I don't really follow these things so I'm not sure what previous offers they have had. Is this a good deal? Should I wait for the next refresh or is it far off? I don't think it needs the 256GB SSD upgrade as she has a 3TB external for media. I don't think OSX is a big memory hog so 8GB should be enough, but it's still DDR3?
The RAM is soldered and the SSD is proprietary. Definitely stick with 8gb RAM or consider 16gb while there's a student discount in the offing.
I think that student discount is something that anyone can get. I'm an actual student, but I've read you can take some online course through some places to get an NUS card and use that to get the discount. I run 16GB on my win10 desktop. I upgraded because I found that 8GB was too little. Does OSX tend to use less memory? Yes, I was very disappointed about this soldering but not surprised. Otherwise I would have gone with 128GB and upgraded to a Samsung 500GB 960 Evo. I don't know about Apples upgrade cycle or typical promotions. Is this an uncommon deal, are they trying to shift stock to release a new model?
Dell are releasing 8xxx mobile laptops right now. So yeah might be a model shift soon. Looks pretty darn cheap to me but better to ask an Apple fan. Personally I'd buy this (note the save14 offer has ended) but of course it's not a Mac:
If it was for me I wouldn't go with a Mac, but the wife likes apple and its her computer so she can get what she wants. As the next generation will move from a dual to quad core, I would hate to get a dual core a month before the quad core is released. It's also possible that apple with skip the 8th gen and not have a new model for another 6 months. I'm not an apple fan so I figured it would be better to ask here.