Warranty for your products?

You already get a good 1 year warranty from Apple. Most likely if your iPad lasts a year without problems, it'll be solid for a while to come and any damage will be because you dropped it or something, which Applecare won't cover. So I wouldn't bother with Applecare myself. The good news is you have a year to decide on that (you can buy it any time the original warranty is in effect.) If you do get it, look for a deal online, don't get it straight from Apple.

Best Buy's plan looks really expensive ($169 for 2 years?) but it does cover accidents. Still, that doesn't sound like a great deal to me-- I mean, what would a repair cost, $200 for a broken screen (the most common problem?) If you think of it that way, even a $300 repair is worth the gamble since odds are low you'll need it... You're basically betting like 1/5 the value of the device that you're going to break it.

Also... In two years if nothing happens and the device continues to function, which for the vast majority people will be the case, you will more than likely want to upgrade anyway, and that extended warranty money could be better spent on the next one you buy.

Get more opinions of course, but that's how I see it. I'd get Applecare on a really expensive Apple system, especially if it was a newer model like the retina Macbooks, and I'd consider some sort of loss protection with an iphone 5 if it was reasonably priced (since leaving a phone on a table after a few drinks is a real possibility...!) so I'm not universally opposed to warranties.

 

Man...that's how much BB charges now? Last time I bought a warrantee from them it was for the PS2, amd it was like 30 bucks for 3 years, no questions asked.

Yeah, screw the BB warranties now. I think they make more profit off of those than nearly anything else.

 

I can tell you that the consumer advocates like Consumer Products, and those types of places always recommend NOT buying an extended warranty for the simple reason that they are profit makers for the company. By the time the warranty is up, the product won't be worth fixing. If you can get a great price on the warranty, or if you like to have technical support all the time, then Apple care is great - they take great care of you - I got it for my first Mac - and it's nice when I have questions. But in 3 years, they will have released 2 or 3 more versions, and your product will be worth squat. If you reasonable care of it, it will last for years. I have an iPod 160 Gb bought in 2007 - runs great - battery will die at some point, but it's still going strong. Electronics today will typically last a long time, people quit using them though, so battery dies, and it costs a lot to replace - a little care and feeding will save you lots of bucks.

 

I like applecare plus. For 2 years, I can do anything to it, drop it, throw it, have my dog eat it, have a shower with it, no problem, pay $50 more and get a new ipad. Actually I am hoping my new ipad breaks in 6 months, and they get forced to replace it with an ipad 4. That would be sweet!

 

I never buy warranties for anything it's not bitten me yet, the closest I came is I had an ereader almost a year old that just stopped working a few months ago and had no problem getting it switched to a brand new one.

Then again I'm in the UK were consumer laws are still mostly ok.

 

Part of warranty and consumer law in the UK actually states that you have the right to a refund or replacement if a product does not work for a "reasonable" amount of time, as much as would be expected from the product in question. It basically means that if your warranty is up but your dishwasher dies after 14 months, you can pull this out of the bag and still get it repaired as 14 months is definitely not considered reasonable. It's probably the least advertised, yet most useful consumer law we have regarding. I don't know the specifics in order to cite it to a rep, but I'm sure it's googleable.