Whenever you purchase Apple hardware, it comes standard with a year of service and support. You are also presented the option of extending that service to two or three years with the purchase of AppleCare. When it comes to places like Best Buy, I usually don’t buy their extended warranties because to me, it just seems like another way for them to scam you for money. With my first laptop, I stayed away from purchasing AppleCare because one, I was a broke college student, and two, I thought it was a way for them to squeeze more money out of me.

With my current 15″ MacBook Pro, since my work was paying for half, I went ahead and purchased the AppleCare for it. In retrospect, it was the greatest accessory I bought for my computer. It has saved me on three occasions. Just a little over a year after I first bought my laptop, it suffered from the nVidia video card problem. Had I not bought AppleCare, I would’ve had to pay for the repairs since it occurred after the one year window of the original purchase. That repair paid for the AppleCare by itself. Replacing the entire motherboard easily would’ve cost more than the $350 price of AppleCare. I also brought in my laptop to have the optical drive replaced when it would stop reading CDs and DVDs.

What made me a lifetime advocate of purchasing AppleCare happened earlier this week when my Time Capsule unexpectedly died. I brought it in to the Apple Store expecting that I would have to purchase a new one since the existing warranty was expired. Once he verified the unit had failed, he started looking up my account info. Instead of having to purchase a new Time Capsule, he said since I had purchased AppleCare for my MacBook Pro the Time Capsule was covered under it as well because it was purchased within that 3 year window of coverage. It’s rare that a corporation will go out of its way to do something for the customer. They could have easily made me purchase a new Time Capsule but instead had me leaving as a happy customer. Whenever I plan to buy another piece of Apple hardware, especially a laptop or desktop, I will definitely be adding AppleCare to my purchase.