Square Trade or Apple Care?

topic.

what say you? I'm trying to decide which to buy. Square Trade is much less expensive and widely regarded. But I've never purchased their warranty before for an item, so I don't know much beyond that.

 

Not a huge fan of having to buy extended warranties (prefer standard 2-3yr models) but isn't the big argument behind AppleCare that you can go into a Apple Store and get it fixed?

 

I'd go with Applecare and purchase it via eBay to save a bundle personally.

I did that last year with a Macbook Pro 2.93ghz 17" and the savings are pretty substantial IMHO.

Plus 3yrs of Applecare means Apple at your call when needed.

My friend's Mac Pro just went on the fritz and after exhausting all means of keeping her home, he loaded her
up and took her to the Apple Store for a genius to take a look and try to work their magic.

I did the same thing for my 30" ACD. It was on the fritz, and I loaded it up and drove to the Apple Store
to have them keep it over night and run some tests.

 

The good thing about apple care is that you actually have a store to go in and tell them to fix it

 

if a store is close.. I have to drive 3 hours 1 way to get to an Apple Store.

 

The only other potential advantage to SquareTrade is that they offer an Accidental Damage protection, which is not part of the applecare coverage.

As I have thought about this, STrade is a more viable option if all you want is warranty protection, without the added benefits of technical support that come along with applecare. And the ADprotect issue. The decision becomes much more difficult (or not?) for iPhone and iPad coverage, since accidental damage is perhaps more relevant to those items.

 

Square trade looks like a good deal... I'm going to email them.. the only thing I found that looks BAD and really bad... is...

that there is a total load of crap... basically, if you have a $1199 13" MBP warranty and the motherboard dies, and they pay Apple $700 for a replacement motherboard... and 6 months later it dies again... they wont fix it, they'll just pay you $500 and say your warranty is over.

 

hmph. kinda rough, I agree. but what are the odds of that happening inside of 3 years?

I only ask because of all the computers I've owned, I've never had a mobo die. Maybe 15 computers. Even the mobo's that I fried CPUs on kept on tickin.

also keep in mind they offer accidental damage protection as well. and eBay sent me a 20% off coupon, making it $199.

 

say... you have $1200 coverage with accident damage coverage. In the second year something goes wrong and it costs them $500 to fix it. your coverage is then $700. You accidentally drop it a few months later... they will just pay you $700 and say bye... Thats not what I call "coverage" its like... partial coverage.

 

true.

that being said, if my machine was $2000...I'd think I would have to do some epic damage to it to use up $2000 worth of warranty. lol. in my case, anyway.

 

Wait you can BUY your Macbook Pro at Apple with the Student Discount and then BUY AppleCare on eBay for the laptop?!!?

 

Take a look at Play.com for AppleCare - I dont trust eBay as I have heard reports of people buying AppleCare from eBay, and after a few months it being cancelled by Apple for some reason or other.
Play.com has Applecare pretty cheap.

 

the warranty is through squaretrade, not an ebay seller. ebay has a system the automatically offers squaretrade to electronics buyers.

yes.

 

Another advantage of square trade is that it can be cashed out at any time so if you end up selling your laptop after 1 year you can still get back 66% of your premium.