Hi there,

I just want a quick piece of advice.

I have an Ibook G4 12" and I am wondering if it is worth buying AppleCare. I have education discount and I can get AppleCare from Apple website at AUD$ 335.50.

My laptop is still in warranty until 1st January 2007. Everything is working alright at the moment.

I did a search on ebay and there is one buyer who is selling his IBook G4 same specifications as mine at AUD$ 455.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Apple-iBook-l...QQcmdZViewItem

Now with the new MacBook or MacBook Pro which will be upgraded faster due to the intel chips, the IBook will depreciate faster....

I bring my laptop very rarely at uni and I do not use it much. I have an IMac G5 at home and I use it more often. I got the IBook as a gift.

So is it worth buying AppleCare taking into consideration that:
1. I can get a new basic MacBook price at edu price of AUD$ 1,500. Refurbished cheaper.
2. AppleCare is just an insurance. It is worth it only if something goes wrong. (touching wood ;p)
3. After 1 1/2 years when i finish uni, Ibook won't be worth selling even with AppleCare with it.
4. There are some programs that work only on Widows and I cannot run it on the Ibook. Sometimes I sleep in the labs to finish my assignmenets coz I won't be able to run the program at home...

Any advice/comments will be appreciated..

thx

I wouldn't bother if you take good care of your iBook. The 1.33Ghz 12" G4 is about a revision-f product... there really hasn't been any hardware issues whatsoever that I've heard of. Apple have refined the design over a number of years, so any weaknesses are well and truly fixed.

BTW, I've got one!

I have a 14inch and I'm, glad I have applecare, even though I take 1st Class protection and care on my iBook. Somehow I snapped my lid's latch. it would have costed $500 to fix but Applecare fixed it hew:

I don't think it's worth it - $335 is a lot spent on a machine that as you say will be worth little in ~ 18 months time (maybe even $335!, especially with Macbooks kicking around). And chances are, it nothing bad has happened with it now after say ~ 12 - 18 months of use, it's not going to fail now (apart from say a hard disk)

Also, have you tried various Virtual PC software for your iBook? Performance is crap but a lot of uni-specific software is not overly demanding, and could save you some sleep I happily ran SPSS 11 on a 266Mhz beige G3 running Virtual PC and Windows 98 back in my uni days - it ran slugglishly, but it worked fine.

Simo: fair enough Applecare has helped you out there, but is it really worth $335 for a new latch?

JB

Thx for ya replies guys!

Simo: I agree with you that AppleCare is worth it when something goes wrong. It is just like an insurance...

Byrd: The programs I use at uni are memory and performance demanding software like AutoCAD etc.. It will be to slow running on the IBook and virtual pc. Not enuff RAM.

As I said before, with the new intel Core DUO or Core DUO 2, it is not that worth I think... my 2 cents

I will take the weekend to decide whether to take Applecare or not.

Byrd, The latch was $25 bucks but it takes 3 - 4 hours to fix the stupid thing so 95% of it is labour charge.Anyway thats what the 'applecentre' said.