the only thing madder would be to be another POS iMac when the one you use now is finally done.....
but you will....
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Is Applecare a rip-off?
- Thread starter redryder
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the only thing madder would be to be another POS iMac when the one you use now is finally done.....
but you will....
I've taken Apple (or a reseller) to small claims court 4 times with SOG Act claims exactly like you describe. Won every time..in fact its a no contest.
The law is great at times.
Are you saying applecare in the uk is uneccessary??
Also I'd expect any premium product to last more than 3 years. Way more. My shuttle SFF PC I built up using a second hand P4 is still going strong after 5 years.
no. I'm saying I wouldn't buy it...it's up to the individual.
In my experience of 20+ apple machines/products, getting 2 years out of any of them (without the need for major repairs) is an achievement.
the SOG act says that a product should last what a reasonable person would call a normal length of time given its usage and cost.
a #1000 iMac should last at least 3 years without problem but my experience is different to that.
Now, I just don't buy Apple computers, saves me time, money, hassle and inconvenience. I've pulled them from my business too.
its purely a personal thing... but Apple machines are designed to look nice...thats it. Their thermal envelope is poor due to that design.
There is a reason PC tower cases are airy!
My 2006 Imac didn't work right out of the box. Loud squeal when turned in. Brought it back, got a new one.
Problems with anything...call someone and get it trouble-shot and fixed, if not, it gets replaced. I used Applecare MANY times over the 3 yr period and was thankful to have the CUSTOMER SERVICE. Saved me untold hours of anguish.
All-in-one means greater risk of any one component failing and wrecking the whole thing. The threads in this imac section illustrated the myriad of problems you WILL run into.
It rubs me the wrong way to get nickle and dimed for apple care...just like airlines charging for luggage. It should be part of the advertised purchase price. That said, I'll buy the policy again with my next apple purchase.
Non-tech person.
Problems with anything...call someone and get it trouble-shot and fixed, if not, it gets replaced. I used Applecare MANY times over the 3 yr period and was thankful to have the CUSTOMER SERVICE. Saved me untold hours of anguish.
All-in-one means greater risk of any one component failing and wrecking the whole thing. The threads in this imac section illustrated the myriad of problems you WILL run into.
It rubs me the wrong way to get nickle and dimed for apple care...just like airlines charging for luggage. It should be part of the advertised purchase price. That said, I'll buy the policy again with my next apple purchase.
Non-tech person.
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Like archipellago said it is up to you. AppleCare gives you piece of mind, whereas repairs under soga take some persistence sometimes.
I find it funny that AppleCare and soga say similar things. But unless there is accidental damage AppleCare is like a free pass. Despite a claim under sofa being just ad legitimate!
I rarely buy warranties, instead using the law. Never had to go to court, but I would if needed as it isn't scary like people think.
Oh course, it helps to be a sad muppet like me! I don't let faulty goods get personal, I treat it like a game. You've got to get to speak to someone high enough in the chain to do what you want. Plus don't be annoying by mentioning laws straight away. Saves money but takes time.
scottgroovez said:
Like archipellago said it is up to you. AppleCare gives you piece of mind, whereas repairs under soga take some persistence sometimes.
I find it funny that AppleCare and soga say similar things. But unless there is accidental damage AppleCare is like a free pass. Despite a claim under sofa being just ad legitimate!
I rarely buy warranties, instead using the law. Never had to go to court, but I would if needed as it isn't scary like people think.
Oh course, it helps to be a sad muppet like me! I don't let faulty goods get personal, I treat it like a game. You've got to get to speak to someone high enough in the chain to do what you want. Plus don't be annoying by mentioning laws straight away. Saves money but takes time.
Applecare has saved my bacon BIGTIME!
I was always so down about the cost or even the need for Applecare. I mean for products which are supposed to be, merely by reputation, a cut above normal you should not need it. I was WRONG!
I bought my beloved MacBook Pro 17" in 2008 with Applecare. In 2009 my logic board for the network failed and was replaced free. Great I thought, at least I felt like it had justified the purchase.
Long story short, last week after I performed the 10.6.8 upgrade and upon trying to restart, nothing, zip, dead!
It's in the shop right now having replaced under Applecare the complete main logic board.
God knows what the cost of one of these babies would be! (anyone know?)
My Applecare expires in September. Will I be replacing it as in upgrading?
You can bet your life I will be, I regard myself as one very very lucky little camper for sure!
I was always so down about the cost or even the need for Applecare. I mean for products which are supposed to be, merely by reputation, a cut above normal you should not need it. I was WRONG!
I bought my beloved MacBook Pro 17" in 2008 with Applecare. In 2009 my logic board for the network failed and was replaced free. Great I thought, at least I felt like it had justified the purchase.
Long story short, last week after I performed the 10.6.8 upgrade and upon trying to restart, nothing, zip, dead!
It's in the shop right now having replaced under Applecare the complete main logic board.
