I'm coming up to one year of Mac, and NextByte's sent me a letter asking me to purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan.

What I want to know is - is it worth the $269? How much do you get for what is quite a large amount of money? And does it actually come in handy?

I need to be sure that I'll get my $269 worth.

hg2.

People may/will give you a variety of answers to this one but the most critical consideration when deciding if it is worth the money is what machine are you buying AppleCare for?. If it is a desktop (your dual G5 for example) and it has lasted this long without any trouble then it may not be so critical. If you have a laptop I would be inclined to say that many respected members here would say that it is virtually essential. Thought of another way, it does not have to be a very large problem to cost you $269 and if you are keeping the machine for another 2 years it could well be a wise investment.

Well I have an iBook G4. Thank God I brought applecare. I droped it, hugged it and relised I snaped my latch off :P. This is why the have magnets now...Anyway took it to apple centre Ivanhoe. the part cost $20 but takes 3 - 4 hours t fix it. Labour charge. it would have made it around $400 ~ to fix. And applecare allowed me to get it fixed Oh yes for FREE!! allthough it took me a while to get on the phone to AC in (India?) and get the apple care number for the part. But if I had a desktop I probably would not worry as much..Unless you had little kids who piff forks at their screens. My friend has 2 iMacs. Now both with cracked screens thanks to 2 forks used like darts...

Meh...My 2¢

You'll definitely get your worth if you either sell the machine later or something fails. The cost of replacement parts from Apple are extortionate and it could be argued that this is purposely to make Applecare good value. However, as long as you have Applecare, you definitely will be able to get the machine fixed, which is not always the case with a PC laptop.

What mac do you have? Your general contentment and and how long you intend to retain your mac for would be the deciding factor.

Im a little pissed that apple cant supply a 3 yeah applecare straight away. considering big vendors like asus, gigabyte, nvida, intel, amd have 3 years out of the box.

I guess it falls into the whole "apple becoming like MS debate".
I got it for my ibook none the less.

I wouldn't buy a mac now without it..the telephone support is worth it. You get a 'premium' support number which means you don't have to go through the Indian call centres and the endless e-mailed apple technical support articles.
With APP Whenever there has been a problem I can speak to a technician who is willing to work through the issues with me and suggest any number of fixes. Also if your mac bites the dust they'll fix it without too much trouble.
It's cheap insurance. And that's my 2c worth.
Woody.

I think itr's worth it if you want to on-sell the machine as people are reluctant to buy a slighty one year old computer with no warranty.

Also it's cheap insurance if something goes wrong.....having said that, I don't yet have applecare on my MBP

Bartron

Those companies only provide individual pieces of the pie. Combining them all into a system increases the chance that something will fail.

Complain about Apple all you like, but I don't see Dell, HP, Toshiba or Lenovo offering a 3-year warranty by default either.

What's the premium number?

Isn't it 133MAC for all of us?

I'll put it to you this way, the cost of applecare is half the price of a logic board (give or take) so if that item fails after the first 12 months you saved yourself some bucks right there!

I've always upgraded my machines every 2 years. I purchased APP so that I can sell it when I upgrade with 12 months warranty. Sounds good to me!

...and none of them have been portables and two of them are G5 Xserves. If you ever want a good cry, check out how much AppleCare costs for an Xserve! =)

I've never had to take advantage of the AppleCare even once, though I'll continue to buy it for future Macs. I consider it buying "peace of mind."

In the States, Apple Support is a bit different from the stories I've heard about it in Australia. When one has AppleCare, sometimes Apple will randomly phone the customer just to ask, "How's it going ? Is everything OK with your Mac ? Do you have any questions ?"

I once had an MDD in an Apple Store to have a superdrive replaced (before it was a year old.) I went on holiday just after taking the MDD into the shop. After a few days passed, I phoned Apple to find out the status on the repairs. I mentioned to the tech that I was calling from a hotel and he immediately offerred to phone me back (which he did.)

Important to note as well that if one buys a desktop machine and Apple monitor along with AppleCare, the AppleCare will cover the monitor as well.

Dave

i lost a hard drive 6 months after getting my new Powerbook. Swapping a harddrive in the PB isnt a quick job. you save heaps on labour, not to mention the parts.

That said I let my applecare expire. Now I dont have the piece of mind. I wonder if I can buy it after it has lapsed?