Save Money with replica Apple Hardware: the good and the bad.
Apple original Hardware is very pricy. There are some items which can be bought as replica and are (almost) the same as their original counterparts. But which items should be bought as rebuilt?Good idea: Replica Apple Power Adapters (for MacBook, MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad). Bad idea: Lithium-ion polymer battery packs.
We recently had bad experiences with non-Apple battery packs, so we can definitely not recommend getting them from another vendor. Good news: if your Battery is less than 300 cycles and lower than 80% of the battery health, they will replace it for you (if you have Apple Care or are within your 1 Year warranty). If not, stay tuned, we will post a guide on this very soon.
Apple replica/ rebuilt Hardware that actually makes sense to buy
1. Apple Magsafe Power Adapters (and G4/G3 Adapters as well)
The cheapest versions are EUR 27,98 for a AC Power Adapter für Apple MacBook Pro MagSafe 85W ( even cheaper in the USA: $25.56!
) and EUR 21,99 for a 60W Power adapter for Apple MacBook
( only $19.27 in the US!
)
2. Apple USB Power Adapters for iPhone and iPod
The Apple original USB Adapter sells for $29 on the Apple Store, while a Multicharger Set (Car, Wall and USB) sells for €4.50 in Europe and $5.47 in the USA
. Be careful! I selected items that we already ordered and tested before, there are "bad" replicas as well out there (see this example and read the comments on Amazon
).
I will post my experiences with Apple replicas here if I have any news. Currenty, we can NOT recommend the following list of items as replicas:
- Apple Replica Batteries. They mostly died on us too fast. (we will post a specific Apple Batteries Guide in some days)
- Apple Replica Keyboard (not tested) - is this really available somewhere? WTF is this windows key? Although the Macally USB Slim Keyboard - ICEKEY
has some good reviews, i like my keyboard to be an original. [UPDATE] the Macally Keyboard has severe driver issues. Not Recommended!
- Apple Mouse Replicas: we ended up going hi-tech with the Apple Magic Mouse
which is $67.99 - or just using the Logitech Value Optical Mouse
which is $4.99, but can not be really considered a "replica", since the Apple Magic Mouse has soo much more features (wireless, swipe, better optical resolution).
Related posts:
- Apple MacBook Pro Quad Core (early 2011) i7: fast powerhorse with design flaws and hardware issues
- Best Cases and Casemods for your Hackintosh
- hackintosh: XPC Bootloader Can Boot Mac OS X 10.7 Lion
- next 2 days: save 50% on tc electronic plugins
- Only in June: Native Instruments Kore, Komplete, Traktor, Audio DJ, etc. huge savings!
This post was written by nanofunk on March 21, 2011 and last edited on March 21, 2011
Post categories: apple, deals, gadgets, hackintosh, hardware, interfaces, osx
Permalink: http://nanofunk.net/save-money-with-replica-apple-hardware-the-good-and-the-bad/
nanofunk blog is run by nanofunk himself, audiores and contributions from dslr4video, 2009-2012+
Follow us on twitter @nanofunk, follow our feed and share some link love on Facebook.





