Apple Care -- Is it worth the $250?

gozogozo
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
It's Gozo again. I posted below about some advice questions and hadn't thought of this one. When considering the expense of a laptop, is this extra worth it? My Dell, which is slowly dying, started having problems after the 1 year warranty was up. That is why I ask this question.



Did you buy it? Did you wish you had?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    xaqtlyxaqtly Posts: 450member
    I think it's worth it. It means 3 years of hassle-free full coverage support, including anything hardware related. Heck, if even one thing breaks the Applecare will have paid for itself.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    brdocbrdoc Posts: 31member
    I would tend to agree. I think that the Apple Care is worth the money, especially for a laptop. It provides a good piece of mind as well as a 3 years of coverage. I know that when I buy my new powerbook after MWNY I will get the apple care.



    [ 06-21-2002: Message edited by: BrDoc ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 8
    stimulistimuli Posts: 564member
    Yes. If it were a desktop, no, but a laptop, you'll kick yourself if you don't.



    Not sure if Apple have improved, but one thing that is likely to be shot inside of 3 years is the screen hinge, and sometimes the screen itself sketches out and discolours.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    prestonpreston Posts: 219member
    on a laptop, yes.



    laptop breaks: you ****ed basically



    Pres
  • Reply 5 of 8
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    Somehow my warranty expired but the Apple Store said it hadn't





    FREE NEW MOUSE!
  • Reply 6 of 8
    jregojrego Posts: 56member
    Apples aren't as flaky as PCs, in general (had a PC laptop that just randomly died, took a couple of registered Comaq service providers and a few hours to fix it, and I know, I didn't ASK for a Compaq...). Still, I've seen some rather expensive problems on a couple of machines.



    For a laptop, it should be a pretty obvious decision. You're going to be carrying it around all the time, opening and closing it, etc. That puts a lot of stress on all the components, and laptop components are NOT cheap. Even if it's just the hinges (which, by the way, I don't think are as big of a problem as they used to be), AppleCare is cheaper than getting them replaced.



    Even for desktop machines, I'll shell out the money when I get my next one. They cost a lot as well, especially compared to the price of the warranty, and the insurance is worth it. Sometimes things just plain don't work, and it's nice to know that you can always call for free. l'm convinced that my tech support call for X would have justified the extended warranty had X not also come with a 90-day guarantee.



    Also, a machine under warranty gets a free look-over from the Apple Store people. We thought there might be something wrong with the display board in our iMac, but they wouldn't look at it without us paying them $50.



    LCDs can also have... issues. They're nicer than CRTs, but I don't trust them to last as long. Not to mention the fact that they're about twice as expensive. They can crack, like my Palm and my friend's camera and PocketPC. This renders them anywhere from practically useless to fully useless (ever tried just using the BOTTOM half of a Palm?). I'm only going to get ONE 23" LCD. I don't want to have to pay for another just because I didn't want to shell out $250 extra for insurance.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    mandricardmandricard Posts: 486member
    I would get AppleCare without question.



    It has saved my rear end twice.



    Mandricard

    AppleOutsider
  • Reply 8 of 8
    allenchristopherallenchristopher Posts: 135member
    Your computer doesn't even have to be broken for it to be useful. The hard-drive or CD-drive can get noisy and you can sometimes get it replaced. On the original iBooks the drive was as noisy as a grizzly before his morning coffee-drinker. Turned out that a little piece of metal foil had to be bent back. It didn't cost anything but you could spend weeks dealing with that before you found the problem, or send it in to Apple where they'd already figured it out. If your warranty is up, they won't tell you "bend the metal back 2mm" even though they know because it would make them liable.



    But the biggest deal is probably the interface connectors. As you move your notebook with wires plugged in they wiggle, which doesn't happen with desktop. Eventually they break off from metal fatigue. It happens all the time to both Mac and PC notebooks and it is a costly repair.
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