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Considering buying MBP; potential issues?

S

surrealhope

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 26, 2008
14
0
Canada
Hi, before I start I must say I've been purely a "PC" user for years, often a DIY'er with ATX case-type parts and mods. But long story short, I'm underwhelmed by Vista. So please sympathize for this Mac newbie. :)

After numerous visits to the local Apple store, I got pretty impressed by the form factor of the 17" MBP, but then upon doing some casual homework on the internet, I found some possibility of alarming problems. Now obviously it's pretty hard to receive reactions from the Apple store folks without bias. So I turn to MacRumors.

I did some searching on the forum before this post, but can't come to a general conclusion about some considerable issues:

  1. Does the MagSafe melt/break easily? Some posts suggest the WiFi and MS cluttering heat up everything near the corner, eventually leading to the meltdown of the MagSafe connector parts, or at least that seems to be the consensus on Apple's own online store section.

  2. I've searched and read on the audio hiss/whine/pop/crack or even "R2D2" mass complaints. Now I already did my best to wear a portable cheap pair of earbuds (probably around 10-16ohms of impedance) to Apple store to plug into the test models on display, and did hear some form of static during a test run with iTunes. Unfortunately, the Apple store's ambient noise level was nothing like a home, office, or hotel. And to complicate the evaluation, I use a pair higher impedance headphones (40 ohms) at home, which is rumored to reduce the effects of the audio circuitry's flaws. It would have been pretty awkward for me to lug the home headphones to the Apple store. So can any MBP owner help verify this?

I plan to use the MBP for my audio mixing and sampling hobbies aside from daily tasks (and perhaps a few games via BootCamp.) Although absolutely amateur and unprofessional, such audio issues may be considerable for me. Also, I'm too impatient to send in and wait for a MBP/MagSafe charger and suffer tech downtime, let alone assuming the high price of the charger beyond warranty grounds.

Oh yeah, in case if you're wondering, I do plan to wait until WWDC passes, in the (imo not TOO likely) odds that MBP or MagSafe receives a significant update.

Thanks!
 
MBP is ok. but.... the LED displays what they have just suxs. :( You will get probably shadows/yellow display or if its not yellow at the bottom it will have backlight bleeding.
 
astrosyt said:
MBP is ok. but.... the LED displays what they have just suxs. :( You will get probably shadows/yellow display or if its not yellow at the bottom it will have backlight bleeding.
Click to expand...

I have a mbp, and i have no issues, exept the audio issue, but it isn't very irritating. I also don't have any problems with the display. I am not sure where you are getting these ideas from.
 
surrealhope if you get any of these issues have it replaced or repaired under warranty.

MacBook Pro issues can always be found on forums like this as users with issues are more vocal that users that are satisfied with their Macs. not every MacBook Pro has these issues and not every MacBook Pro is perfect.
 
I have a perfect 17" SR 2.4 MBP which I bought last September. IMO, MBPs are the least defective Macs after the MP.
 
i bought a macbook pro.
from online apple store. (dont do this)

i got, black dot problem on screen.
backlight black lines on the bottom of screen.
my touchpad is starting to warp.
and the four feet dont balance properly.

F!!!!!!!!!!


ig ot the latest penryn model 2.4ghz
 
Just to reassure you, I was a long term PC user as well, and recently had some screen issues with my new Macbook Pro. I took it into Apple and got a replacement machine. They want you to be happy and will do whatever it takes to get you that way. Once you experience the difference, there is no going back.
 
Long time PC user here myself.

Purchased a 2.4 Penryn MBP on the day they launched, other than some stability issues with the factory install of leopard. Ive had no huge issues mechanically or otherwise after i did a reinstall of leopard. (and it may have been my old PC habits that made me re-install, but it seemed to help)

Only minor complaint has been that when doing a battery recalibration and letting the battery run down and machine sleep for 5 hours... the menu bar in the finder doesn't redraw correctly without a relaunch of the finder once ac power is reapplied.
 
surrealhope said:
[*]Does the MagSafe melt/break easily? Some posts suggest the WiFi and MS cluttering heat up everything near the corner, eventually leading to the meltdown of the MagSafe connector parts, or at least that seems to be the consensus on Apple's own online store section.
Click to expand...
I've had five Mac notebooks [MBP/MB/MBP/MBA/MBP] since the MagSafe was introduced, and none of them had any MagSafe problems. I tote my MagSafe from home to work and back everyday, too, FWIW.
 
