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AppleCare, any day, any week. Best customer service in the world.

Lenovo CS excellent since they are 24/7/365 and they ship parts to customers who want to do repairs themselves.

As with Best Buy; they took around 3 months to give me my repair back, so I'd pass on them.
 
obviously you havent seen a best buy service contract in about 3 years. If you choose to buy the Accidental Damage and Handling it does in fact cover spills and drops. Right now, we have our macbooks priced at 1199 for a new aluminum, with the protection plan that covers accidents starting at 299 for 2 years, 349 for 3 years. As far as replacing it, we will replace it if it is not fixable, i.e. 2 years from now, if the logic board fails and they can't fix it, they'll replace it. Oh and until apple sales there OS to other manufacturers, you'll continue to get a new macbook.

Don't get me wrong, iThink that the Best Buy warranty is a good warranty for a secondary protection plan (like the accident care.) However, the problems that I have with Best Buy is that if my "m" key were to stop working (something that probably wouldn't require replacing the entire computer) it would take a longer time than Apple Care.
 
apple's customer service isn't awesome. let's not go crazy. but they are probably about as good as any customer service could be
 
couldnt i just technically get both?

get the BBY one from them, then get apple care from apple?

so if parts go bad i can get apple to fix it, and if i drop it or spill something on it, best buy can fix it

would that work?

and thanks so much for the quick responses guys =)
 
couldnt i just technically get both?

get the BBY one from them, then get apple care from apple?

so if parts go bad i can get apple to fix it, and if i drop it or spill something on it, best buy can fix it

would that work?

and thanks so much for the quick responses guys =)

if you want to spend a ton of money, get both. it's unnecessary. just be careful with the laptop. Don't spill water or don't drop it. It's that simple really. You should get a warranty to help with manufacturer defects, not offset your own stupidity...:)
 
Lenovo CS excellent since they are 24/7/365 and they ship parts to customers who want to do repairs themselves.

As with Best Buy; they took around 3 months to give me my repair back, so I'd pass on them.
Yes, Lenovo has gotten a lot of positive reviews, as has Dell's top of the line service (iThink the XPS Protection Plan) where they will send technicians out to your house within a day or so.
couldnt i just technically get both?

get the BBY one from them, then get apple care from apple?

so if parts go bad i can get apple to fix it, and if i drop it or spill something on it, best buy can fix it

would that work?

and thanks so much for the quick responses guys =)
Yes (see below)
if you want to spend a ton of money, get both. it's unnecessary. just be careful with the laptop. Don't spill water or don't drop it. It's that simple really. You should get a warranty to help with manufacturer defects, not offset your own stupidity...:)
But agreed. If you had a MacBook Pro it may not be such a bad idea ($300 for Bestbuy + $150 for AppleCare on eBay = $450.) It seems odd though to spend $450 on a notebook that is not much more than half the cost if you get a MacBook.
 
well, since im getting a MBP i think im going to get both

i'm gonna grab the best buy one, my friends getting me his discount on it, so i get it for 320 instead of the 400 it costs

and ill get apple care off of ebay or something =)

thanks a ton guys =)
 
well, since im getting a MBP i think im going to get both

i'm gonna grab the best buy one, my friends getting me his discount on it, so i get it for 320 instead of the 400 it costs

and ill get apple care off of ebay or something =)

thanks a ton guys =)

Not sure if this is the best idea in terms of money, but to each his (or her) on.
 
i can't believe you would get both. that's probably the dumbest thing i've ever heard
 
i can't believe you would get both. that's probably the dumbest thing i've ever heard

Really? It's not. If you don't have either store close by or even if you did. If you are buying a three thousand dollar computer; then $500 is not a bad protection of the investment. Really keep the insults down.
 
i can't believe you would get both. that's probably the dumbest thing i've ever heard

may i ask why?

id rather spend the 700 or so now, rather than in a year say im in class and some idiot knocks it off my desk or something

im not worried about me wrecking it, im worried about other stupid people

im getting it just in case you can call it dumb, but i think it's a good idea

if i have hardware problems, it'll take apple a day or two to fix it, if it falls or something gets spilled on it, BB can take care of it for me

it's just covering all my bases, thats all =)
 
Just read the contract completely. As some others have said, they may only replace with a computer of comparable 'specs' so you may end up in a year with a low end PC laptop as your replacement. I don't know how it reads, but you can never be to careful. Some of these warranties also only cover you if you manufacturers warranty is expired (some cover only if your manufacturer's warranty does not cover it).

I'm currently checking out these guys SquareTrade.I can't recommend them personally yet, but they do look interesting enough to look into.
 
may i ask why?

id rather spend the 700 or so now, rather than in a year say im in class and some idiot knocks it off my desk or something

im not worried about me wrecking it, im worried about other stupid people

im getting it just in case you can call it dumb, but i think it's a good idea

if i have hardware problems, it'll take apple a day or two to fix it, if it falls or something gets spilled on it, BB can take care of it for me

it's just covering all my bases, thats all =)

you're better off donating the $320 BB to the salvation army.

i guess there are just some paranoid people.
 
