Applecare Protection Plan
unlascivious
220 Posts
about to make a g5 purchase and wanted to know:extended warranty, how could i not lose?orserious business.have any of you experienced any hardware troubles? would it have been worth it for the warranty? i would be paying almost 15% of the price of the purchase towards it, but i don't want to be kicking myself when the motherboard melts.
Comments
I need a mac, but sometime I feel like the company is sorta bitchy. Like lionel ritchie.......and his skinny ass daughter.
I SURE WISH I HAD IT THEN. Actually I could have gotten it retroactivally, but I was afraid they'd call bullshit on me. (You can get it on an apple computer for up to a year AFTER you bought one!)
I can't tell you the right answer for this, because it depends on your own personal level of comfort, however, I will pass on some info that I have come across regarding warranties.
I used to work in retail selling electronics (including computers). Do you ever wonder why they push them so hard?
Salespeople on electronics warranties make 10-20% from them straight off the top. This is not factoring in the company's profit, which is also high. And if they use contractors, that's another middleman. The end number doesn't matter, but you can figure that very little of any given warranty goes towards actual parts and labor costs. In the end, what does this mean to you? For any given electronic item, either (1) the likelihood of having a repair issue within the alotted warranty period is very low, (2) the repair costs are minimal in respect to the price of the warranty, and/or (3) they are not spending much on repairs because they make it extremely difficult to make claims.
Of course this is in aggregate, so it is true that somewhere in that group that a few people may have their computer completely explode, but that number of computers is very, very low.
Warranties are just insurance. You should have at least a 1 year limited warranty anyway. And how long is your extended warranty for? It most likely runs concurrently with your manufacturer warranty so you lose about 50% or more of the value of the first year of your extended warranty off the top, as the manufacturer's warranty (most likely) covers labor for 3 months or so and parts for the full year.
So what if it breaks after 1 year and a day? It's already depreciated in value for a year, plus you still have your warranty payment plus a year's worth of interest on it (if you put it anywhere than a checking account or under your bed). If it's much longer than that it won't take too much more than the initial cost of the warranty plus a little extra to buy a brand new computer on par with your original one.
At the minimum, wait your first year and then buy the warranty. You won't miss it because they will give you ample opportunity to purchase it at a later date through e-mails and direct mail solicitations. Remember, they want you to take it because it's such a moneymaker for them.
My stance: it's not a house. Electronics warranties, with a few exceptions, are a ripoff.
Caveat to my previous post:
"Unless you're an idiot. Then you should buy it."
Word...Maru is right...especially considering all new MACs come with the new OS. First generation Operating Systems are bound to have problems...I would advise getting the plan. I got a G4 Powerbook and maxxed out its ram and am running the Last version of Panther (10.something).
Hahah....
I'm a professional nerd & grad student. But nobody is immune from accidents. Could have been a cup of coffee. Not one of my finer moments.
I was in a catch-22. If I brought it in for warrantee service, there's no way that they would repair it. It was obviously my mistake. But if I opened it to siphon up the drink, I had to void the warrantee. ugh.
The great thing about applecare is it's no questions asked. Doesn't matter if you sat on it. I'd say for a portable go for it - the screens are great but are moderately fragile and get dead pixels.
thanks for everyone's input. graf was right about all electronics warranties being bullshit. they have staticians who can approximate the number of failures pretty closely and use this information to determine how buying a warranty will be in their favor, the majority of the time. unfortunately, the majority of time isn't all the time. the last 3 computers in my house have ALL needed repairs: 2 hard drive failures and one motherboard meltdown. some were covered, some were not. i decided not to go with applecare simply because i didn't know i could get it at a later date. maybe by that time i'll know more about the computer's hardware/software stability and whether it could be a lemon. thanks to everyone for their help.
anyone know essential software???
i have http://www.openoffice.org/ bookmarked as an office replacement.
Hard drives are like $100 a piece. Motherboard failure... well, it happens.
anybody. this cat knows what he's doing. people at the computer stores don't know shit! at leat in my case when i ask questions.
and yup, profit margins are great for applecare. But utimately, if you know you're a clumsy klutz or not too handy w/ computers, then I would recommend it. Otherwise, find a friend who's a mac nerd, invite him/her over to troubleshoot in exchange for a few beers and dinner.
Just last week I dropped a total of 4 grand on a 17" G4 powerbook with memory maxed out to 2 Gigs, video converter and some software. Now I'm trying to figure out if I should spend another 350 bucks on Applecare...
My main concern is, if you actualy have some case of physical damage to it let's say the cooling vent sucked in a lot of dust (I'm about to move into a city with dirt roads and lots of dust and fine sand in the air). Or maybe just something small like a power surge (my new home also will be bound to regular power outages and switching around between generator and main power circuit) fries the AC adapter. Would I get my Adapter replaced at no cost? Does anyone have any experience about how successful waranty claims with Apple are in cases where they could just say "no, this was your own mistake, you shouldn't have spilt that drink on it" or "you should have made sure you use your computer in a cleaner enviroment".
How accommodating are they if it gets down to business?
I'm still using my old G3 minitower (first G3 they made) that I bought 7 years ago and I never had the smallest problem with it, still runs fine, hell, I even moved from NY to Berlin with it. It's such a sturdy workhorse, I'm almost going to feel bad retiring it... Applecare definately would have been a waste of money on this one.
Most warranties are reasonably explicit when it comes to what is covered. They can provide you with terms of the agreement so you will know - it's in the fine print. Generally, they only cover failure due to defect - not spilled drinks, not abnormal working conditions (i.e. a sand pit). However, if you neglect to mention these things you can take your chances and see if they figure it out.
in my family we've had apples for 20 years now.
512k
mac plus
lcII
OG G3 biege tower
clamshell ibook
imac dvdSE
ibook 800mhz g3
G5 (first edition)
not one of these machines ever failed or paid a single visit to the repair shop.
the hardrive blew on my 6 year old imac but a quick trip to chinatown and 50 bones later she was back up and better than ever.
They have the best hookers, don't they?