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MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

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581–588 of 588 posts

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#581
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't want to own objects that are so needy the require their own insurance policy.

No house, car, utility vehicles? How about your body? Medical and life insurance are nearly universal.

You should insure things you can't afford to self insure for. Life, Home, maybe car.

You should not pay insurance for all the tech crap we buy. You're just losing money on average. Only way to win with this type of insurance is to be unlucky.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#582
post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's an ongoing joke in the military, MIL-SPEC just means it's a piece of crap that's going to break pretty soon. Yeah well, my M1 MacBook Air just friggin' screen-died overnight ten days ago. On the other hand my military grade LG Gram is still working fine after years and years. I can hold the LG Gram's screen with both hands and start distorting it and it keeps working flawlessly: the screen is very flexible.…

To counter anecdote with anecdote, my M1 MBA is still kicking and has survived untold abuse. I carry the computer by the display, have dropped it multiple (over tens) times on to hardwood, linoleum, and concrete floors from 3'-4' high. The computer was on the ground and I accidentally dropped my phone on it, which left a nick in the screen but nothing greater. I spilled an entire pitcher of water on the keyboard and…

I haven't spilled anything on it, but I have a mid-2013 MacBook Air running Sierra. It still works great, and the hardware doesn't have any defects that I know of.

The most surprising thing about using that machine is that it's shockingly fast. And I own an M1 Ultra Mac Studio.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No house, car, utility vehicles? How about your body? Medical and life insurance are nearly universal.

You should insure things you can't afford to self insure for. Life, Home, maybe car. You should not pay insurance for all the tech crap we buy. You're just losing money on average. Only way to win with this type of insurance is to be unlucky.

But this is exactly it. Insurance is about relative luck and hedging against being unlucky. It’s all a matter of risk/reward. It’s an ex ante cost.

Much history of costs/return in various domains show the power of ex ante investments vs ex post restitution.

If I spend $1200 on a high end phone, and it costs $300 to replace a screen, or $30 with insurance, after a $200 one time premium for 2 years… it depends how often you break your screen on average. If it’s at least once every 2 years, then yes, it’s worth it. And then that’s not even counting other things that may go wrong.

Same logic for extended car warranties. Sometimes they pay for themselves quickly, sometimes not.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Insurance is never a good idea in general” is a bit too extreme. Not all hedges have to be about protecting you from a wipeout. It’s about opportunity cost for the premium vs the risk (magnitude x probability).

But if that tradeoff were favorable to you, wouldn't that mean it's unprofitable to the company selling it, so they wouldn't?

In many cases, these programs aren’t profitable, especially if the extended warrantee covers products with unknown problems. Neither the supplier nor the purchaser knows the true risks of warranting a new product, they only have historical data to go by. Often they are profitable, on products that actually were far more reliable than consumers expected (eg. Phones whose screens get harder to break). But even then it doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to buy it, as you can’t predict the future, you can only make bets and cover your risk exposure to some degree. That risk coverage and piece of mind is valuable even if the unlucky event never happens.

At a bigger scale than product warrantees, Health and Life insurance are both profitable but also often worth purchasing to protect you or your family as it’s the ultimate case of hedging against bad luck. You’re trading reasonable, predictable costs against actuarial events with huge (potentially bankrupting) costs. Some folks that didn’t need it, they spent a reasonable an amount of money and still got value out if it: risk coverage and piece of mind.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#585
post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you do understand that owning a desktop does not preclude also owning a laptop, right? I have a desktop, and a laptop used as a thin client. The laptop can be inexpensive or have nice features (like a touchscreen), while the real power, storage, etc, is on the desktop.

Not often you see someone use their own argument against themselves. Why buy a desktop with a thin client laptop (that are not in anyway cheap) when you could just buy a standalone laptop. This isn't even an argument, the decades of the laptops continued popularity say enough.

My machine is way too valuable to risk traveling with is the primary reason. Another is that laptops are noisy due to fans.

My desktop is just a host for several VMs. If I actually need to travel with one of those "computers", I just shut down the VM and copy it's image from my NAS to my laptop.

If you are still buying a laptop for your stated reason, then you haven't embraced virtualization as a developer.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#587
post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not often you see someone use their own argument against themselves. Why buy a desktop with a thin client laptop (that are not in anyway cheap) when you could just buy a standalone laptop. This isn't even an argument, the decades of the laptops continued popularity say enough.

My machine is way too valuable to risk traveling with is the primary reason. Another is that laptops are noisy due to fans. My desktop is just a host for several VMs. If I actually need to travel with one of those "computers", I just shut down the VM and copy it's image from my NAS to my laptop. If you are still buying a laptop for your stated reason, then you haven't embraced virtualization as a developer.

Your personal sensitivities about travelling with a laptop are not shared by the majority. Laptop fans are in no way noisy enough to cause a distraction for yourself or others.

Making a VM copy from a NAS every time I decided to step outside and work say on the back deck in a different environment with trees and some sun is anything but convenient.

There seems to be a perpetuation falsehood in these discussions that the only time you would need to use a laptop is when travelling a substantial distance from home, which can not be anymore further from the truth than is possible.

Lastly, laptops are not the sole domain of developers and you don’t need to ‘embrace virtualization’ simply because it exists.

Re: MacBook Air M1 screen crack for no apparent reason

#588

Really interesting to hear so many people having had experiences with Apple support. I recently bought a 10 year-old iMac second hand from Cash Converters, which I promptly softbricked the day after purchase (bad Bootcamp install + firmware password). I took it in to the Apple Store, and despite the fact that it was 10 years old and used, they contacted the engineers in Cupertino to get the firmware unlock key, refor…

Both of your examples are software related. In my experience, anything hardware related Apple tends to shift the blame to the consumer. I wonder how much of their profits are based on repairs.

It's also worth noting he's in Australia, where sane consumer laws exist that Apple have to operate in. The staff here are pretty good.
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