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cafeCarl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 14, 2008
16
0
Hello! I first have something to admit. I used to completely dislike Apple products but since I have been looking for a new laptop, I have somewhat taken a liking to the MBP. But as them seem quite a bit more expensive then a Windows laptop I must justify the difference in price. But the more reviews I read the more I find reviews and complaints by previous Apple owners who state that the MBP is not as high quality. Is this true? Is the quality of the Macbook Pros slipping?
 

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
Hello! I first have something to admit. I used to completely dislike Apple products but since I have been looking for a new laptop, I have somewhat taken a liking to the MBP. But as them seem quite a bit more expensive then a Windows laptop I must justify the difference in price. But the more reviews I read the more I find reviews and complaints by previous Apple owners who state that the MBP is not as high quality. Is this true? Is the quality of the Macbook Pros slipping?

Anyone can say anything on the forums, but typically only people with problems would say they have problems. Although recently I am seeing many suspicious posters which obviously have no experience with ownership of a Mac posting "problems".

There are tons of happy users, most of them are NOT going to post hundreds or thousands of "everything is perfect" threads every day.

In addition, although the perceived cost is higher, it actually costs less to own a Mac, because Macs lasts longer and has a higher resale value, not to mention the time saving when you know how to use OS X properly.
 

gazfocus

macrumors 68000
Jan 3, 2008
1,650
0
Liverpool, UK
I can't comment on the build quality of the macbook pro's as mine's still sitting in it's box, but from what I've seen on these forums is that most of the people with problems seem to be people who have upgraded parts themselves. (I'm not saying this is purely the cause, but it's a coincidence).

I agree in most cases the upgrades offered are highly overpriced, but if a DIY upgrade means taking your MBP to bits, I would rather pay Apple to fit the upgrade (as far as hard drives go).

Apple also have excellent customer service so if you do happen to get a bad mac, they'll sort it for you no problems :)
 

cafeCarl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 14, 2008
16
0
Thanks for the replies...I know we could go on forever with this, but is there any possibilities of the MBP getting an upgrades tomorrow at MacWorld or whatever it may be called? I was also looking at referb units..what do you guys think of those?
 

richard.mac

macrumors 603
Feb 2, 2007
6,292
4
51.50024, -0.12662
refurb macs are perfectly fine as they are faulty machines that are repaired and retested by apple technicians. they are just like new macs except they had a previous owner so there may be some small cosmetic damages to the casing such as scratches or small dents. this is the chance you take with a refurb. but ive heard of plenty of users buying refurbs that look like brand new.
 

cafeCarl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 14, 2008
16
0
ok. I don't mind a few dents. As long as I don't get one thats torn up too badly.
 

Spikeanator6982

macrumors 6502
Jun 13, 2007
328
0
You could look into buying from someone in the market here on the forums. It would save you some money and help someone here whos trying to sell their MBP.
 

cafeCarl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 14, 2008
16
0
Good point. Well if anyone wants to sell theirs PM me. Has anyone done the developers discount as well?
 

pulsewidth947

macrumors 65816
Jan 25, 2005
1,106
2
I got a refurb MBP last week. Its cosmetically perfect. Im very happy with the whole Apple refurb thing. You can still get the 3 year warranty which is great piece of mind.

You say you used to completely dislike Apple products - treading carefully so as not to start a flame war - may I ask why? The reason I ask is about 4-5 years ago I was in the same boat. I'd used PCs for 8 years and I'd always seen macs as over priced. I'd had bad experiences with OS 9 and OS X (10.0 and 10.1). This was while I was away at uni, but then when I finished I got a job at an Art School which had a lot of Macs. As a result I had to get to know them, so I spent all day on them at work. To cut a long story short I've completely switched and now feel passionately about them.

One of the other posters put it well - you'll always hear more of the negative press than positive, as happy people are usually busy doing great things with their mac than complaining on forums. Having said that - this is a great site for happy users, possibly even being biased.

In terms of build quality I personally think the MBPs are great. Sure they probably wont withstand serious abuse, but I've always felt like other laptops seem to feel a bit plasticky.

I wouldn't say Apple customer service is excellent - as I have had a few issues with them - but they are by far the best customer service I've dealt with in the past few years.

Anyway you probably could get a decent bargain in the market place over the next week or so, as there's a possibility that new products will be announced today.

Hope that helps and wasn't too ranty!
 

cafeCarl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 14, 2008
16
0
To be completely honest...and I hope not to offend anyone here...but I went into a Apple Store about a year ago and the constant "IT JUST WORKS" was too much. The amount of Fanboying is what initially drove me away. I see Apples as computers and not lifestyles as some seem to think...but on a different note, I am quite let down by no update on the MBP at the expo.
 

CWallace

macrumors G4
Aug 17, 2007
11,961
10,617
Seattle, WA
What matters to me is that it really does "Just Work".

I support Windows XP and Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 and AIX and various flavors of Linux at work.

The more I use each of them, the more I appreciate OS X.
 

ImNoSuperMan

macrumors 65816
Dec 1, 2005
1,220
64
For me it`s the 100% protection against viruses and atleast 10 times(guesstimate) less crash prone than XP are the biggest plus points for Mac.

I have a MB for all my desktop and portable needs. But I love movies and TV shows, so decided to built an HTPC and connect it to my TV(Apple TV seemed a little underpowered and feature less. I still regret it). I bought it in Feb 07. After 15+ reinstalls of XP-MCE and Vista Premium its still not working. I follow every guide from Google, follow the instructions to the T and after 10s of manhours once I get it up and running (with the ability to play mp4 and mov files in MCE) it dies on me for no reason whatsoever. It was working five minutes ago. I didnt do anything. Still it wont play that same file which it played just a little while ago. Restarting cured the problem 50% of the times. Otherwise resart, restart, then reinstall, restart, format, reinstall, restart...........

Now I`ve lost all hope and use a keyboard and mouse with my HTPC to run whatever I want in VLC only. I dont even connect it to the internet. Once I did to make sure all the critical updates are installed, Next thing I knew there were two trojan horses on my PC. I didnt even open any web browser. Not exactly the experience I hoped for.

And here is my MB. It`s been almost 20 months since I started using it. No need for any reinstalls yet. I restart it maybe once a week(that too mostly when update requires me to restart). Everything works as it used to 20 months ago.

In short you can sum it up as "It just works"

Now as far as quality of hardware is concerned I dont think Apple has any real edge. It`s as good as any other brand. With millions of Macs selling every year you just cant expect Apple to be 100% perfect. But once you add OSX to the package, there`s no better deal anywhere. Just make sure you get the Applecare for the MBP. You`ll need it. My MB is going tomarrow for a Fan and SuperDrive replacement. Without Apple care I`d be doomed.
 

cafeCarl

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 14, 2008
16
0
I hate to play devil's advocate here but I have used both linux and windows for quite a while and I have not experienced any of these issues. Now I have never bought a prebuilt system, always built my own, and I believe that this has cured many plagues that windows typically faces.

Secondly, its hard to say that Macs are in fact, completely free from viruses. All OS face difficulties when it comes to viruses and trojans, but as Macs are created with Unix, they do tend to less problematic.
 
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