Ableton Forum

I'm trying to find out what's the Apple behavior in EU and the rest of the world... it seems the two year warranty provided in EU by law isn't respected in the same way across countries. It's also a way to understand how many of you
did buy Applecare or took the risk.

- Best
- Pasha

I'm actually waiting for my delivery by UPS today (I live in the EU).
My MB PRo has started making some wierd noises at times when I adjust the LCD backlight - and I _really_ don't want any mishaps (I'm at the end of my 1 year warranty).

Is it worth it?

I found a store (in Belgium) that offers a better deal.
I get 2 years warranty from the store on any products I buy. The prices are the same as the apple store. And if something needs fixing, they can fix it at the store.

If i took Applecare, I could extend the warranty to 5 years.
But i'm cool with the 2 years. Still gives me time to decide wether i'm going to take applecare or replace it with a quad 15ghz laptop in 2010

hoffman2k wrote:I found a store (in Belgium) that offers a better deal.
I get 2 years warranty from the store on any products I buy. The prices are the same as the apple store. And if something needs fixing, they can fix it at the store.

If i took Applecare, I could extend the warranty to 5 years.
But i'm cool with the 2 years. Still gives me time to decide wether i'm going to take applecare or replace it with a quad 15ghz laptop in 2010

Lucky you. It really seems laws are taken differently in EU countries...

- Best
- Pasha

I honestly think you should never buy any Apple products without Apple care. If anything ever goes wrong, they definitely hook yuou up if you have it. Without it, you'll be forced to pay a LOT more for repairs.

As a subtopic of this thread, I would like to add a question.
If AppleCare is not worth it, then people bet on reliability of Apple Brand or are pretty sure that nothing will happen in the future to their beloved piece of hardware. I have experience in the IT market and I can say that the Achille's heel of every Laptop is the drive. Currently they are certified for 10'000 hours work, so you can plan that they are going to fail after the third year of 8-10 hours daily work. This does not includes any bump, or inconvenience caused by the user itself. I always had Toshiba at work and shared with my colleagues that have Dells the same tremendous experience of a drive that makes that weird sound of death....but this happened once in 12 years (4 Laptops - I change it every three years, company policy). At home I had a Maxtor drive that failed after 8 months. Misfortune. A drive is not expensive: 99 Euros. Other components that might fail are Screen, DVD and Motherboard CPU.
DVD replacement as told me by an AppleStore guy is about 350 Euros including montage while Screen is about 800 Euros. The MainBoard and CPU could be replaced for 1000 Euros. Strangely this makes more then the price I paid for my MacBook....
I think that when treated well Laptops can really last three years and might need a new HDD occasionally. What I feel dangerous with my Macbook is that sometimes the fan jumps to 6200 RPM (its maximum velocity) and then when the offending software is killed (most of the times is a flash video inside safari) it takes 5 minutes to go down to around 3000 RPM even if the CPU temperature is around 65 Celsius. When rendering with Live I have reached 80 Celsius once for a very complex Project. My worse fear is that the fan could break. Intel Chips have a Thermal Junction that prevents the CPU to burn in excess of heat so I'm not worried about the CPU. Do you think it can be replaced manually in a DIY fashion? I do not have experience in Laptops repair but I was good in building PCs...what about the MacBook? What do you think about? I got 1 month to go before my 1st year warranty expires...

I think 300-400€ is well worth relieving the stress of being able to fix your most important tool if the need should ever arrise.

However only a few answered the poll didn't they?
I'm not able to attract consensus... I'll never be elected....WHO CARES?

Tarekith wrote:I honestly think you should never buy any Apple products without Apple care. If anything ever goes wrong, they definitely hook yuou up if you have it. Without it, you'll be forced to pay a LOT more for repairs.

Thanks Tarekith-the-Myth! (in a good sense of course!)

- Best
- Pasha

I've never purchased Apple Care before, but I bought a new Mac a couple of weeks ago and decided to go for it. Not sure why? I guess, as someone pointed out, it's a stress reliever since it's always a bit of a gamble without it.

polyslax wrote:I've never purchased Apple Care before, but I bought a new Mac a couple of weeks ago and decided to go for it. Not sure why? I guess, as someone pointed out, it's a stress reliever since it's always a bit of a gamble without it.

Yes but what makes me crazy is that in EU companies are obliged to deliver 2 years warranty and Apple pretends not to listen.
Of course I do agree with you... but this means that you have to pay a sort of Apple tax here. Applecare gives more. 3 years instead of two, but a big price.

- Best
- Pasha

Pasha wrote:

polyslax wrote:I've never purchased Apple Care before, but I bought a new Mac a couple of weeks ago and decided to go for it. Not sure why? I guess, as someone pointed out, it's a stress reliever since it's always a bit of a gamble without it.

Yes but what makes me crazy is that in EU companies are obliged to deliver 2 years warranty and Apple pretends not to listen.
Of course I do agree with you... but this means that you have to pay a sort of Apple tax here. Applecare gives more. 3 years instead of two, but a big price.

- Best
- Pasha

If i'm not mistaken. The stuff from Apple Europe gets sold from out of Ireland. Maybe thats how they get around offering only 1 year. Still, the offer i found shouldn't be that unique. Just find a store with a "2 year warranty" policy and order your computer there.
You're talking about a computer you already bought. So i'd say get applecare.
Better safe then sorry...

hoffman2k wrote:

Pasha wrote:

polyslax wrote:I've never purchased Apple Care before, but I bought a new Mac a couple of weeks ago and decided to go for it. Not sure why? I guess, as someone pointed out, it's a stress reliever since it's always a bit of a gamble without it.

Yes but what makes me crazy is that in EU companies are obliged to deliver 2 years warranty and Apple pretends not to listen.
Of course I do agree with you... but this means that you have to pay a sort of Apple tax here. Applecare gives more. 3 years instead of two, but a big price.

- Best
- Pasha

If i'm not mistaken. The stuff from Apple Europe gets sold from out of Ireland. Maybe thats how they get around offering only 1 year. Still, the offer i found shouldn't be that unique. Just find a store with a "2 year warranty" policy and order your computer there.
You're talking about a computer you already bought. So i'd say get applecare.
Better safe then sorry...

You couldn't have been much wiser!

- Best
- Pasha

I think I bought the applecare with my first laptop. When I bought the next one, the prices on laptops had come down significantly and I bought the smallest model, so I decided to "self insure" it and pass on the apple care last time.

So I sold that first one to a friend 2 years ago. Her husband went to watch a movie and whipped the screen back (really hard), breaking the powerbook's hinges right off! But it was more than 4 years old at that point so I guessed the applecare was already expired. She said it was like $100-$150 to repair it and how much is apple care? A hundred or two right (if it was within the time frame)?

But I wonder if it was within the applecare period, if they would have covered that type of abuse anyway?