In my experience, it's crazy to buy applecare until the end of your regular warranty. If Applecare covered everything, like a lot of other extended warranties do, then maybe, but recently I was walking down the steps from the train in NYC. There was a half step at the bottom that I missed, and which sent me sprawling to my knees, backpack hitting the ground beside me. My 10 month old powerbook G4 was in a padded case inside, and on first inspection when I got home looked fine, aside from one small dent in the corner, but when I opened it and powered it up, turns out the LCD was cracked and showed some very pretty but not very useful images over two thirds of the screen.
The next day at the big glass apple store I was told by the genius there (no really, that's what they call themselves!) that applecare doesn't cover accidents like that, and that it would cost me $1200 to repair it. Coincidentally, that is exactly how much I paid for the computer off the apple refurbished site.
At the time, I needed a computer ASAP, so I spent the money on a new Macbook instead. Later, I got a local Apple repair shop to put a used screen on it for $400... which means that the G4 works again, but I still got screwed because doing the non-warranty repair work on it means that if anything else happens to it, applecare won't cover it. This all despite that the original one year warranty doesn't even run out until the end of January.
Moral of the story: applecare sucks, and even if you do want it, don't buy it until the end of the standard one year. You never know what will happen before then.
Personally, if I buy another Mac laptop after this one, I'll get it from Best Buy or one of the other non-Apple retailers and try to buy an extended warranty through them. At least theirs usually cover accidents like that one, and often offer replacement computers while yours is getting fixed.
Stephen
