On Jan 16, 2008, at 6:28 PM, Bruce B. wrote: I expect it will sell well to the intended market, that being executives who travel a lot. The flaw I see is that you cannot change the battery. Won’t this be a deal breaker for many?
where oh where do they get their information? the battery can be replaced at any apple store while you wait. it is the same battery that is in the macbook pro. no messing with the hard drive – deal breaker? not. – roger
On 1/16/08, Bruce B.
bruce, my sources are a few of the people i know who are also writers of the mac – andy ihnatko, for one –
http://www.macobserver.com/columns/ihnatko/2008/01/16.1.shtml “It’ll be replaced at the Apple Store. It’ll cost the same as a new MacBook battery ($129) and there’ll be no charge for the installation.” this was from an apple briefing he was reporting on. also, charles moore is saying the same thing, as well as a couple of other, less well known friends. – roger
Apple has posted a page describing the out-of-warranty program, and noting the following: MacBook Air battery replacement costs $130, takes 5 days As previously noted, MacBook Air is the first Mac portable in recent history to lack a user-replaceable battery. Replacing the battery outside of warranty requires service from Apple Apple has posted a page describing the out-of-warranty program, and noting the following: Data preservation “Don’t rely on it being preserved. Many repairs require Apple to replace or reformat the hard disk, which will result in the loss of your data.” How long service takes “The repair process normally takes 5 business days.” – rich
well maybe we are cross-talking here. your citation is for out-of-waranty replacement. if my experience with apple waranty fixes are any indication, where i live, over 100 miles from any apple store, they will bring one to my home and fix it on my desk or table. who would ever buy any mac product without the extended waranty? (sorry, rich, if i called you bruce – or is there more than one thread on this?) – roger
No prob….I’m sure you’d have to ship it somewhere…Like you, no Apple STore near me.. – Tom
in that case, i’d drive to the nearest store and wait for it, politely explaining how far i had to drive… (grin) – roger
On 17/01/2008, at 10:53 AM, Roger Born wrote: >who would ever buy any mac product without the extended waranty? er … me. Â I think I’ve gained in the long run because anything that has gone wrong (rare) has occurred during the standard warranty period, or YEARS later (I keep my Macs at least 5 years). – Carmel
I’d always recommend it on the laptops – too much to wear out over a three year period. On the MacBook Air, doubly so – so much innovation in a product could lead to teething problems in the first six months, and Applecare often leads to a better service than those with the standard warranty. I went through that with the 1st gen MacBook Pro and Macbooks. On the other machines, yes, I see your point, Carmel. A tougher call. – David.
I have never had an extended warranty. Have used Macs since 1984. Never had any kind of failure that would require a component to be replaced, with the exception of the first MacBook I had back in ’06 for just a few weeks. That one had a bum trackpad button and Small Dog just gave me a new one. – John
wowser! my first mac was a mac plus for 2 grand. they didn’t have extended warranties back then, but they fixed it when the monitor went out – twice, after two years of owning it. my next one was a mac II and it was fixed for a bad motherboard and then bad simms by the guy i bought it from – an educational vendor whom i also worked for. by then I had a 6085 and an extended warranty, which i used for just about every part in that thing. after that, we had a bondi-blue imac and our extended warranty went unused. then i went through a series of used macs, bought from a thrift store at $5 bucks a pop. i had enough of them so that i could always put one back together. when we bought our new imac in 2003, the extended warranty caused them to come to my house out in the high desert to bring first a new power supply and then a new mother board – all gratis. my wife, all during this time, was always on a pc. it did not matter if she had a warranty or not, they were never fixed right, and usually ended up discarded. i guess i know where my comment came from, about never being without an extended warranty, huh? Â =) – roger
I have never bought a Mac without a warranty. Â Seems to me like it’s the only warranty worth buying. Never used a Mac warranty, but still would not buy one without it. – beth
Thanks for the link, Roger. Â One thing though – Tom is spelled Tom, not Bruce. Â =-D – I read through Andy’s (he rocks) Q&A & didn’t see anything that said “the battery can be replaced at any apple store while you wait”. Â I’m hoping the thing is as ingenious to get into as the aluminum iMac (you pull off the magnetically held glass with suction cups), and not as bad as an iPod nano. Â It’s nice that they will let the retail stores open the thing, so I’m sure they will let us as well. I doubt it will be a 5 minute job, though. Â I expect we will have the service manual shortly after it ships in 2 weeks.
The thing I notice yet again is the discrepancy on price: The program cost (as published at http://www.apple.com/support/macbookair/service/battery/) is based on your region:
United States = $129
Canada = CA$159
Europe = €139 inc. VAT
United Kingdom = £99 inc. VAT
Japan = ¥15,800
Asia Pacific = AU$199 inc. taxes
so it is £99 inc. VAT, would be about £84.25 without UK tax (17,5%) that’s US$165.26 /and/ €139 inc. VAT, would be about € 116.80 without German tax (19%), that’s US$ 172.68. So users in the UK have to pay a 28% Apple premium, and users in Europe (Germany as an example) would pay a 33.86% premium. Let’s ignore that the pricing structure for the Mac Book Air is similarly mislead, the guys at Apple start to make a mistake, when they try to fool their consumers like that. And please, let’s not start the discussion about higher import tariffs and higher cost of delivery, when it comes to an item like a battery it is a non-starting-discussion. It is Apple making an additional profit off their customers with something like a battery replacement, that they have, on purpose, created as a 5 day service case. – Claus
And the Australian price, without taxes, equates to about US$161.00 – Carmel
– TO BE CONTINUED –
.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.