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by slantyyz 2931 days ago
Yeah, but once your computer is out of warranty, you'll definitely appreciate the ability to replace parts.

I spilled soda pop on my 2008 Macbook's keyboard and fried it. Fortunately, the computer still worked (I ended up carrying a USB keyboard in my bag as I was consulting on site, which was awkward, but at least I could do that without being stuck without a computer for a few days). I ordered a second hand replacement from OWC, and after watching a video, I had the keyboard replaced in less than an hour.
1 comments
naravara 2931 days ago
>Yeah, but once your computer is out of warranty, you'll definitely appreciate the ability to replace parts.

On a laptop I don't really think so. An extended warranty runs about 3 years and most Macs I've had have lasted about 5. At that point I would just rather get a new computer anyway than bother sprucing up an old one.

I did have one computer fry in about 3 years because of a logic board issue, which pissed me off royally. But in the grand scheme of things, the money I would have saved by having a user replaceable GPU vs. just upgrading the thing 2 years before I was ready to doesn't amount to very much. If I was very money constrained it would definitely be more of an issue, but that's never really been Apple's target market.

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ben_w 2931 days ago
> An extended warranty runs about 3 years and most Macs I've had have lasted about 5. At that point I would just rather get a new computer anyway than bother sprucing up an old one.

Isn’t the point here that it’s no longer so good to replace a 5-year-old Mac?

My MacBook Air is about 5 years old now, and yes, the USB ports and some keys on the keyboard are becoming unreliable, and the power cable has frayed despite a protector, but none of the current models are tempting enough to make me want to upgrade the way I used to.

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slantyyz 2931 days ago
>> On a laptop I don't really think so. An extended warranty runs about 3 years and most Macs I've had have lasted about 5. At that point I would just rather get a new computer anyway than bother sprucing up an old one.

That depends on whether you got a laptop with a real processor or a low power processor. A 2011 15" MBP with a quad core i7 holds up pretty well even today in terms of CPU performance.

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