When I was working for CSC, in the span of a few years, I was on a dozen different projects. Some non-classified, some were. Not all were for the Gov't. I still had to hold a clearance.

Some were for the Gov't but totally benign in terms of what was worked on.

There is a massive amount of infrastructure to run all Gov't ops, bases, local and state Gov't. Even if you want to be a janitor in many places, you have to qualify for a clearance.

If you want to run fiber or copper cabling between buildings which house classified projects, you need to have a clearance.

To be a receptionist at many facilities, you need to have a clearance.

The information leads the reader to think that all 1m with TS clearance are working at the moment on nefarious projects for an evil government. While the reality is, most are simply support staff doing work that if it were any other customer, would be easily overlooked and thought down on.

This is just another Washington Post scaremongering article by someone who makes their living off of the people she is claiming are too many in number.