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AppleCare
- Thread starter grandM
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Ok... at the current conversion rates $104 Euro would be $143 USD which is similar to what the recent Amazon USA cost is for A C for the Mini. I think Apple Care is more important for portable devices than for a stationary desktop device like the Mini but I still try to take advantage of it for all of my Apple devices. I think it's a bargain for extending the hardware warranty and live phone support. Remember that you have up to one year to decide as long as you register A C for the device before one year has passed since your date of purchase. For example I added A C to my 2011 Mini weeks before it had been one year since the purchase date.
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Something else a lot of people are not aware of is that most major credit cards will double the manufacturers warranty on purchases made with their cards, in Apples case giving you 2 years coverage.
I use M/C and I'm covered.
I use M/C and I'm covered.
I bought Apple care once. Never used it. For a desktop I certainly don't see a need. Even for a laptop I question the need since you are far more likely to drop it then have a hard ware failure.
I look at it from a purely number perspective, if the Warranty is (for example) 20% of the overall cost, do I really think that if I buy 5 of something will one have a failure before it has used up its usefulness/warranty? Since 2009, I have 5 Macs that I have personally purchased and still in my possession (I've also purchased and sold 4 others, but no idea if they are still running) and none have gone bad (including my Mid-2009 Macbook Pro 13"). If I totaled up what I WOULD have spent in Applecare, it would have covered just about any one of the machines if they had failed (with the exception of my Early 2011 15" Macbook Pro since it had a lot of bells and whistles). Right now, I am ahead.
Remember you are only buying 2 more years of warranty. You already get 1.
Extended warranties are usually NOT recommend by most Consumer advocate groups because they know that the failure rate even in the extended warranty period is well below 10% and most extended warranties are anywhere from 10-30% of the overall cost.
A good example is car extended warranties. Not only do you shell out $1500+, but that expense usually gets rolled into your loan so you pay interest on TOP of the $1500 (which means you probably paid something like $2000 by the end of said loan). Those also only cover non-maintenance items (so brakes, batteries, oil changes, etc. are still on you to do) and non-accident related issues. What are the chances that you will have a $2000 catastrophic failure prior to say 75,000 or 100,000 miles (depending on package)? Sure you might have a water pump go out, or maybe a radiator leak, but those are sub $500 fixes. Worst case, maybe your compressor for your Air conditioning goes out, but again that's still sub-$1000.
I tend to buy it on portables and on desktops where I don't fancy having to replace a disk myself. Probably bought it on 5 or 6 devices, used it 3 times and I consider I've had my money's worth.
Last time I called on it was on an iMac that was nearing the 3 year mark and had a disk failure. I got a box to pack it in shipped by courier and another courier to collect it. The repair took a few days but I got a phone call from the tech who did the work explaining that he'd replaced the disk with a larger, faster one (the original model was no longer available) and he'd also replaced the screen because he'd spotted some screen burn starting to appear. I got it shipped back the day after the call in pristine condition together with a printed write-up of what had been done. I was very impressed.
It saved me a lot of messing around and there's no way I'd have attempted a screen swap myself.
Last time I called on it was on an iMac that was nearing the 3 year mark and had a disk failure. I got a box to pack it in shipped by courier and another courier to collect it. The repair took a few days but I got a phone call from the tech who did the work explaining that he'd replaced the disk with a larger, faster one (the original model was no longer available) and he'd also replaced the screen because he'd spotted some screen burn starting to appear. I got it shipped back the day after the call in pristine condition together with a printed write-up of what had been done. I was very impressed.
It saved me a lot of messing around and there's no way I'd have attempted a screen swap myself.
I've been buying electronic devices, including plenty of Apple products, for over 30 years. If a device fails, it usually does so during the standard warranty period. Of the scores (more likely hundreds) of electronic devices I've bought, I've only bought four or five extended warranties that the sales reps talked me into. The only time it might have paid off was for my 2008 MacBook Pro. I think I paid $250 for Apple Care. The battery stopped holding a charge during the first three years (which was my fault), so I got an $80 replacement battery for free. The motherboard went bad two weeks before Apple Care ran out, which I think was due to the faulty NVDIA graphics adapter, but I couldn't prove it. They charged the $310 flat repair fee, which they said would have been $700 without Apple Care, but I still don't understand why it wasn't covered for free.