Thanks for the reassurances :)

It's going to be a different experience, as I'm used to assembling and swapping everything in and out of my non-OEM PCs. So I'm probably a bit paranoid over the idea of less mechanical freedom, in terms of warranty anyways.

I have external audio sound card/mixers/amps for home use, so I guess the audio annoyance is only a problem on the go. Now it's mostly counting down the days until WWDC ends, final reassurance on not missing any possible updates. MBP here I come.

Btw, is the genius bar worth an appointment if I'm a complete OS X newbie? :D I program in win32, but have scarcely touched any version of Mac OS in my life.
 
surrealhope said:
Btw, is the genius bar worth an appointment if I'm a complete OS X newbie? :D I program in win32, but have scarcely touched any version of Mac OS in my life.
Click to expand...
The Genius Bar is mostly fixing things that are broken vs. giving coaching on new systems.

Two things that you might get something out of:

Your local Apple store should do free workshops. They're usually an hour long and cover specific topics. There should be a "Getting Started" workshop. Find your store over at http://www.apple.com/retail to see their schedules.

Apple Stores also offer something called One to One training. In the US, it's $99/year, and allows you to meet with an Apple trainer (called a Creative) for an hour a week, for a year. You chose the topics you want to cover, and they'll move at your pace. http://www.apple.com/retail/onetoone/
 
I've read so many things about this computer, that I decided to not throw $2000 down the toilet. There's nothing Pro about this laptop.

After reading about the headphone jack, dead pixels, faulty motherboards, cooked video cards, heat issues, and several more, I'd rather buy a Dell than a MBP. That's a lot to say. Even $600 laptops don't come with this kind of issues. Think about it. I wouldn't pay $2000 to be on the telephone with Apple every month.
 
smudged said:
I've read so many things about this computer, that I decided to not throw $2000 down the toilet. There's nothing Pro about this laptop.

After reading about the headphone jack, dead pixels, faulty motherboards, cooked video cards, heat issues, and several more, I'd rather buy a Dell than a MBP. That's a lot to say. Even $600 laptops don't come with this kind of issues. Think about it. I wouldn't pay $2000 to be on the telephone with Apple every month.
Click to expand...

You're a fool if you think that. All of the issues you mentioned, can and will happen to all other manufactures. Just hit up the consumerist.com.

Hmm, Also, didn you already "throw $2000" down the toilet? I do remember a thread you started, checking to see if you got an OK laptop. Unless you decided to return it?

It's just that people with issues are more vocal than the millions of other happy customers just going along enjoying they're working notebook.

Anyways, I have a 2.4ghz Matte SR Macbook Pro with none of the above issues that I purchased last June, when the santa rosa platform was first introduced.
 
nateDEEZY said:
You're a fool if you think that. All of the issues you mentioned, can and will happen to all other manufactures. Just hit up the consumerist.com.

Hmm, Also, didn you already "throw $2000" down the toilet? I do remember a thread you started, checking to see if you got an OK laptop. Unless you decided to return it?

It's just that people with issues are more vocal than the millions of other happy customers just going along enjoying they're working notebook.

Anyways, I have a 2.4ghz Matte SR Macbook Pro with none of the above issues that I purchased last June, when the santa rosa platform was first introduced.
Click to expand...

Yes. I returned mine.

I won't argue about you calling me a fool. It's common in the actual context. You got crap, you want crap for other people. It's human nature, I understand.

I remember a $600 HP I had, it's a Pentium III. I NEVER called costumer support, NEVER had any motherboard or any serious hardware problem, now my dad has it and it's STILL working perfectly.

Oh, to the threadstarter: People here and people on the Apple forums are not that different.
 
I've had my baseline Early 2K8 MacBook Pro for over two weeks now and I have ZERO issues.
 
