Applecare Protection Plan

Chili

Would any mac users recommend the protection plan when buying a macbook pro? It is not cheap, but as am new to mac would you say it is a good buy?

Many Thanks

[Deleted User]

Hi Chilli,

I wouldn't recommend the plan just because you're new to mac. Basically what it is is an extended waranty. Bear in mind that it doesn't cover accidental damage, just things like part failures. It costs £279 (a bit less if you're a student) so that's £140 a year (as it extends it by two years)
I have not had first hand experience, but I hear that the Apple service is very good, so it's up to you if you get it or not. I would wait until your first year of service is almost up before getting it. If you have had a few problems, then you might want to get it, if not then maybe you can do without it.

Leopard

When you buy a new Mac, you get, automatically, three months of free telephone support and a year of AppleCare.

If, at the time you buy your Mac, you purchase the AppleCare extended warranty, you get three years of telephone support and three years of AppleCare.

If, at the time you buy your Mac, you purchase a monitor as well, plus the AppleCare extended warranty, you get three years of telephone support and three years of AppleCare on both the Mac and the monitor.

So, if you're buying a monitor as well as a Mac, it's worth considering buying the extended AppleCare at the moment of purchase. This, for a MacBook Pro costs about £265.

After purchase of a Mac with standard warranty, you can add the extended AppleCare (on the Mac alone) at any time up to the first anniversary of its sale - but you won't get an extension of the three months of initial telephone support.

You can buy the extended AppleCare (it comes in a small cardboard box containing a serial number) from the Apple Online Store or at an Apple dealer or Apple Retail Shop. As previously stated, this costs about £265.

Alternatively, you can buy it on eBay for half the price.

If it's any help to you, I purchased one of my current MacBook Pro second-hand but unused (it was two weeks old), with the full three years of AppleCare already on it.

I purchased my other, identical, MacBook Pro (also unused) when it was eleven months old and bought it an extended AppleCare for about £110 on eBay. Both of them thus have almost another two years of AppleCare to run.

In April, my companion bought a MacBook Pro as a refurb from Apple. This came with a year of AppleCare. Sometime between now and next April, I shall purchase an extended AppleCare for it on eBay for not more than £110.

In summary, AppleCare is very good and well worth having. But it isn't worth buying - at full price - at the moment of purchase unless you're buying, say, an Apple 30" Display at the same time and it will cover both.

Otherwise, buy the extended AppleCare warranty on eBay for half the price and add it to the Mac within one year of the Mac's initial purchase new.

Hope that isn't too complicated!

Chili

No thats fine thanks for that.

The pc is for my son for uni and we're looking at a macbook pro. I wish I had the nerve to go for one on ebay, but I dont! I'd be terrified something would go wrong as its an awful lot of money for us at this time. I think we're going to go for a refurb on apple.

The idea of the applecare would be ok though, I will seriously consider getting that from ebay.

Thanks again

Leopard

I bought my last four Apple laptops from (very carefully selected) sellers on eBay and they've all been fine but I wouldn't recommend doing this to anybody unless they really know Macs (and eBay) and can afford to stand the loss if it turns out to be a bad buy.

It's risky. And I'd never buy one at any price from an unknown seller without inspecting it first. Even so, you can't tell what it's really like until you've opened it up and examined its innards. People sell them after accidentally spilling liquids into them.

Many sold on eBay as new have American keybords with no £ key.

My companion could not afford to risk £1,000 and so she very wisely bought a refurb from Apple.

Here's a tip. Buy an Apple refurb immediately after Apple has just upgraded the range. (Next upgrade is expected in September 2008.) Apple has to keep the old model in stock at its stores right up to the moment they're replaced. I strongly suspect that what it does with them then is sell them as "refurbs".

That's what my companion did. Bought a refurb two days after the revamped range was announced. Price was 30% off and it looked brand new. :money:

Adding the extended AppleCare (which is always a good idea) when it's several months old not only enables you to get the best price for one on eBay (store a search on eBay and just keep watch on them) but it also assists with cashflow, giving you a few months to recover from the cost of buying the Mac itself.

Final point. Check out (by going to a store and looking at them) whether your son prefers the matte screen or the glossy screen on a MacBook Pro. Personally, I much prefer the matte screen (which, currently, is the default option - with glossy being a no cost alternative option) and hate the glossy screen.

