Surpised by Apple

On Monday evening, I sent my 3 year old PowerBook G4 in for repair under my Apple Care service plan. The display had a 3/4" wide area in the lower right of the screen that was slightly grayed out. I'd dropped the powerbook from about a foot onto the concrete a couple of times, so I thought they'd say this wasn't covered because of the visible dents in two corners.

I was pleased to see, via the on-line Repair Status system, that the repair was completed the next morning and the system was awaiting shipment. I received it on Wednesday morning at 10:15 AM, and quickly booted it up to see how the screen looked and confirm that my data survived the trip.

Because my battery is so dead, I usually receive a low battery warning shortly after booting up. To my surprise, this didn't happen. I turned it over and pressed the battery monitor switch. The LED's indicated a full charge. Weird. So I checked the estimated time remaining on the battery, 2:56. I was shocked. I even checked the paperwork and indeed it was true and not an error, they had thrown in a new battery. I never imagined they would do this. Batteries are not a covered repair.

Thank you Apple! Depending on how you look at it, they saved me $137 or extended the useful life of this little beauty.