Does country of purchase matter?

Hi all, I'm thinking of switching to a Mac. The only thing is, I don't know if I should buy it in my home country where it would be cheaper (due to the exchange rate) or in Australia where I'm studying. I went through the terms and conditions for AppleCare and the warranty should be valid in Australia even if I buy it in my country. But, the only Apple service centres around where I'm studying are authorised resellers. I'm not sure they'd be very happy if I had a problem and took in a machine that I didn't buy from them. I don't know if it's possible that they might try to screw money out of me or deny me service, even if I had a valid warranty.

Obviously I'm going to be more reliant on my Mac in Australia -- should I buy it there just to be safe? I don't want to though, cause it's vastly more expensive.

If you take your Mac in to a reseller for repairs covered by AppleCare, they should be reimbursed by Apple. Otherwise, why would they agree to be an authorized repair center? Call and ask them what the policy is, don't guess.

Oh, I never thought about that. How dumb of me. Thank you for the suggestion.