AppleCare Protection Plan

Is it worthwhile buying AppleCare with a MacBook Pro? I shan't be going abroad and I can come to you wonderful people for help and advice. What will AppleCare give me?

It's basically a 2 year extended warranty and IMO worth it. Got a new optical drive under mine (those slot loaders can be flaky as heck) and being Apple, they tend to even replace non-warranty items like batteries (got that too).

I'm thinking of going for a 17" MacBook Pro with the 128GB SSD option. You can get 8GB memory for £32 so it doesn't make sense to pay Apple £160 for the upgrade from 4GB to 8GB. If the 128GB SSD isn't big enough, then I'll swap in a bigger SSD although I might go with Apple if it keeps me in warranty and their prices aren't too outrageous.

In reply to a post by micksharpe:

I'm thinking of going for a 17" MacBook Pro with the 128GB SSD option. You can get 8GB memory for £32 so it doesn't make sense to pay Apple £160 for the upgrade from 4GB to 8GB. If the 128GB SSD isn't big enough, then I'll swap in a bigger SSD although I might go with Apple if it keeps me in warranty and their prices aren't too outrageous.

I bought a 15" MBP last summer, with 4gb RAM and a 128gb SSD, and I got the Apple Care.

This Jan I bought a genuine apple 256gb SSD from a reseller as I ran out of space quick (pesky Photoshop!). Third party SSDs are significantly quicker; but I wasn't sure how AppleCare would work with that - and OS X Lion doesn't support TRIM on anything other than an Apple SSD (TRIM keeps performance high).

Nice machines

In reply to a post by jchamier:

This Jan I bought a genuine apple 256gb SSD from a reseller as I ran out of space quick

Yes, I'm wondering how quickly I'll fill up a 128GB disk. The trouble is, I'll be developing websites using a framework (Spree) that loads a large number of small files, so disk performance is very important, especially when running test suites. Maybe I'll go for the 7200rpm HDD and upgrade to SSD if I need to. The only other question is whether Apple will honour their warranty if I replace the disk drive.

Also, this Wikipedia article suggests that you can enable TRIM on Lion for third-party SSDs using a modified kernel extension.

Edited by micksharpe (Sun 19-Feb-12 16:01:51)

That is trickier - I don't think any manufacturer is obliged to cover 3rd party upgrades, except in parts (like RAM) that are designed to be user upgradable.

I know some models were/ are designed to have easily swappable disks but not something I have played with.

If this is a new machine with Thunderbolt, might be worth considering a Thunderbolt external HD.

I've solved , to my satisfaction , part of your problems

I have a 500GB external drive [ a WD Portable one ] on which is my Aperture Library and all Aperture work is done using that Ext Drive .

My MBP came with the original small amount of memory , but was very easily upgraded to the 8GB Max thanks to Crucial [ no I didn't do it - have hand problems , but a friend did it for me and even he commented how easy it was though you do have to be very careful with the minute screws as they are not all the same length !! ]

I'm not using a SSD .

Oh and I had a battery replacement under Apple care - the genius picked up there was a problem - I hadn't.

If you add in a SSD and then you get a fault with the machine you swap out the SSD and replace it with the original drive - if there is still a fault then you have a claim.

Also read up on the Other World Computing web site about swapping out drives and installing SSDs, they claim that their SSD drives do not need TRIM to keep them efficient.

Also

On the new MacBooks you have Thunderbolt - so get your extended disc space by connecting additional drives using the Thunderbolt device.

Well worth it. I have AppleCare on my MBA, MBP and a couple of iMacs. The MBA hinge failed at around 2.5 years and was replaced, as was the battery. The MBP battery was replaced at 1.5 years as it was not holding charge. Both iMacs have had HDDs replaced in their second and third years.

It's basically the same as any extended insurance. You are gambling on the product failing or not.

Agreed on all counts here. AppleCare was used on my first MBP and it was recommended by the good folks here. Thanks again!

The AC has been used enough to warrant the cost.) In fact, it was the xlent staff/support that prompted me to
finally buy one. Have never been happier (or more secure!).