For most of the time I reject extended warranties. For most of my tech if I run into problems it will be within the warranty period. But something happened that made me reassess my dislike for extended warranties, especially for All in one units. My situation after the break.
Here was my situation. I purchased the 24 inch iMac. This one included a beefier video system, and a larger hard drive. I don’t know what it was, but for some reason Western digital Hard drives do not last more than 14 months for me. Before you say it must be me, all of my seagate drives are still running, as well. My fujitsu drive is past it’s second birthday, and I lug it around in my macBook Pro.
Well the drive in my iMac crapped out at the 14 month point 2 months past the free applecare warranty. I am tech savvy and have some of the tools needed, and so I decided to replace the hard drive in the iMac myself. Well 5 hours later, I had an iMac that worked, but with a smaller seagate drive. Then the machine started to go south quickly.
I leaned my lesson. The iMac computers are great, and fit nicely on my desk, but I recommend that you spend the money (about 10% of the price,) and extend the warranty. Two years will make sure that everything will last, and after about two years you might want to look into buying another computer, if you are like me.
Why don’t I say this about PCs? PCs have a very good 3rd part parts distribution network. the form factors are well known and you can get anything replaced in a PPc. You just have to have a set of tools and the desire to do it. Apple designs their parts now around a standard form factor, but around their own customized standard. You could replace memory in all models of Mac, and hard drives in the MacBook Pros, and Mac Pros, and even the Mac Mini. The iMac, however, is one model I do not recommend doing anything more than upgrading the memory, and apple is now offering memory upgrade from their online store that are quite reasonable.
Where you will take it in the shorts is in the silicon for apple products. I think if you make it past one year and the silicon is working, it will probably last considerably longer. So if you can’t or won’t buy an extended AppleCare warranty, keep your computer turned on 24/7 for a couple of weeks, or months. If nothing fails after that stress test, then you might not have any problems. Dodgy silicon is usually dodgy from the start, or will soon be dodgy after constant use.
My conclusion is that extended Applecare might be a good investment for the Apple iMac, but the other computers have the ability to be changed out for hard drives and memory by the users, and might not be worth the extended Applecare.
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