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gostan · Apr 23, 2005, 03:05 AM

I have 4 more days to elect to purchase Applecare for my almost 1 year old 15" AlBook. I have never had any type of issue with it and I am not sure it I should spend the $349.00 to buy it. What would you do??

adamberti · Apr 23, 2005, 03:53 AM

Originally Posted by gostan

I have 4 more days to elect to purchase Applecare for my almost 1 year old 15" AlBook. I have never had any type of issue with it and I am not sure it I should spend the $349.00 to buy it. What would you do??

For a PowerBook - AppleCare, AppleCare, AppleCare. Not to scare you, but I had a TiBook that had the power adapter replaced, airport replaced, then airport again, then the logic board (once they realized it was killing airport), and the screen. And then someone stepped on the screen (not covered by Applecare). Portables are very fragile, I've seen enough people that have problems to realize this.

Individual parts are so expensive on the PB's, that almost any repair will cost hundreds of dollars. Screens and Logic boards are up near $1000 CDN, and I can't imagine keyboard costs now with the lighting element. I do have to say that the costs of the PBs have dropped so much that it's not as obvious as it was before. When I bought my TiBook it was $4500 CDN - it was damn obvious then. But with prices dropping, and AppleCare costing the same amount, it's not as worth it to me as it used to be. I would definitely consider other options now.

Whatever you do, get some sort of coverage - whether it's an extended Visa coverage, Safeware, AppleCare, house insurance - just get something. Just think - if your screen died in 5 days, what would you do?

jguidroz · 11:13 AM

I've owned three Macs, a B&W G3, a Pismo Laptop, and now an AL 15". I didn't purchase Applecare on my first two. Both of those had a warranty repair within the first year. After that, I had no issues with either computer until something got screwy with battery life on the Pismo, but that was after three years anyways, so Applecare wouldn't have helped.

Now with the AL 15", I've had absolutely no issues with it so far, and like you, my original warranty was about to run out in a few days. I decided to get the Applecare because if something goes wrong in the next two years, $350 for warranty coverage is a lot cheaper than $2000 for a new laptop.

My $0.02.

J

tcphoto · Apr 23, 2005, 01:06 PM

Try expercom.com and pay $269. for AppleCare. I bought my 15" Aluminum this past February and will buy it before the one year period expires.

osxisfun · Apr 23, 2005, 01:12 PM

Originally Posted by tcphoto

Try expercom.com and pay $269. for AppleCare. I bought my 15" Aluminum this past February and will buy it before the one year period expires.

Wonder why they sell it for such as low price?

jguidroz · Apr 23, 2005, 02:43 PM

Too bad I didn't know about that site before purchasing it for $340 from Outpost.com.

jamito · Apr 23, 2005, 03:30 PM

did you buy with a credit card. if you did, check it out to see if the provide an extended warranty free. usually visa, mastercard, amexp provided 1 year of extra warranty. in addition, visa has the option of extending it past that year for a fee (but much cheaper than applecare). if you bought it with a credit card i suggest calling the 800 number on the back of that card and finding out if you have such an exteneded warranty. also, if can't decide right now, there are other options. safeware.com is one of them. also, i have my auto warranty through warrantybynet.com, which does a good job. they also provide laptop extended warranties, but honestly never looked into it, so i don't know the options. point is, there are other options. spend a couple hours to find out which is the best. lastly, extended warranties are great, because you never know what can happen.

roadracr · Apr 23, 2005, 10:36 PM

Originally Posted by tcphoto

Try expercom.com and pay $269. for AppleCare. I bought my 15" Aluminum this past February and will buy it before the one year period expires.

I bought my Applecare extended warranty for my new PB earlier this month from compu-america.com. Their price was $253.00 - almost $100 off the price directly from Apple. This was for the actual Apple warranty and I had no problem registering it. At this discount, I had less of a problem justifying the cost of the two year warranty extension.

cef · Apr 24, 2005, 01:21 AM

I'll put in another vote for getting it. It's already paid for itself twice over on my 17" Rev A powerbook.

crazeazn · Apr 24, 2005, 02:49 AM

i would get it, ive already used it 3x past my coverage. logic board, hard drive, battery

Goatbert · Apr 24, 2005, 03:19 AM

For any laptop - always get the warranty. Too many proprietary parts and parts that are just prone to failure. The more miniaturized things become the more complicated they are, the easier to break they are, etc.

I just bought the coverage on my new 12" PB, and I got SafeWare coverage on it as well for accidental damage. When I buy a laptop now I just figure it as the cost of doing business.

-Jeff

gostan · Apr 25, 2005, 02:26 PM

Well, I thank you all for your comments. I decided that AppleCare was a must, but not for $349.00. So, I made a trip to the Apple Store in Chestnut Hill and advised them that I could purchase AppleCare for $269.00 from expercom.com. They went online to confirm the same and then matched the price. All done with an $80.00 savings and two years added to my PB warranty.

I also picked up a LaCie 160GB d2 triple exreme Hard Drive to back all of my files up to get ready for a clean install of Tiger this weekend.