Do get the thing covered with loss or accidental damage insurance as well, on a new-for-old basis. Well worth the cost for peace of mind (and what would you do if it's dropped or stolen when it's only three months old?) You can probably get this added to your house contents insurance policy. I specifically ensured that this risk was covered the last time I changed insurers and they've paid out twice for mishaps. So it is worth it.

Your son is lucky to have such a kind parent.

geordie458

Are Apple computers so unreliable as to make buying an extended warranty a necessity?

Chili

In the halls of residence he will be going into at uni, contents insurance is included but I am going to check with them on all aspects of the laptop both in halls and outside also.

You're right we are kind :rolleyes: I just hope he will look after it properly. He's doing motion graphics and animation so it will (apparently) be very useful to him.

Thanks, some great tips there.:cheesy:

Smickan

I just rang the Meadowhall store as I'm trying to choose between Windows and Mac for my next laptop (I hate Vista!) - apparently it's cut down to £60 for students.

[Deleted User]

geordie458 wrote: »

Are Apple computers so unreliable as to make buying an extended warranty a necessity?

Well, I think that like any other computer manufacturer, Apple will have computers that get things wrong with them. Probably no more so than any other manufacturer. So you shouldn't buy the extension just because it's a mac, or (for any other computer) because it isn't.
The reason people say "Macs jsut work" and that macs don't crash so much is that because Apple designs the OS and configures the hardware, they can fine tune the programs to match. Windows can be run on most hardware, which means that Microsoft have to make programs that work more generally, meaning less fine-tuning and more margin for error.

Leopard

geordie458 wrote: »

Are Apple computers so unreliable as to make buying an extended warranty a necessity?

As previously stated, I usually buy my own Macs from sellers on eBay. So, I seldom know why somebody is really selling it. Nor do I know how they have treated it. Did it ever get left in the sun on a hot day? Was it ever left outside on a table when it rained? How do I know? And if it was, is that why they are selling it?

(Ask yourself what poor mug ends up innocently buying the cars that Jeremy Clarkson and Vicki Butler-Henderson have damagingly thrashed with gleeful abuse for television cameras?)

Provided a Mac passes muster when I examine it, inside and out, and shows no sign of abuse, I'll buy it. And then I'll buy Applecare for it. If its previous owner has done something silly with it and shortened its life in a manner that's not visible, the cost of replacing it will be born by Apple and not by me.

By the same token, what is a refurb? For how long, and in what way, was it used before it was "refurbed"? For how many hours/days/weeks/months has its display been used?

I'd rather make these things Apple's risk and Apple's problem than mine for two years if it costs only £120 to do it and I got the computer at a bargain price.

That's my personal answer to your question.

In a more general sense, insurance is for people who can't afford to take a loss in their stride.

If you're rich enough to replace things should they fail, why pay money to insurance companies? You have no overheads and the premiums saved can earn you interest in a savings account. Whereas, for an insurance company to provide insurance it incurs all the costs of advertising, collecting the premiums, investigating claims and processing claims - plus the cost of paying staff, paying rent, paying rates, paying electricity bills, paying gas bills, paying telephone bills and buying computer equipment to run it all on. On top of all that, the shareholders want profitability and a dividend. And who pays for all that? The person stumping up the premiums.

If you buy a toaster for £20, do you take out a maintenance contract on it? Of course you don't. The fact that you can bin it if it does go wrong and buy another one means, effectively, that you are insuring it yourself.

But if you buy a £2,000 laptop and something fails on it that is so expensive that it is uneconomic to repair, can you afford to just bin it and buy another one?

If you can't, you buy insurance.

In addition to all this, there's a philosophical aspect to it. If everybody takes out extended AppleCare, it gives Apple a serious incentive to ensure that its computers are built well enough to survive without maintenance for three years instead of just one.

Put more simplistically, it provides Apple with an incentive to make computers that are rock solid reliable, so that they can cream in profit by selling Applecare on them that won't be needed.

And that's a good thing. Because if you're the consumer, which would you rather have - a computer that doesn't go wrong or a computer that will be repaired for free (but at great inconvenience to you) if it fails?

So, although your question is characteristically trite, the answer to it is multi-facetted and complex.

sleepymy

If you order by phone they're open to a bit of polite haggling, I got the extended warranty & a sleeve thrown in for £11 (it was the second laptop I'd ordered from them in 3 mths). A guy in the local mac repair shop said the warranty was worth buying as a couple of the parts can be too expensive. I was very happy with dealing with them.