After a long time finally a new entry here.
Some time ago I owned a Powerbook 15″. This one had a problem with its second ram slot. It was not detected by the system. I called Apple Care but they were not willing to fix that. I really was upset about that because it was a known problem. Still the serial number of my Powerbook was not in the range Apple considered affected by that problem. >_< Now I have a MacBook Pro 17″ and some days ago my battery grew to its double size. Yes just like the one in this article here. I realized that only because my touch pad button was not clicking anymore and when I put my hand near the touch pad it triggered the button. Searching the web showed the article at Gizmodo above. I looked at the back of my laptop and was shocked.
Yesterday I called Equinux and asked what can be done. They checked my Serial number and said that I should bring my laptop over. So directly after work I went there and without much asking they took my battery and said that they will replace it. (That is something that I was not expecting after my experiances with my Powerbook.)
As I was already there I pointed out a little cosmetic problem I had. The band underneath the keyboard weared off and lost its matt look just some weeks after I got my Macbook. (I will post a picture of it later.) They also said with no hesitation that they will replace the whole top if I want to. The problem I have is that I need my laptop all the time for my work so I can not leave it even for a day for fixing. So they said that they will make a appointment with me so I can come over and the technician will replace it in one hour. That is what I call service.
Now they showed me that Apple can also have a very good support as long as you have a guarantee coverage on your hardware. I can only say that I am very happy that I bought Apple Care along with the MacBook. That will save me lots of money and annoyance in the future.
How about not buying hardware from a vendor where you already expect the hardware to break (otherwise, why would you buy the ‘extra’ care package)?
That is a good question. First of all I expect that hardware from any vendor will break, sooner or later. Computers are complicated and can break easily. Consider the exploding batteries in many different laptops in the last time. Not apple is to blame but the producer of the batteries who supplied a big percentage of laptops in the world.
But I can also reply with a question against that. Why do you buy a car that will break, otherwise why would you pay car insurance on it?
That is the same thing. A car just like a laptop can break and so it is good to have an extra care that will minimize the cost.
Other bigger companies like IBM or Dell are offering extended care packages. I also recommend to buy the packages if you want to buy their products.
On the other hand. Yes I was expecting the MacBook to break because it was one of the first intel Macbooks that went from the production line. That is normal that they are more vulnerable or prone to break then others that are long time in production. But the problems occurred in the first year for now so that would be covered also by the standard care package that comes with every mac.
Still I think that the extra care package may save me money in the future if something breaks. Still it is a gamble as with every insurance or care extension package.
Hi esden,
welcome to the club of broken laptop owners…
I don’t want to miss my IBM-ThinkPlus-Package not, too… RAM exchanged… Motherboard or whatever maybe soon, too… Hopefully your Hardware-Karma is better than mine 🙂
Have fun with your MacBook, greets,
owl
My experiences with equinux are a bit different.
The display of my 15″ ibook was broken due to a common problem, so they fixed it…. within one month.
I wrote them 4 or 5 emails, because they never told me when i should come and pick it up. They finaly replyed to the 6th one (this one i sent to every mail address i could find on their site) with one single sentence. Something like “it’s done.”.
2 Weeks later the computer stopped working completely. I had no time to drive 50 kilometers by that time so i ran out of warranty. I thought this is easy because i hadn’t used it very much. They must have made a mistake when they replaced the screen. The guy at the store told me there was NO way they will fix it for free. Well, i wanted my computer working again so i agreeed to a price estimation of about 100 Eur.
I got an email which read something like “it’ll cost 799 Eur”. The Computer was worth 800 Eur that time. So i denied to that by replying to that mail. Which ofcourse didnt get through. I asked them to sent it via mail to, but that was not possible for them due to no reason. I fetched it some time later my self.
They may fixed Esden’s macbook pro that fast because it is a really expensive one. He’s a big costumer In addition he had apple care. So they could sent a bill to Apple.