iPad Warranty - minor dent, no repair -- Buy a full cover asap
Get a full cover asap when you buy an iPad. In fact, iPads should NOT be sold without a full cover. From what I can see the magnetic covers do NOT protect you for warranty service. Without a full cover, if you get even a minor dent, APPLE will not do any warranty service on it. None.
In July 2010, the week after I received my iPad, I got a minor dent on the frame. The iPad slipped off my golf cart and brushed up agaisnt a metal grate before landing on the grass on the golf course. Since the dent occurred, it has been working fine for a year.
In May 2011, while doing a regular iPad software IOS upgrade, the upgrade hung and would not complete and then would not install. I talked with Apple, the person was very nice on the phone. I explained I had a minor dent. He said if minor send it in which I did. 5 weeks later it came back, with a "form letter". Nothing had been done, they said that they could not fix it, and they did not call to discuss before send it back. I have since been able to fix it myself BUT wasted 5 weeks with Apple. The problem on my iPad was a software issue not a hardware issue. Apple did not warranty center did not help.
It is my understanding that Apple will NOT under any circumstamces do ANY WARRANTY SERIVCE on an iPad, iPhone, iPod, etc with ANY PHYSICAL DAMAGE even if the problem is not related to physical external damge. If there is ANY damage they will just send it back to you UNLESS YOU want to PAY APPLE to repair your iPAD. From my persoanl experience, they will not even call you to discuss the option of pay for repair, it just comes back. Period.
The dent is negligible of the frame. As I mentioned, I dropped it on a golf course and it brushed up a steel reailing before landing on the grass.
So Get a full cover, get a full cover, get a full cover the day you buy it. From what I can see the magnetic cover does NOT protect the edges so it is kind of useless from a warranty perspective.
Has anyone had any better experience getting warranty repairs from Apple if they have a minor dent on their iPad?
Does anyone think that the magnetic cover is adequate to protect from minor dents to the cover?
iPad, iPod Touch, iMac 24, Other OS, 4 GBs memory, 500 GB hard drive, Parallels 5 (Win XP and Vista)