My experience with Apple Care

Well, after almost 2 years and 96 cycles, my battery health was down to 66%.

Somewhat frustrated, especially since my wife's Dell 1520 is holding very well in comparison, I called Apple Care support. After less than 10 seconds on the line the technician answered and walked me through some steps and confirmed the battery was no good and told me it was going to be replaced under warranty (I bought Apple Care). Total time on the phone: 9 minutes.

A Genius appointment and 3 hours later I walked out of the local Apple Store with a brand new battery installed (after being lectured by the Genius about having to use the battery more... =P ).

Anyway, it surely was a very rewarding experience! Everybody was really professional and willing to help. The money spent was definitely worth it

Btw, I was almost sure I would be told "sorry, buy a new one" since it was my understanding that the battery warranty was for just 1 year, but was gladly surprised to hear otherwise.

 

Yeah, Apple Care is just the best from my past experience with it. It's something that I'd buy every time I get a Mac, only I never buy it directly from Apple; it's a lot cheaper elsewhere.

 

Have to agree on the quality of Apple Care, especially after remembering when I had a Dell before the Mac and had to call their tech support. That (the Dell tech support) was a nightmare! Apple Care did the same for me with the battery, a new one and a smile with the explanation about using the battery for better life. Absolutely worth the money as far as I'm concerned.

 

That's so assuring as I am just migrating. So do you think its really worth going on for AppleCare?

 

Definitely!

As others have said, it's cheaper to buy it from somewhere else than Apple.

If you are a college student, you should be able to get it with a good discount from your college IT store.

Otherwise, I used to see plenty on eBay too (just be careful).

Btw, Apple Care can be bought up to one year after purchasing the hardware.

 

I paid full price for mine, but got my wife's on eBay. As domyalex says, beware and use all the cautions before getting it there.

 

Great tech support is expected for paying a premium price. Pretty good deal if you can't fix the laptop yourself when your computer breaks down.

 

Thanks for the feedback and hopefully I am not deviating the original OPs question, but how ebay folks can sell it for such a low price, assuming they are selling for profit how do they get it for such a cheap from apple in the first place

 

either they are buying in bulk or they are buying from the student store.

 

I sent a MBP in from work for some warranty repair (4 keys were not working on it). I also mentioned that the battery didnt seem to hold a charge for long (playing dumb). I'd already checked the battery health, and it was shot - 522 load cycles, and would hold about 44% of its original capacity. They ended up replacing the keyboard and flex cable, the battery, the top case, and the SuperDrive. Machine came back flawless. Apple's warranty repair services have always been top notch with us

 

that's why we pay a premium price for a premium service!

 

This got me thinking... how long does it take now to replace the battery on the new MBP models (mine is a 2007)? Can it be done at the Apple Store or do you need to send it...?

 

Thats how it should be for a 350 dollar warranty and for the price premium we pay for the Mac (YES we do pay a premium regardless of what some try to prove otherwise!). It's worth it the way we get treated with these laptops...I say money well spent.

 

I also had a great experience with apple care. That's why I bought a Mac, and I'm glad I did! And I have Dell to thank for it!

 

While overall I agree, there are some great horror stories about apple care support on macrumor forums...After going through them at one point I was wondering if I did a right thing by switching to mac or not

 

This makes me feel better about buying a mac if I ever do.
It'd be a pure luxury buy as a similar computer can be had for at least 2/3rd the price.

 

don't worry, apples retain their resale values. i've seen first gens macbook pro going for £600ish on ebay.

 

That's amazing! Mac's are like the Honda's of the car world. They are a good quality product and retain their value over a long period of time.

 

Wow that's a great consumer experience. I didn't get apple care with my macbook pro, but if that's the level of service, I will for my next mac! My battery holds about 20 seconds of charge nowadays.

 

i will also get apple care before my one year warranty expires. on ebay of course

 

I am also planning to get but wish apple was adding 3 yr on top of first default warantee

 

how did you know that your battery is not good? I check my battery health and it is said good.
Can you give me some detailed instruction on how to check the battery?
Thanks.

Ps: I really like apple care and it is totally worth the money

 

You can probably know the next time your on battery and your battery dies in 1 hour.

 

ROFL! I want to shoot myself every time people got "what if the battery suddenly dies?" when they want to complain about 17" mbp

 

Wow everyone likes Apple Care lol. I guess if you didn't I wouldn't have a job.

 

Talking about apple care I called apple care for my loose battery cover to see if they could mail me a replacement cover. The specialist I talked to had no clue on the design of the unibody design. He asked me if I took my batter cover out with a coin or the double latch thing parallel from each other. I told him it only had a single latch and was above the batter cover and then he told me that he had never heard of something like that..... In the end it seemed that it would be faster taking it to an apple store and have a genius replace it.

 

He sounded like a New agent at Apple Care.

 

Using iStat gadget; Also, if you go to the System Manager <sp?>, there's an entry for the battery, which lists the current mAh. New is 5000ish, mine was something like 3400 (don't remember the exact numbers).

Also Coconut Battery, gives the mAh as well as the Health %.

Hope it helps!