God knows what the cost of one of these babies would be! (anyone know?)
My Applecare expires in September. Will I be replacing it as in upgrading?
You can bet your life I will be, I regard myself as one very very lucky little camper for sure!
What Apple Card did to me!!!!!!!!
Ok so I have a 24" Apple iMac and it has Apple Care ( it expired December 2010 )
Back in January 2010 I noticed the HDD was giving me random problems so I took it in to the Apple Store and they confirmed the HDD was failing. No problem it was covered by Apple Care, left it there for a new HDD to be installed.
When I picked it up they gave me the paper work that showed what they had done.
1) Replaced HDD ( was dying )
2) Replaced LCD ( they said it had a discoloration in one corner )
3) Replaced Logic Board ( they said in testing one of the USB ports was problematic )
I never noticed a problem with the LCD, nor the USB port but they did and went on to repair them. Now that the Apple Care has expired on this iMac I am looking for an upgrade/replacement that will again have Apple Care.
For now I am on that 36 Month Upgrade schedule.
I will ALWAYS take Apple Care - if for no other reason it makes selling the used machine that much easier.
Ok so I have a 24" Apple iMac and it has Apple Care ( it expired December 2010 )
Back in January 2010 I noticed the HDD was giving me random problems so I took it in to the Apple Store and they confirmed the HDD was failing. No problem it was covered by Apple Care, left it there for a new HDD to be installed.
When I picked it up they gave me the paper work that showed what they had done.
1) Replaced HDD ( was dying )
2) Replaced LCD ( they said it had a discoloration in one corner )
3) Replaced Logic Board ( they said in testing one of the USB ports was problematic )
I never noticed a problem with the LCD, nor the USB port but they did and went on to repair them. Now that the Apple Care has expired on this iMac I am looking for an upgrade/replacement that will again have Apple Care.
For now I am on that 36 Month Upgrade schedule.
I will ALWAYS take Apple Care - if for no other reason it makes selling the used machine that much easier.
If it is still under warranty, then tell them to fix it - and get it back to you ASAP.
If they give you any crap - demand to speak with their supervisor.
If they give you any crap - demand to speak with their supervisor.
It's insurance.
If your mac doesn't break then it will feel like a ripoff.
If you have a problem and it's fixed fast and free then it sure wont.
I've always had applecare and I've always had to use it. No matter what the build quality, electronics can always have failures.
If your mac doesn't break then it will feel like a ripoff.
If you have a problem and it's fixed fast and free then it sure wont.
I've always had applecare and I've always had to use it. No matter what the build quality, electronics can always have failures.
But I just went to the Apple website and B&H Photo is not on there Authorized Reseller list.
B&H is a reputable seller in that they have been willing to stand behind everything I have every bought from them. But they also sell "gray" market equipment. I bought a non-US Nikon from them a few years back. I knew what I was buying, but it was significantly cheaper.
So Reputable does not alway equal Authorized.
There are only a couple of things I buy extended warranties on: 1) Vehicles and only the factory authorized ones, and 2) Apple products because I know very little about them inside.
To be clear -- B&H doe sell both US-warranted and "grey market" film, lenses and speedlights and 35mm film cameras. We do not sell any "grey market" digital cameras. Any item we offer which is available in both provenances or any item which is only available as "grey market" is specifically marked so the provenance is apparent. The mark leads to a brief "US vs 'grey market'" description which in turn is linked to a lengthier explanation.
We are authorized retailers for all the brands we carry. For those brands which are available in both US-warranted and "grey market" versions, the manufacturer's and other vendors know we also have "grey market" versions of some of their products.
Currently, I only have an iPhone 3GS purchased in October 2009. I was BRAND NEW to Apple products since the 1980's. I sat in that store going back and forth was the AppleCare worth it. I eventually purchased it and am very glad I did. Now that my expereience with Apple has been nothing but stellar in the past year and half I am waiting to upgrade to iPhone 5 as well as purchase my first iMac which both will be bought with AppleCare as well.
the genius of Apple marketing...
you pay a premium (your own words) for a supposedly premium machine and then pay yet more for a warranty you shouldn't need....
the machine breaks twice (big style) in under 3 years, once in a year!! and instead of saying....
'these Apple machines aren't really very good' or
'I won't buy another one of these...'
you think you're lucky...!!!!!
I would hope most customers are smarter than that
seriously, does that bit in bold not make you think...
'I should buy something else..'
??
I bought 20 Dell laptops for my business 4 years ago, 19 are still going strong...the HD in the other one blew out about 3 months back.
funny how people call them 'cheap and tacky'....
I would buy it directly from Apple. There is a little legal loophole that Apple has shown no problem with exploiting and that is not honoring AppleCare warranties that you can't prove they sold, even if they did sell those AppleCare warranties. That said, this post is shockingly bad advice.
All electronics are subject to fail. Especially with heavy use.
