In our March issue, we went out to each of the biggest laptop brick and mortar retailers: Best Buy, Circuit City, and Wal-Mart. While we were in each store, we asked a series of questions to the clerks to get a feel for just how much they knew about the products they were selling. In the end, we found Best Buy to be the most helpful, but we warned that you should try to always get a second opinion from another salesperson whenever buying a laptop. To be fair, we went out to the Apple Store in New York City to give them a shot. Let's see how it fared.
 

When we first entered the store, it was clear that we were going to have to wait a little while until we were helped by someone; the place was packed. Once we wandered over to the MacBook section of the store, we were happy to see a salesperson that didn't look too busy: he was shooting the breeze with a buddy and talking about parties.

 

When we stood there and made it clear that we needed help, however, he didn't give us any chance to ask a question. Instead, we just waited...and waited... until finally someone was wandering by with a box and an electronic scanner. We asked if she could help us, but she said she was looking for a customer and would be right back. Five minutes later, she actually remembered us and came back to assist.
 

We first asked her what the key difference was between a normal MacBook and a MacBook Air. "Oh, well the MacBook Air is best thought of as a supplemental computer, like, if you already have a desktop at home," she politely told us. Wow, talk about honesty. She said it didn't come with a DVD-multidrive, although we could add one on the side, and that it's entirely a wireless device.

 

When asked how much power we would need for 3D rendering and just hanging out online, she said we'd probably want to get a 2.4 GHz or 2.6 GHz+ computer for heavy rendering, but that the slower 2.0 GHz processors would be fine for everyday tasks.

 

She told us the difference between the MacBook Air and the regular MacBook's processors is that the Air's is slower. True, but it's also much smaller. We noticed that we couldn't buy a laptop with a 2.6 GHz processor in it, though, but we'll assume she was speaking in general terms.

 

When asked whether we could play HD-DVDs in any of the laptops, she told us that we could--and that they could play most forms of optical media. Unfortunately, she stumbled a bit here as none of Apple's products offer Blu-ray or HD-DVD players in them.
 
Perhaps what impressed us the most about the salesperson at Apple's store was her consistent eye contact and willingness to help. We were standing far away from the computers, and she never once walked over to check the stat sheets to tell us how much RAM was included, or the available processors for each notebook (she noted the MacBook Air's slower one).

 

We never felt pressured to by anything, and it was clear she was trying her hardest just to assist us. On the other hand, her stock is much smaller than that of Best Buy and Circuit City, and Apple's computers only offer Intel processors, so she wasn't required to know anything about AMD or the ongoing graphics processing unit battle between NVIDIA and AMD.
 
Still, we were judging on knowledge of in-store stock, and Apple's representation was strong, helpful, and reliable.
 
Friendliness: 5
Product Knowledge: 4
Product Selection: 3
Overall: 4