AppleCare a necessity! $1,600 in repairs - 2.5 years

[nanofrog]

Im ready to buy a new computer and am buying a Mac for the first time. Im leaning toward a refurb to not only save a little money but also the thought of knowing the computer has been retested and up to speck to me is a plus. Im waiting for Wednesday and maybe the current Pro's will drop a little more in the refurb dept if there is a NEW Pro.

The 3.2GHz '08 Octad in the refurb store is the best system to go for. Same price as the base '09 Octad (2.26GHz), but it's faster in both single and multi-threaded applications. Fewer technical problems, and easier to work with internally if you ever need to deal with RAID, or eSATA cards, or even use the ODD_SATA ports for additional HDD's under OS X (they don't work with Windows disks, which is their one real limitation, but it's solvable without costing an arm + leg ).

 

[JacaByte]

Keep it real ....out of 100 ...that is 15 Asus and Toshibas , 16 Sonys , 17 Apples and 18 Dells

15.6 rounded to the ones place is 16, 15.7 rounded to the ones is 16, 16.8 rounded to the ones is 17 and 17.4 rounded to the ones is 17. 16, 16, 17, 17. If the data is worth the paper it's printed on at all, I am keeping it real. Where is your sense of open minded, scientific reasoning?

SquareTrade does a VERY large amount of the other 4 brands. AppleCare does 100x the repairs that SquareTrade does on Macs so the odd's are that the failure rate on Mac is HIGHER than reported by SquareTrade. Apple would never release those numbers though so we will never know.

No, it means that it could sway either way. Notice that all margins of error are ±, not "oh, it could be +3.5%, but never -3.5%" or some such garbage.

Like you stated those numbers are from 3 yr old computers. They arent going to change my mind. I just thought Mac would of been in the top 2 if not 1 , thats all.

The only difference between any of the manufacturers in the top 4 is 1 laptop. End of fricking story.

 

[Macdicted]

Funny how you take a difference of 1.8 and round it off to 1.

Bottom line is for every 1000 Asus there is 156 , for every 1000 Macs there are 174. THAT IS REAL !

For the cost of a Mac I still expect it to be better than 4th.

I dont really care about your expectations , simply stated mine.

END OF FU@KING STORY

 

[Takashi]

Apple comes up with the industrial design (case) and a spec sheet, but the actual circuit design and manufacturing are all outsourced. The cost per se, is control = poor QC from beginning to end.

Apple does seem to still do their own R&D (i.e. interface patents,... articles you see on the front page recently).

But when it comes to designing the actual product (circuit design, PCB layouts, ...) they don't do that any longer. They outsource to Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision is the actual company name; Foxconn is their retail brand).

Given what they charge for the same circuits as anyone else, Mac users should demand more. The current QC issues are unacceptable for that kind of money, and seem to be getting worse lately from what I can tell (more and more problems reported lately across different lines).

Outsourcing is fine, but there should be some quality build into the design. After spending $$ on a mac, I would expect the quality to be significantly better than PCs. So far I don't see it to be so.

The more I think about Applecare, the more I think it is a scam. Apple charges $300 bucks applecare for a $1200 13" MBP. If I am correct, it probably only costs $300 bucks (including parts and labor) for apple to build the MBP in China. Labor in China is cheap, and parts become super cheap if you buy them in bulk and make them in China. Apple sells the 13" MBP for $1200. Even if apple sell the MBP with no applecare, Apple still makes $900 bucks in profit. Being said, even if someone buys a 13" MBP + applecare and have the machine replaced twice, apple would lost $900 bucks (2 new + 1 old MBP) and still come out with $600 bucks profit.

Now the golden question: why won't apple lower price of laptops? 1) for profit. Lower price = less profit; 2) less people will consider applecare. To stimulate interest, Apple will have to lower the cost of applecare; however, apple will loose $$ if customers file a claim. Don't forget that applecare is pure profit for apple so long as nobody files a claim. Apple will be stupid to not promote it since "peace of mind" = "American dream". 3) It will put apple in a disadvantage in terms of prestige and the elegant image it portrays. 4) it will make apple products look cheap compared to their competitors.

To protect profit and customer dependance on applecare as an insurance policy, apple keeps the price of laptops way above their worth and use applecare to bring in additional profits.

 

[nanofrog]

Outsourcing is fine, but there should be some quality build into the design. After spending $$ on a mac, I would expect the quality to be significantly better than PCs. So far I don't see it to be so.

Apple gives up control, which translates into poor QC by using ODM's to get a cheaper production cost per unit. They're willing to do this, because it's about money first and foremost. Always. If they truly valued QC, they'd need to retain full control, which means their own design engineers (circuits, PCB layouts,...) to manufacturing facilities. Ideally no 3rd party involvement, save the component suppliers, though PCB production (bare boards) would be likely (there are good companies out there, but with quality, comes a higher per unit cost). US based suppliers for example, are much better about QC, but they're not the least expensive option (part of it is environmental regulation compliance due to waste disposal requirements).

If they wanted to use ODM's and keep the QC high, they'd have to pay for it (i.e. Apple QC personel on the floor, and engineers perform all the validation proceedures as well before issuing final acceptance). That would result in more changes = more $$$ per unit. They'd rather just replace the defective systems instead, as it's still more profitable for them to do so.

 

[Alvi]

I always say that when you buy a Mac you sign a contract to not kill yourself if your computer breaks in 3 years, since a logic board replacement costs as much as the computer