On Thu, 2004-05-06 at 12:18, Dick Anderson wrote: > I have an old iMac - from when they first came out, > My screen went blank, the thing turned off and wouldnt re-boot. But the age > of miracles is not yet past - my extended warranty had a month to run!
Lucky you. > It took ages to repair and finally came back with a new screen and new > analogue board - estimated cost would have been $900 + $600. > I'm horrified at this - have others had similar experience with this type > and cost of repair. > Both Apple and I would have been better off if the iMac had been dumped and > I'd been given an eMac instead! The way I see it, that'd only be true if those prices rely on Apple providing the parts to the dealer for near cost, and the dealer not making much on labour. I doubt this is the case - Apple is probably charging considerably more than cost for the parts, and the dealer would be justified in charging considerable labour - especially for working on something as painful as an iMac. As it is, I suspect Apple's cost on the repair would be a few hundred at most. OTOH, it _does_ cost Apple quite a bit to make all the extra parts in the first place, given that most Mac parts only work for one particular model or small set of models. They have to make extras they don't intend to sell, so that's a real cost. Even so, I think it very unlikely that the repair cost Apple even remotely close to the cost of a new eMac. It is not impossible, though, that they're trying to encourage people to replace older machines with low end new ones using repair cost as one incentive. I'm only idly speculating, of course. > My previous macs have all gone on for ever - this one had other minor > problems and all the expensive hardware - printer, scanner, had problems. I > thought the point of things being much more than those for PCs was that they > were Mac reliable. The hardware doesn't seem to be much better, especially with Apple's recent series of manufacturing problems. I'm one of those people who is (hopelessly) wishing for the day I can run OSX on x86 hardware. My G4s here have all been pretty reliable, but then so have all the sub-$700 PCs put in at roughly the same time. The eMac died recently (less than a year old) due to a power supply fault. Craig Ringer