Those Best Buy Geeks are complete idiots. I wouldn't trust a single one of them with my MacBook!

Seriously, getting anything repaired, replaced, or etc at BestBuy is a pain in the you know what, too. I bought one on a laptop a few years ago. The sellers promise you the world, and the service people tell you that they lied to you and you're S.O.L.!
 
Just to clarify for everybody, and this may depend on the Best Buy you go to but if the laptop is deemed replaceable (cannot be repaired or determined to be a lemon after 3 repairs) you will get a laptop of comparable specs not to exceed the original purchase price. Now at my store part of the specs is the screen size and portability (one manager thinks otherwise and I argue with him), So if one were to have a mbp it would get replaced with a mbp. Now if they had the $2499 sku and a year later it is to get replaced, they would probably get the $1999 sku so long as it is at least as powerful as their model. For example if one had the mid 2007 2.4ghz mbp, they would get either the just recently discontinued 2.4ghz model (if in stock still) or the new 2.4 unibody pro if the old model is not available.

Now even if they do go with a lesser pc thats around $1000 vs the at least $2000 spent, Said person is still better off than not buying the service plan in the first place.

Quick recap, at least in my store if one bought a macbook pro that needed to be replaced under service plan they would get a macbook pro. All they would have to do is buy the new service plan if it is after the first year.

Edit:
Oh and yes Applecare has better tech support (if needed) and much quicker turn around times. And I have seen some really atrocious geek squad techs in my store and others, though I have also seen some really good ones.
 
k, there's too much to read through, so i'll put in my own experience with AppleCare and BestBuyService for the same product.

i purchased a ipod nano, approximately 2 or 3 years ago with a best buy service plan (PSP). During the first year, my ipod broke (it stopped playing sound), so i went to bestbuy to get my warranty. they said it's still the first year, so i'll have to deal with apple.

i went to the apple website, went to support put in my serial number and they prompted me that they would send me a box to mail the ipod to them. I recieved the box the next day, and shipped it the same day. within TWO days, i had my ipod back. fade to black

*fast forward in time*

ipod nano breaks again, this time, it has the sploch of black on it. I thought it was accidentaly damage from either sitting on it, or moving from inside my warm house to the negative ten degree outside, but i checked online and this was infact covered by apple. however, the one year applecare was over, and so i relied on my trusty bestbuy warrenty.

Walked over to my local best buystore, trucked over to customer service, told them it was broken. waited over 30 mins in line to have the person tell me that i had to walk myself over to "Geek Squad" to take care of it. so i walked over to "Geek Squad" where the dude told me it was not covered by warranty, where as i told him the apple site said it was a frequent problem that is covered. he kept saying no, until i showed him the site. at which point, he told me to go back to customer service (WTF!?!?) i got there, and they said i should go mail in the product myself, pay for the shipping fee and repair fee, go to the best buy website/phone service, and call the to get a cheque to get my money back, but only partially because of some stupid clause on the warranty.

at this point i'm annoyed and ask them, why can't they ship it? and they said, oh, we can't do that, you have to do that. i recieved this answer for about twenty mintues as i couldn't get an answer better than "you have to do that". it wasn't until i found the manager that he explained the following: best buy takes the ipod, holds it until the truck comes (once a week) to take the products to the head factory, held there for at least two weeks when the second truck comes, ships it to apple in the states, have apple spend a day processing it, then they have to send it back to the head office, then have the head office send it back to the store. so i'd have to wait at LEAST three months for it back. BULL-Sh!. i told them to ship it, cuz i already paid for that stuff, and it well. i got my ipod back in 6 months. Sold it and bought a new one from Apple Store.

that's just my experience in the situation, just incase anyone wanted to know a first hand account of bestbuy service, very very poor.


and i'm pretty sure best buy doesn't cover accidents, the only people that do that is Dell. if you're accident prone, purchase a Dell, since their warranty (i've heard from first hand accounts) is just as fast as apple, but covers even more (at a higher cost).

*end rant
 
I've actually had fantastic luck with BBYs service plans on a variety of products that I have purchased over the years ranging from TVs to appliances. I believe their plans cover accidental damage now which is completely worth it...

In this case it might be a toss up...
 
I too was looking around for comparisons. I am about to purchase my first MBP and I am really excited. I have purchased the BB plan in the past (the one for this laptop I am on right now expired a year ago in Sept, I had a 3-year plan). Within the first year, it paid for itself. I went in to get something fixed, I believe it was the CD-ROM, and when I got it back, I not only had a fixed CD-ROM, I also had a new keyboard because they felt that some of my keys were sticky. I had nice new keys! Then about a year and a half in, I got my battery replaced. About two years? I got a new power cord because mine was getting worn out. Got a blue screen of death and my HD crashed pretty mightily. Sent it in and they replaced the HD. Got a new battery again (you could get one every year).

I think that about covers it, but as you can tell, it certainly paid for itself time and time again. I had a really great experience with them.

Would that have been possible with Applecare?
 
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