Three year apple care is a great idea.
yes I have had to use it. Always for HDD fail. I now run an SSD MBP and have not a problem.
Half the arguments given here are strange. You do realize there is ALWAYS a warranty, BESIDES Apple Care right? Saying you had to use Apple Care within at least 2 years of the purchase is completely useless, you had a warranty no matter what.
That depends where you are. In most states in the US that isn't the case, in most countries in Europe it is.
Yeah, Hitachi used to have their fair share of hard disk manufacturing problems, but they seem to have improved in the last few years so that they are on par with Western Digital in terms of reliability.
As far as the AppleCare goes, any computer as expensive as a Mac needs protection for more than one wimpy year. If you are going based on probabilities, you can probably afford to skip the AppleCare for the desktop Macs, but you cannot afford to skip it for the laptops. This will continue to be the case until the laptops strengthen in reliability.
Since Apple computers are good, but not that long lasting, I always buy Apple Care. Its saved me a lot of money.
If Apple did as good of a job building them as Apple Care does fixing them, id really celebrate.
If Apple did as good of a job building them as Apple Care does fixing them, id really celebrate.
My experience has been better with Apples than with the Dells I bought before or the "white box" computers I built before that. Extended warranties haven't been worth it on any system I've bought when averaged over all the purchases. But that is to be expected -- if they lost money for the sellers they wouldn't be selling them!
I posted earlier in this thread, but there has been a failure so I'm updating and enlarging.
The capacitors just failed in the G5 iMac. I gave it to a friend who is fixing it for $30 in capacitors he ordered from China. Even in the first year only one of the minis had required a repair and it was defective at purchase.
In the early 2000's I purchased 4 Dell desktops and one Dell notebook. One of the desktops is still in use at 8 years old with no repairs. The notebook had a repair the first week (bad CD drive) and the drive failed again at 2.5 years. I did have an extended warranty, but the drive was less expensive than the warranty. Only one other system required any repairs during ownership -- the hard drive failed after 2 years on one of the desktops. Again the cost to replace was less than the cost of an extended warranty.
Of course the problem with the Macs is that if they do fail the cost of repair is usually greater than their value. And even if you attempt to do it yourself the parts costs are crazy high. However from my experience, even if it cost $1000 to repair the iMac, and I paid it, and I had another projected repair before all the current systems reach 3 years, I'd still be money ahead from buying Applecare for 12 Macs. And that certainly would have been true for those Dell computers which from my experience had a higher failure rate (although still low).
I posted earlier in this thread, but there has been a failure so I'm updating and enlarging.
The capacitors just failed in the G5 iMac. I gave it to a friend who is fixing it for $30 in capacitors he ordered from China. Even in the first year only one of the minis had required a repair and it was defective at purchase.
In the early 2000's I purchased 4 Dell desktops and one Dell notebook. One of the desktops is still in use at 8 years old with no repairs. The notebook had a repair the first week (bad CD drive) and the drive failed again at 2.5 years. I did have an extended warranty, but the drive was less expensive than the warranty. Only one other system required any repairs during ownership -- the hard drive failed after 2 years on one of the desktops. Again the cost to replace was less than the cost of an extended warranty.
Of course the problem with the Macs is that if they do fail the cost of repair is usually greater than their value. And even if you attempt to do it yourself the parts costs are crazy high. However from my experience, even if it cost $1000 to repair the iMac, and I paid it, and I had another projected repair before all the current systems reach 3 years, I'd still be money ahead from buying Applecare for 12 Macs. And that certainly would have been true for those Dell computers which from my experience had a higher failure rate (although still low).
I love the way when ever this sort of thread appears, the Mac zealots claim Apple is the best thing out there. The fact that it is a complete rip-off gets ignored.
The fact that Apple only gives you the minimum 1 year manufacturers warranty should tell you everything you need to now about the quality of their products. As a company they have no confidence in the crap they churn out.
For those who claim that Macs are better made etc. Your kidding yourselves. As someone else said, they look nice but thats it. Performance and longevity come at the bottom of the list now.
Yes, I did buy AppleCare for my last Mac and glad I did, it's been back and forth with problems. Didn't buy it with a PowerMac 10 years ago and that still works perfectly without a problem.
Apple Inc are now no different from any other money grabbing mass producing company. Quality of products comes a distant second to coning you out of the money.
The fact that Apple only gives you the minimum 1 year manufacturers warranty should tell you everything you need to now about the quality of their products. As a company they have no confidence in the crap they churn out.
For those who claim that Macs are better made etc. Your kidding yourselves. As someone else said, they look nice but thats it. Performance and longevity come at the bottom of the list now.
Yes, I did buy AppleCare for my last Mac and glad I did, it's been back and forth with problems. Didn't buy it with a PowerMac 10 years ago and that still works perfectly without a problem.
Apple Inc are now no different from any other money grabbing mass producing company. Quality of products comes a distant second to coning you out of the money.