Capitol Mac (Richmond): About Us CapitolMac began in Richmond, Virginia, way back in the 1980s, as the original, local source for Apple products and support in central Virginia. Throughout the years, we've moved among several locations before landing at our present location in The Fan in 2003. And for the first time ever, in November, 2010, we expanded to a second location in our current owner's hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. At both stores, we boast several Apple bona fides, which we'd love to tell you about. Apple Specialist There are a number of independent Apple resellers, and then there are Apple Specialists. And CapitolMac is one. What does this mean to you? For one thing, it means that we're far more than just an Apple reseller; indeed, we're better described as an "independent Apple store." No, we aren't the Apple Store (shopping mall rents are quite high), but we most certainly are an Apple Store. That means we have all the pluses of the Apple store, with virtually none of the minuses. There's no mall to walk through (which can be difficult if you're carrying a broken desktop). There's no need to make an appointment to see us. (What an utterly absurd concept.) There's no need to explain basic computing concepts to the alleged Mac "genius" checking in your machine. And unlike the blindingly bright store in the mall, we actually have roots in the local community. When you visit us, you park, you walk a few feet, and you're at our front door. And yes, we know there are others in the area who claim to be "local" and "independent," too. While that may technically be true (they obviously have to be local to somewhere), it's hard to see how Henrico County is "local" to downtown Richmond, or Millersville is "local" to Federal Hill. Worse, some of the other guys have been around so long that they've become a tad complacent and rude. (Hey, we're just going by what their former customerswho are gradually becoming our current customerstell us about them.) Sure, those others have a few credentials; usually, they're resellers, for instance. That's all well and good, but CapitolMac has chosen to go the extra mile by attaining the Apple Specialist designation. We've demonstrated to Apple that we've got some skin in the game, more so than those other resellers. We've demonstrated to Apple that our focus is on Apple products and solutions. We're also held to a higher standard by Apple in order to maintain this designation. Were the only such Apple resellers in the city of Richmond and the entire Baltimore metro area. There are certain national electronics and music equipment chains that don't even meet these standards, while we do, regularly, year after year. And obviously, people are noticing. We've won a few awards over the yearsnot just from Apple, but from our customers as well (by way of their votes in "Best of Baltimore/Richmond" polls in such publications as Richmond Magazine, City Paper, Style Weekly, and others)to back us up. Apple Authorized Service Provider As an Apple Authorized Service Provider, we handle service and repair work on Apple products both in and out of warranty. Every repair we do is done in the store; we don't ship your hardware to a remote facility for service. Nor do we turn our nose up at servicing machines that are more than a couple of years old. The readers of Style Weekly just voted us the best computer repair shop in 2011 (among all shops, PC and Mac), and the readers of Richmond magazine regularly award us recognition, most recently in the 2010 Best of Richmond issue, where they ranked us the best computer repair store for Apple/Macintosh products. (Yep, we even placed ahead of that place in the mall that we can't name.) And perhaps best of all, we'd never dream of asking you to make an appointment to bring your computer in for service. Apple Consultants Network As a member of the Apple Consultants Network, CapitolMac provides both home users and businesses with expert, onsite, Apple-certified consulting and IT support. This is a service that the mall stores don't even offerand no, "Joint Venture" doesn't count, eit