Come January, I will have been a Mac user for precisely one year. To be honest, I can hardly believe it’s been so long already, and my Powerbook still very much feels like a new addition. I suppose in the 20 years I’ve been using computers, it is a new addition, and I’m still exploring and finding out stuff about my new platform every day. (This was a revelation). It’s only grubbiness of the keys that give the game away and reveal the number of hours use this thing has had over the last ten months (I estimate around 4000 hours).
So I’m thinking about whether or not to buy in to Apple’s extended warranty scheme, Apple Care. I’m normally set against extended warranties with the view that they only exist because the manufacturer makes profit from them. If the customer base as a whole won on the deal then no right minded company would sell such a thing. However, the customer base as a whole matters little to the individual – at the end of the day it comes down to whether or not it benefits me if anything goes wrong. Apple Care offers an additional two years cover if anything goes wrong with my Powerbook, but at the cost of around £280.
The alternative, as I see it, is to sit it out and hope nothing goes wrong and if it does I’ve got £280 to put towards a repair. This is fine if it’s something like the disc or power supply packing up, but not if it’s the screen, mobo, burner, well pretty much anything else. The other thing to consider is that if something major were to die, the age of the machine would be a factor. If I was faced with a big spend in the next 12 months, perhaps the Apple Care would be worth it. If the same was to happen in, for example, 18 months time I might have to consider whether it was time to replace the Powerbook anyway.
As with anything, it would seem to be a gamble. It’s a gamble both ways, with the smallest stake being £280. However, I treat my machines well and haven’t had so much as a hint of bother from my mac so far – it’s been flawless. The question remains of the likelihood of needing a repair – I’ve heard as many horror stories as not.
So my question to mac owners – do you have Apple Care? Have you had cause to use it? Any suggestions would be helpful, because I’m genuinely undecided.
Comments
We have issues of latches breaking, ethernet adaptors breaking, and drives failing. Applecare is worth every penny.
I don’t recommend it for towers, basically if they work for a year without problems they likely will sit there and work until you want another.
However, the nature of a laptop does lend itself to more stuff failing though the stresses of wear and tear, which you wouldn’t be able to pin on a specific, insurable event.
If you plan on keeping your Powerbook until it dies or is obsolete, I think it’s a pretty good investment. Also if you plan to sell it when the next generation comes around, you’ll get more for it if you have Applecare.
You never know what could go wrong. Like Jesse said, hinges break, drives go bad, etc.
Two of my coworkers, the only two I know who privately purchased Apple laptops, have also been thankful for their AppleCare.
However, my father had bought a blue&white G3 tower a year or two before that (300GHz model)... and that is still going strong, left on all day, still running OS 9. No problem.
Right now, I am writing on a new ibook G4 1.2GHz, and if nothing goes wrong in the first year, I don’t think I will buy apple care. It’s too expensive – it’s 10% of the price.
If you travel a lot with the laptop, you should probably get it as if something happens, you can call the help desk and get repairs going if necessary in most countries.
If you don’t travel a lot and you mostly just carry it around the house or to meetings, then you might want to wait – the only difference in the 1st year is the telephone support from day 91 to day 364 as the hardware is covered under a 1 yr warranty.
While I have had pretty good luck – a HDD did die on an imac but it was after 3 years and it was just chaeper to buy a much larger drive and install it myself – other than that, I have installed over 100 macs and there have been some tiny provlems here and there but nothing that required a huge expense so that’s the tough call.
Here in the US, other dealers actually discount applecare. I’ve seen it selling for 10-20% less so not sure if that’s the case in the UK.
Obviously, I’ve been doing massive weekly backups on an external and to my PC from the laptop – as the laptop is my primary machine. But I’m paranoid. I had a real bad experience with a series of Dell Inspirons and I don’t trust little computers.
The iBook and PowerBook have really set me at ease, though. I trust Apple’s design team and I believe they make solid products. Business-wise, most of us know (or believe) that AppleCare is all profit. Well, not exactly if you think about all of the overhead of the CSR’s and associated costs. Maybe APP should be built in – but I like it being optional.
I bought it for my iBook, and got a great deal out of it when I transferred ownership to the gal I sold it to. Buying AppleCare with the PB was a no brainer for me – I’m a mac newbie so to speak, and the phone support is worth every penny I spent for it.
There’s nothing like peace of mind. And at student rates, it’s a decnet peace of mind, at that. I wholeheartedly recommend AppleCare, if nothing else – for the phone support.
