MacBook Air dent

woodmeister50 wrote:

It depends. If you have purchased AppleCare+, accidental damage is covered and repair will be charged a nominal fee of $99 USD. If you don't, you will pay full price of the repair which would be parts and labor.

The $99 US is for replacement of the Display Assembly. I believe it costs $299 US to replace anything else such as the Top Case Assembly which is damaged. If both the Display and the Top Case Assembly are replaced, the cost would be a $398 US ($99 Display + $299 Top Case Assembly). Very hard to say if Apple would insist on replacing both parts or just the one.

From the photo it looks like only the one part would need to be replaced since the damage to the other one is cosmetic.

With that said, if you do not have any operational effects or a cracked screen from this incident, I would just keep using it.

If the damage prevents the Display lid from fully closing, it may make the Display more susceptible to being cracked while being handled (even in a bag). The other possibility is the laptop may not register the Display being closed for activating sleep (or it may even cause the laptop to wake up since the sleep sensor may not register the Display as being closed).

On our organization's laptops, I usually just gently file the damaged areas so they are a bit smoother so no one gets cut and it won't catch on anything like fabric. I have even filed down the raised area on top of the palmrest corner to allow the Display to fully close. Keep in mind that filing the metal will leave a bright spot even with this lighter silver style case. I just use a very small narrow width fine grade file so I can control how much gets filed off.