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Ask HN: Mac users, do you get AppleCare for your Macs?

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21–30 of 79 posts

Re: Ask HN: Mac users, do you get AppleCare for your Macs?

#21

Post by stretchwithme »

absolutely. And it has paid off royally. I've gotten my power plug thingy replaced twice and my hard drive replaced once and they also replaced the cracked keyboard surround thingy. Not a bad return for $250.

Personally, the peace of mind that things will be handled when something goes wrong is worth the extra $50 for two additional years. Thats just $2.50 a week, even if nothing were fixed.

When they fixed my hard drive, they installed the OS and I restored my data from time machine and I was back in business.

Figure out what your time is worth after taxes and then figure out how much time you would spend just trying to assess what the best course is to handle a problem. That cost is gone when you can just hand it to Apple and they return it to you whole.

Re: Ask HN: Mac users, do you get AppleCare for your Macs?

#22

Post by brettnak »

I did buy it for mine. I am curious about the plan though. Lately, the temperature of my mbp has been going higher than I'm used to and I'd like to get it cleaned. Does anyone know if apple care covers that? Normally I'd do it myself but since I have the first gen of the non-replaceable battery, I don't know if the the warrantee terms will allow it.

Re: Ask HN: Mac users, do you get AppleCare for your Macs?

#24

Post by stretchwithme »

stretchwithme wrote: post #21

absolutely. And it has paid off royally. I've gotten my power plug thingy replaced twice and my hard drive replaced once and they also replaced the cracked keyboard surround thingy. Not a bad return for $250. Personally, the peace of mind that things will be handled when something goes wrong is worth the extra $50 for two additional years. Thats just $2.50 a week, even if nothing were fixed. When they fixed my hard d…

mine has a problem with a plug that costs $80 to replace. and it happened twice and may even happen once more before apple care expires in 2 months

Re: Ask HN: Mac users, do you get AppleCare for your Macs?

#26

Post by stretchwithme »

acl wrote: post #20

AppleCare is the only kind of extended warranty I have ever bought. I'm glad I did -- my Macbook Pro needed multiple repairs within the last few years, including logic board replacement. I'll buy AppleCare again for my upcoming MBP update.

have never bought any other warrantee either. but had a bad experience with my last pc laptop that could have been a black hole of wasted time and money if I'd decided to fix it.

Not to mention the lost time. If you enjoy tinkering, though, I guess you might just handle the problem yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Mac users, do you get AppleCare for your Macs?

#27

Post by arihant »

Yes. Got fan replaced twice, battery once, keyboard components once because of weird sound. Also, I check it in every month for general cleaning and service.

Fan, keyboard and logic board failures are very common with Macs. Just google and see. I'd suggest you get AppleCare. But don't buy it at the time of purchase, you can wait 11 months and buy, sometimes you might end up changing the machine in less than a year, then AppleCare would be worthless.

Re: Ask HN: Mac users, do you get AppleCare for your Macs?

#28

Post by gte910h »

zacharypinter wrote: post #19

No. My thoughts are warranties/insurance are the following: * If having to repurchase/cover the item would seriously hurt my financials, then I buy it (car insurance, rental insurance, etc are good examples). * For everything else, I skip it. I figure that by self-insuring, I come out ahead in the end. Sure, there's always some gadgets that fail past the end date of the manufacturers warranty. However, replacing thos…

I agree with you on all other warranties. I've seen Applecare, especially for students, turn out very well though.

Re: Ask HN: Mac users, do you get AppleCare for your Macs?

#29

Post by kyro »

Usually, I don't. But my brother a year ago purchased a MacBook Pro, and, thanks to a somewhat paranoid mother, was pushed to purchase AppleCare. A year later, we were typing away at some cafe, and his screen turned white and the machine let out a long constant beep. We tried restarting, clearing various types of RAMs, etc, nothing worked. We took it in to the Apple store and they told us something had randomly given out, and that it could've been some sort of manufacturer's defect. The repair costs would've have added up to something around $800, but because of AppleCare, there was no charge. It was definitely worth it in that case.

Edit: Reading arihant's comment, I now remember that it was his logic board that gave out.

Re: Ask HN: Mac users, do you get AppleCare for your Macs?

#30

Post by bphogan »

I'm not making this up. Intern of mine spilled 32oz of soda on his mbp. He dumped as much out of his keyboard as he could but it wouldn't come back on the next day. You're not hiding that from Apple. His machine was on year 3 and had a few screen issues too. He figured he'd send it in under applecare and see what they said.

They fixed it. Replaced the keyboard, replaced the screen, replaced the trackpad. No questions asked and he had it back in less than a week.

I buy AppleCare because of that.

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