Indeed. People with problems are much more likely to post about their problem. If Apple laptops were as prone to problems as all the posts about them insinuate, then they'd never be selling any because they'd be complete crap. My 15" Penryn MBP has been just fine since the day I bought it at the Apple store (the day they came out). No audio or video issues have plagued me.
 
I've had my 2.5, 7200k for 2 months and no problems apart from the R2D2 effect with headphones. I would have noticed it even if I hadn't heard about it but it's very, very mild with the canal phones that I use and is the sole issue on an otherwise near-silent, stable, fast and reliable machine.

My big fear while awaiting delivery was that there'd be problems with the display but I was seemingly lucky as mine has no discernible problems with yellowing, gradients or dead/stuck pixels.

Best computer I've ever owned.
 
i've owned several apple laptops and the magsafe has never melted. I think this problem might be confined to earlier apple notebooks (CD MB/MBP)
 
smudged said:
Yes. I returned mine.

I won't argue about you calling me a fool. It's common in the actual context. You got crap, you want crap for other people. It's human nature, I understand.
Click to expand...
Actually, it's pretty easy to find a more appropriate context.

Let's take Consumer Reports, for example.

In the context of the 20,000 computer owners that they surveyed:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9937231-37.html?tag=nefd.only

When it comes to the number of problems that appear, Apple's record wasn't as stellar. The company was ranked last in the number of defects that cropped up in its notebooks between 2003 and 2007, although the margin of error in that survey meant that all the surveyed manufacturers essentially tied with defects found in between 20 percent and 23 percent of their notebooks.
Click to expand...

Readers assigned [Apple] a score of 83 for its notebook technical support, which translates to "very satisfied" on Consumer Reports' rating scale. <...> Lenovo and Dell ranked second and third, respectively, with scores of 66 and 60,
Click to expand...

So you may have a 3% higher change of getting an Apple notebook with a defect, should you have to use technical support, you're 15% more likely to walk away "very satisfied".

So there's some context. 3%.
 
I was a pc user (still am cause I'm IT) but I just bought my first mac in march (its in my sig) and it arrived perfect. I installed a ton of programs on there and its still just as fast as it was the first time I turned it on. It runs Maya, Painter X, Adobe Master Collection (most of it), Lightroom, Logic Pro (with virtual instrument packs) etc just fine, no slowdown even when multiple programs are open at the same time.

No yellow screen (which honestly the default color profile gives a yellow tint but its a profile and all I did was recalibrate. Problem fixed. I have a feeling its this for a lot of (but not all of) the "yellow screen" issues.

No magsafe problems
No sound problems/missing pixels

Its perfect :D I run bootcamp on mine as well because I like to program in visual studio and run some games, everything else I do on the mac side. I love mac now and see why everyone talks them up the way they do.
 
smudged said:
I've read so many things about this computer, that I decided to not throw $2000 down the toilet. There's nothing Pro about this laptop.

After reading about the headphone jack, dead pixels, faulty motherboards, cooked video cards, heat issues, and several more, I'd rather buy a Dell than a MBP. That's a lot to say. Even $600 laptops don't come with this kind of issues. Think about it. I wouldn't pay $2000 to be on the telephone with Apple every month.
Click to expand...

Just to touch on this I used to work in electronics retail for about 6 years and this is nothing new period. Every company has problems and usually about 1 in 7 notebooks sold get returned regardless of brand.

Now, flash forward to today and to your other post about hp laptops. They are horrible right now and have the highest return rate of any brand at best buy and circuit city. (3 years ago they were the ****, now theyre just **** and I myself just got rid of the three I bought back in oct!)

So seeing the bad stuff posted on forums really means nothing. Some people look and assume its a "problem with the line" but in reality, like others have stated, people post problems on forums they dont post "omg my macbook pro is perfect!"
 
teknikal90 said:
i bought a macbook pro.
from online apple store. (dont do this)

i got, black dot problem on screen.
backlight black lines on the bottom of screen.
my touchpad is starting to warp.
and the four feet dont balance properly.

F!!!!!!!!!!


ig ot the latest penryn model 2.4ghz
Click to expand...

Well, time to cash in on that warranty then!
 
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