Comment by justinator
7 days ago
AppleCare is honestly a great deal, especially for laptops. M1 Macbook Pros from 2020 are humming along just fine for regular people who see no reason to upgrade.
The future is now, old man.
7 days ago
AppleCare is honestly a great deal, especially for laptops. M1 Macbook Pros from 2020 are humming along just fine for regular people who see no reason to upgrade.
The future is now, old man.
I just looked up Apple Care. Costs $449 AUD (~$300 USD) for 3 years of coverage on a MacBook Pro.
A quick search shows that it's ~$500-$600 to fix the screen if it does break; I didn't bother looking up the keyboard but I'd assume it's much, much less.
So basically, on the off chance that your MacBook does shit the bed in the most expensive way, you save ~$150 or so? But in the almost-certain case that your Macbook is fine, you're down $450?
That is not a great deal at all, haha!
>A quick search shows that it's ~$500-$600 to fix the screen if it does break; I didn't bother looking up the keyboard but I'd assume it's much, much less.
_The_ point of that the article you're commenting on, is that a keyboard replacement on a MacBook is very expensive. Why would you make that assumption?
The "most expensive way" to shit the bed is also not the peripherals of the computer dying, it's the logic board giving up the ghost.
I'm a repair tech - hence made some assumptions that the author did not make.
Have done riveted keyboards on non-Mac machines before and would be surprised if an independent shop charged more than about $150 USD for it. It's not that hard to do.
You're right about the logic board being an extremely expensive fix, but it's also significantly less common than something like a keyboard, USB port, speaker or screen.
This is also something extremely Australian-specific, but consumer guarantees would probably cover any logic board damage within the first 1-3 years anyway, regardless of AppleCare warranty.
What if your screen breaks or logic board? Top of the line MacBooks cost ~4-5k. I recently had to service a battery and they replaced a top case and a keyboard free of charge. I will continue paying for AppleCare as long as they will allow me
You’re underestimating the probability of multiple things needing attention over 5-7 years.
That is baked into the price of AppleCare just like any insurance premium.
I definitely think coverage should be free for 2 years though.
Bought AppleCare for my AirPods. Never again.
AppleCare is leaps and bounds better than any other insurance you can buy for mobile or laptops.
For accessories I don’t see the point, those are effectively disposable wear items.
Ironically a large part of deciding to migrate to an iPhone from android was final frustrations with even Google purchased devices under warranty coupled with hardware quality requiring repairs. My wife’s experience with AppleCare won me over.
If nothing else it’s first party insurance. I will never purchase device insurance offered via a third party ever again. Either its first party so I’m dealing with the place I bought it or nothing at all.
Insurance for things you can afford to replace never makes sense anyway. The expected cost of insurance will always exceed the expected cost of replacement in the long run.
Unless for some reason you know you will be breaking your device much more than the average person.
Insurance is for things that are unlikely to ever happen but would financially ruin you if they did.
10 replies →
> AppleCare is leaps and bounds better than any other insurance you can buy for mobile or laptops.
Which doesn’t tell you a lot because they are pretty bad, too. Being better doesn’t mean it’s a good offer.
AppleCare is only worth it for expensive things with big repair costs; the "repair fee" for AirPods is such a high percentage of the replacement price that it just is not worth it.
I've never worried about AppleCare for my Apple products, until this year when I signed up for AppleCare One. I bought a few new devices, including the Studio Monitor XDR. For the XDR alone it's worth it, since replacing the screen is a multi-$1k repair.
I had AppleCare when my keyboard failed. They blamed it on me because of an dent about 1mm wide I never noticed on the back corner.
So you just get screwed twice.