Had I purchased extended warranties for every device for which I could have, I would have spent tens of thousands of extra dollars over the years. Aside from the MBP, I can't think of a single device that failed after the regular warranty period ended but before the extended warranty period would have ended. Electronic devices are very reliable, in my experience. They usually become obsolete before they fail. (Anyone want to buy a working IOMEGA Zip drive and Jazz drive?) The standard Apple warranty on my Mac mini ran out last month. If it fails within the next two years, I'll have to spend $670 on another refurb to replace it. Although it's more than what Apple Care would have cost me, it's far less than the combined cost of all the extended warranties I could have purchased but didn't -- because any one of those devices could have failed, right?
To me, insurance is worthwhile only if I couldn't absorb the financial hit of not having it (i.e., for healthcare, house, and car). It amuses me when a sales rep touts the rock-solid reliability of a product, and then tries to sell me an expensive extended warranty, just in case the product fails.
Had I purchased extended warranties for every device for which I could have, I would have spent tens of thousands of extra dollars over the years. Aside from the MBP, I can't think of a single device that failed after the regular warranty period ended but before the extended warranty period would have ended. Electronic devices are very reliable, in my experience. They usually become obsolete before they fail. (Anyone want to buy a working IOMEGA Zip drive and Jazz drive?) The standard Apple warranty on my Mac mini ran out last month. If it fails within the next two years, I'll have to spend $670 on another refurb to replace it. Although it's more than what Apple Care would have cost me, it's far less than the combined cost of all the extended warranties I could have purchased but didn't -- because any one of those devices could have failed, right?
To me, insurance is worthwhile only if I couldn't absorb the financial hit of not having it (i.e., for healthcare, house, and car). It amuses me when a sales rep touts the rock-solid reliability of a product, and then tries to sell me an expensive extended warranty, just in case the product fails.
You never know.
I did not have Apple Care on a 2010 iMac. Both the Seagate 1TB and the OD failed within three years. I got to fix those myself so I upgraded to a WD Caviar Black 2TB and a Blu-ray reader.
My Mac Pro had Apple Care. The HD 5870 GPU failed just before three years. The $180 (or so) policy got me a new $400 video card.
My late 2009 mini did not have Apple Care and despite having the RAM upgraded twice and at least three hard drive upgrades it still ran perfectly when I sold it in January 2014.
Needless to say my 2012 MBP and 2012 mini, both purchased within the last few months have Apple Care.
I did not have Apple Care on a 2010 iMac. Both the Seagate 1TB and the OD failed within three years. I got to fix those myself so I upgraded to a WD Caviar Black 2TB and a Blu-ray reader.
My Mac Pro had Apple Care. The HD 5870 GPU failed just before three years. The $180 (or so) policy got me a new $400 video card.
My late 2009 mini did not have Apple Care and despite having the RAM upgraded twice and at least three hard drive upgrades it still ran perfectly when I sold it in January 2014.
Needless to say my 2012 MBP and 2012 mini, both purchased within the last few months have Apple Care.
One thing I like about AppleCare is that it covers some Apple accessories like a Time Capsule you might have. I bought it for my MacBook years ago, and never had to do anything with that but when I had problems with the USB port on my Time Capsule having that umbrella AppleCare was nice and made the replacement process easier.
So if you have some investment in Apple products beyond the mac itself it can be nice. But if it will literally just be covering the mini, I don't find it as good of a deal for a desktop machine.
So if you have some investment in Apple products beyond the mac itself it can be nice. But if it will literally just be covering the mini, I don't find it as good of a deal for a desktop machine.
I bought Apple Care for my Mid 2010 Mini. The hard drive went out two weeks after the one year factory warranty was up. So for me, Apple Care was worth it. I think the 500 GB hard drive was made by Toshiba. I think I broke even on the deal. Was it worth it? I'm not sure. I haven't had anymore problems at all with it.