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brand new macbook falls, dents easily, survives fall

S

subq

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 18, 2008
70
0
made a costly mistake today, set my macbook on the dresser on some clothes and walked away a sec (it was in sleep mode), next thing I know the dog comes by grabs the clothes and runs, this consequently brings the laptop tumbling down to the floor

my heart sank because I knew I just saw $1600 go up in smoke, kind of a small scale of what is happening to people's 401ks

I walk over and see that my glasses (which were sitting on top of the macbook) were broken on the floor right next to the macbook (they weren't cheap either). I slowly pic up the macbook to inspect it and notice 3 huge dents on the top, apparently it fell on the lenses of my glasses, which happened to break

So I open it up thinking oh well nothing I can do about it now, and the thing lights up...

I'm pretty happy it still boots and works, not too happy about the cosmetic damage after having it only 2 days, but oh well, it's just a tool.

Also, it jarred the battery cover so now it is loose like the problem many people are reporting (I hadn't even opened yet).

Moral of the story, be careful with your macbook!
 
owner132 said:
I still have the best BlackBook money can buy, I was going to upgrade but then thought, this thing works just fine. I love this thing, plus it is really pretty. Who needs a backlit keyboard, the screen illuminates just fine. :D
Click to expand...

And this has what to do with the OP?

OP, if it's just the lid that's dented, Apple might be able to replace it.
 
mcdj said:
OP, if it's just the lid that's dented, Apple might be able to replace it.
Click to expand...

yes, only the lid, picture a pair of glasses sitting on top of a closed macbook, sitting on a piece of clothing, someone yanks the clothing and the macbook falls off (flipping) and landing flat right on the glasses...that's what happened

glasses put dents in the lid and broke

I thought the new uni-body construction made it very difficult to just replace individual parts?

So far functioning perfectly fine, which is great. I thought for sure I had just lost $1600 in a split second.
 
Hmmm....now I'm wondering just how easy it is to dent these things. I was planning on stuffing my aluminum macbook into my backpack and carrying it around campus, but now I'm kind of afraid to put it in there. lol
:confused:
 
The unibody refers to the body, not the lid. Notice they didn't call it uni-lid construction. ;) The body was carved with water jets from a solid block of aluminum, so they say. The lid on the other hand, is just a screen with an aluminum shell backing, not unlike previous designs. Regardless, is is not permanently attached to the body, thus should be easily replaceable.

The only problem I forsee with getting it repaired is waiting for the parts to become stocked and available. From what I've seen, non-retail parts are usually only available after the initial orders are fufilled by the factories. It could be a month or two.

det2004 said:
Hmmm....now I'm wondering just how easy it is to dent these things. I was planning on stuffing my aluminum macbook into my backpack and carrying it around campus, but now I'm kind of afraid to put it in there. lol
:confused:
Click to expand...

If you push gently down on the Apple logo with the lid closed, you will see it has considerable flex. I would hesitate to put it in a book bag without some sort of rigid case around it. My old 12" Powerbook by comparison was pretty solid. I kept it in a soft leather sleeve, and even rested my Canon 5D on top of it on a shelf. I will not be doing that with the new MB.
 
I was wondering if I was the first one to drop and damage a new macbook.

I will upload some pics tomorrow from my lame iphone camera (so quality won't be great) ;)
 
mcdj said:
And this has what to do with the OP?

OP, if it's just the lid that's dented, Apple might be able to replace it.
Click to expand...

He is saying that things don't have to be perfect nor the latest to still be a good computer. Hence, in line with OP
 
det2004 said:
Hmmm....now I'm wondering just how easy it is to dent these things. I was planning on stuffing my aluminum macbook into my backpack and carrying it around campus, but now I'm kind of afraid to put it in there. lol
:confused:
Click to expand...

Aluminum does dent and scratch easily, which is what happened to my PB. I've ordered a clear skin for my MB, and I'm planning to buy a sleeve as well, even though I'll be carrying it in a separate bag.

To the OP: Sorry about your mishap. How's the dog doing?
 
owner132 said:
You're lucky man. I still have the best BlackBook money can buy, I was going to upgrade but then thought, this thing works just fine. I love this thing, plus it is really pretty. Who needs a backlit keyboard, the screen illuminates just fine. :D
Click to expand...

I agree with mcdj. What does this have to do with this thread? I wish all of these BlackBook owners and firewire nit-pickers would take it outside and quit clogging up these forums with so much noise.

Start your own thread owner132! :mad:

Bryan
 
Bryan Bowler said:
I agree with mcdj. What does this have to do with this thread? I wish all of these BlackBook owners and firewire nit-pickers would take it outside and quit clogging up these forums with so much noise.

Start your own thread owner132! :mad:

Bryan
Click to expand...

Get a grip. If you don't like others opinion then move on to the other post or use the ignore feature. It would take you less time than to make a post like you did. Many might not want to hear your noise either.
 
Aluminium sure is pretty but I have to be so careful with my MBP cause as you found out, it dings real easy.

I've owned several plastic books, 12 and 14 inch iBooks and a BlackBook and while I drooled over Aluminium PowerBooks for ages before I had one, I now wish they would bring out a 17" BlackBook Pro.

You could literally throw the iBooks around, I accidentally dropped one iBook 12" several times from table or chair height onto a wooden floor and the thing is now 6 years old and still running.

I would be very, very grateful you only dinged the lid, it could have been much worse.

Good luck with it, it should be an easy, low cost repair once the parts become available. You may even pick up a second hand one cheap from someone who has borked their LCD panel.
 
hogfaninga said:
Get a grip. If you don't like others opinion then move on to the other post or use the ignore feature. It would take you less time than to make a post like you did. Many might not want to hear your noise either.
Click to expand...

The point I'm trying to make is people are coming into threads and posting things that are completely off-topic. It's against forum rules for a reason -- off-topic posting degrades the quality of these forums.

The original poster started this thread to share the experience of his new MacBook falling and what resulted. What in the world does the second post in this thread have to do with that?
 
sorry for the bad quality, the dings are actually kind of hard to see in the pictures

but hey I can't help how poorly the iphone camera performs (especially in low light)
 

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