The word you want is ‘warranty’, not ‘warrantee’. ‘Warrantee’ is the person to whom a warrant is made.
Carry on :-)
My advice: get AppleCare for the peace of mind. After three years it will be time to get a new machine and the old one will still be worth something—not much but more than if it needs repairs.
For example, on my iBook, the wire that ran between the video card and the LCD broke… not the LCD, not the video card, just the wire. The repair quote was $300, just for a stupid wire… the AppleCare purchase I’d made was well worth it. Apple just sent me a preaddressed postage paid UPS box and I shipped it to them… had it back in 3 days, no more problems…. totally worth it to have them fix it than to deal with getting it fixed myself.
Doubtless it’ll now die tonight, but it’s had no problems and I’ve had no AppleCare.
My first Mac, a strawberry iMac from 2000, had its hard drive go a little funky in early 2002. Seemed to be something to do with enhanced CDs and iTunes. Had to re-format the drive, but backups saved my data. Again, I think self-replacing the drive would have been reasonably inexpensive, had I needed to, and would have given me a bigger drive.
As a user who was new to a Mac, I had a few issues where I was definitely suffering from Newbie-itis. The folks at Apple Care were very helpful in helping me find out what went wrong when I did something less than optimal, or when things just didn’t work they way they were supposed to.
Maybe you’re over most of that stuff by now, or you’re comfortable finding it on the net. Myself, I didn’t even know what to start looking for, and Apple Care was a bargain.
I called today to check from Apple their care policy as they mentioned it’s possible to link one external Apple LCD with the PowerBook care at the point of purchase. Unfortunately I bought my laptops last summer – updated Apple care soon after and now wished to buy two external screens from Apple within same care scheme.
Too late Sir! You gotta buy TWO separate AppleCare packs, one for each screen!? I think this sucks – at least they could sell custom care for LCD’s or as mentioned earlier include the care policy in the final price which is already quite high!
I love Apple products, but ever since I owned one of those 17” crane LCD iMacs, having screen panel gone bad by strange qhost corners and screen gettin utterly warm – I would recommend anybody to wait until Apple cuts a hole in the back of their screens for extra cooling and clarifying the LCD care! If you look at new 20-23” LCD’s – they’re completely hermetic and quite warm-up quite a lot in use.
Other manufacturers offer three years guarantee for their screens! I talked today with an Apple shop dealer and he told me that only about 20% of the customers buy Apple Care!?
i’ve been trying to get more information on the u.k. consumer rights thing. apparently there is a legal SIX year repair or replacement clause that companies must honour? this has got to be wishful thinking, but it was alledgely brought in to curb the ‘extended warranty’ nonsense that all major appliance brands are having a field day with.
am trying to find out more….
will post back if any wiser.
cheers,
J.
http://www.fletcherdesignstudio.com
-tom
www.visuallyimpacted.com
As someone who bought a 17” Mac Book Pro, just three months ago as well as someone who has been selling Mac products for the last nine months. I can say that my experience has been that buying Apple Care is a wise decision. For example a hard drive for a Mac can range in price from $138.00 (USD) to $320.00 (USD). Another example APPLE Battery For iBook (2nd generation) – 14 inch screen $130.50 (USD). Lets say you need to replace your ram 1GB DDR 2 667MHZ PC2-5300 200 PIN DIMM FOR APPLE MACBOOK PRO (p/n MX-MA346G/A) Retail price: $199.00 (USD). Now add to that the shipping costs. If you had to pay for these items out of your own pocket you can see how Apple Care is a great bargain. I have seen Mac products come into the store for repair and I have seen the repair invoices, instead of paying $745.98 (USD) for repairs and labor. Apple Care covered everything, no question. Keep in mind that these are the first generation Mac’s with Intel Chips. I can say with authority that they are more prone to break down than the old chips. I am not saying that the Intel Chips are bad, but look at the Windows machines with the Intel Chips and all the problems that they have. What I am saying is if your paying $1,999.00 to $2,499.99 (USD) for the 15” Mac Book Pro or $2,799.00 for the 17” Mac Book Pro, spend the extra $350.00 (USD) for the Apple Care and get peace of mind knowing that if anything goes wrong, because at some time something can and will go wrong with it. That if you buy the Apple Care you will be covered, in other words people protect your $1,999.00 to $2,799.00 (USD) investment. Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish.