I bought a 2018 MacBook Pro 15 inch in the end of 2018. It was around $2800. Within a year, one of the USB-C port was not charging. I gave it to apple store for repair under warranty. They fixed it, but the machine kept rebooting couple of times a day during normal browsing. Made couple of visits to apple store and they sent it repair site to fix it. And it was fixed. After 6 months, now the display is not lighting up. No damage to display. Suddenly one day display stopped working. Genius bar says they need to do a flat rate repair which costs $799. I have no other option other than to spend $799 on top of $2800. I am buying Apple for ease of use and for quality. Is this just a one off case, or the quality of manufacturing and service is going down?
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MacBook Pro quality
- Thread starter sivab
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Just search butterfly keyboard, sadly imo, Apple has cut a lot of corners and this is impacting overall quality imo.
Howdy sivab,
That is the problem with mass-produced products. There are always a few that end up having problems. This advice won't do you any good now, but your example is why I always purchase AppleCare(+) for my Apple products. I just count that as part of the purchase price and budget for it. I have now owned 4 different Apple Laptops, 1 iMac, 2 iPods, 3 iPod Touches, 4 iPads, and (wow) 7 iPhones, and have only had issues with one device. I had an iPod hard drive fail, many years outside of warranty/AppleCare, and just had to replace it. From my experience, the quality of Apple products is top-notch (knock on wood). Sorry :-(
Rich S.
That is the problem with mass-produced products. There are always a few that end up having problems. This advice won't do you any good now, but your example is why I always purchase AppleCare(+) for my Apple products. I just count that as part of the purchase price and budget for it. I have now owned 4 different Apple Laptops, 1 iMac, 2 iPods, 3 iPod Touches, 4 iPads, and (wow) 7 iPhones, and have only had issues with one device. I had an iPod hard drive fail, many years outside of warranty/AppleCare, and just had to replace it. From my experience, the quality of Apple products is top-notch (knock on wood). Sorry :-(
Rich S.
Was it worth buying Apple care for all those devices when you only had a failed HDD? You could have replaced it outright and the repair would have been so much cheaper than buying AppleCare on all the devices you listed.
In that case, no as AppleCare was expired when the hard drive failed. Not to mention, the hard drives used by the original iPods were not exactly easy to source back then, and the iPod was not meant to be opened by a consumer. For me AppleCare is worth it, the same way insurance is worth it. If a problem occurs while covered, no out of pocket costs. As demonstrated by the example by the OP, even relatively minor repairs on Apple products are expensive, as the are not built to be repaired (hence the low scores on iFix It). If you are comfortable with potentially large out-of-pocket costs for a device, then AppleCare may not be worth it to you. Personally, I appreciate the added security it provides.
Rich S.
Their quality is a lot better than it used to be unless you're looking with rose colored glasses. Keyboard aside. The difference is now they're basically unrepairable so you better get the warranty.
I guess hindsight is 20/20. My personal preference is to buy AppleCare+ for the higher-priced products (Mac, iPhone, etc.). Not so important for something like iPod Shuffle. The latter could be replaced easily, while replacing a MacBook Pro logic board could cost me more than two grand.
I’ve found purchasing from Costco is a good middle ground. You get an additional year of warranty from them at no cost.