So Apple makes faulty hardware and you reward them by giving them extra money?
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'Flexgate': 2016 and Newer MacBook Pro Users Report Display Issues Due to Fragile Flex Cables
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Thanks apple, my wifes 2016 13 MacBook pro, is about to become a 1200 dollar paper weight, or cost me 1800 bucks for an i5,8gb,256gb.
Talk about a quality product.
Talk about a quality product.
Yeah, in Germany it's in the BGB. (So technically not EU law, but old German law.) But after six months you need to prove to the vendor that the product had a defect (or was not built properly for standard use) at the time of sale. Shouldn't be too hard to prove that in this specific case. But you should insist that they fix or replace the MBP not under Apple Care, but under extant law, i.e. for free, no matter what. (Ask for the store manager, if necessary.) I like the fact that we have a 2-year claim for repair/replacement of products that are actually and objectively defective like the 2016–18 MB(P)s, but I still buy AppleCare+ to get that extra third year. You never know with Apple products. They do build some shoddy hardware, even on the high end, so it's always good to be on the safe side, and if it's only for spilled coffee.
Problem is: Apple and their authorized affiliates are apparently pretty bad at repairs too. :\PS: How's Hadley's Hope doing?
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What's crazy about this is unlike the audio issue with iPhone 7/7s and iPhone 7/7s Plus, this issue seems bound to happen under normal use and the cable actually breaks rather than just loosens.
I've held off buying a MacBook Pro for so long now. It's kind of bittersweet to read news like this. On the one hand, I saved myself a lot of headaches and heartaches while on the other, there are just so many signs pointing to the fact that Apple can't make a decent laptop nowadays even if they try.
I've held off buying a MacBook Pro for so long now. It's kind of bittersweet to read news like this. On the one hand, I saved myself a lot of headaches and heartaches while on the other, there are just so many signs pointing to the fact that Apple can't make a decent laptop nowadays even if they try.
Huh. Its almost like nobody had ever heard of a Motorola RAZR and what using ribbon cables did to their reliability.
yup about a month after having my keyboard replaced I had this issue on my screen (happened about a year ago or so)...then a month after that the logic board went. So I got a replacement which was a 2017...installing the newest OS update and the SSD took a crap so they then replaced the logic board and SSD on the 2017. Worse computer I have ever owned and likely the last mac laptop I will ever buy. Then once I dont have a mac laptop I will get an android phone because I will lose my integration anyway
Thinness didn’t start after Steve. What started after Steve was thinness at the expense of everything else’s: Reliability, flexibility, upgradability, features ...
In my country there is literally NO 2015 model up for sale. All we are having are the 2012 models and those are from sellers with questionable credentials.
Therefore, had to get myself a MacBook Air 2017 second-hand, and have been in peace since then.No doubt the hardware improvements make the 2016 and up devices a delight to use. Issue is that said delight can become really short-lived, and we can stop feeling so happy rather abruptly with the niggles that keep surfacing.
Getting a 2017 Air gave me a reliable keyboard and a reliable machinery. They keyboard seems to be between the old 2011 keys and the new 2016 keys. It is great.
Please, I'm appealing to the voice of reason here, under no circumstances could a reasonable person think that this is caused by accidental damage.
The flex cables are routed through the hinge area, an area that is supposed to move as the computer is opened and closed repeatedly.
Lets assume for a moment that when engineering the product, the team conducts studies to determine how consumers would typically the computer - where the machine is used, how it's transported, the temperature conditions it's subjected to, and how any mechanical components hold up over time. Even comparing a new product design to previous generations.
Some of these computers look pristine. Not a scratch, no dents, no broken glass, kept clean, closing the screen the same as anyone else with any make and model of computer would.
But the cables are failing. And technicians are starting to notice a pattern. I know I did, when the first machine came in with the symptom "loss of backlight when screen is opened past X degrees", followed by a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and numerous others since.
It's an engineering issue. If the cable is failing prematurely, it wasn't engineered correctly to withstand the task it was intended for. If it was engineered correctly, but the computer itself is so fragile that customers are expected to avoid basic tasks like opening and closing the screen too many times, then the computer itself wasn't engineered to withstand the tasks it was intended for and it doesn't meet customer expectations of quality.
I don't mind that some customers love their Apple products. You do your thing. But sometimes even the most beloved products have problems, and instead of excusing them, I think it's better if we unanimously agree on it, acknowledge it, request a better product with these issues resolved in the next iterations, and ask that existing owners be taken care of in the form of warranty extensions and part revisions where necessary. That's how the consumers benefit from the situation.
It benefits nobody but the company to pretend that such issues don't exist or the blame lies solely with the consumer, especially when all they're doing is opening and closing the lid on their laptop.
This isn't a lie. It isn't the same issue you described either. In this instance the issue is that traces within the cable are broken, causing a loss of transmission of power to the odd or even LEDs. Only half are then lit, causing a stage lighting effect. The issue is that the remaining traces soon follow, and the remaining LEDs also cease functioning, resulting in no backlight altogether.
It doesn't get better once the machine has cooled down. Once the traces are broken, they're broken. They may make contact and work momentarily if the screen is opened only a few degrees, but they will lose connection again and cut out when the screen is fully opened.
Nothing short of replacing the cable will resolve that, or in this case the entire display assembly as the cables are routed in behind the glued-in LCD and glass panel, making removal extremely difficult. (If not impossible without cracking the glass, given the heat and force required to separate the adhesive coupled with how thin the glass itself is.)
As said earlier.. Apple's new products are built like garbage. Jobs would not be happy.
this is prominent issue in low cost windows laptops...its sad macbook pro has to face these quality based issues.
If you have to buy an extended warranty to insure proper working order for a device, it’s a device that shouldn’t be bought.
its clearly mentioned apple has another way of doing it in older models..how it is a user issue now,?
It’s crazy isn’t it? You literally can’t make up these responses to folks defending it. Talk about Stockholm syndrome.
AANYONE who buys a used computer with a non-removable storage of any kind is foolish. Storage has significantly less lifespan than most other components.
Whether it's old spinning rust with it's mechanical failures that creep up over time, or an SSD with a known limited lifespan of writes. At some point in every computer, the storage will go before MOST others
it's also generally the cheapest thing to replace. space gets cheaper over time and is typically the one thing that tends to never be enough of.
simply put. Buying a used computer with soldered storage means that the entirety of the computer's lifespan is now that of the weakest link. The storage. no simple swapping out a cheap component to extend the lifespan. if you run out of space? tough. if you hit the max rights? Tough. if the storage controller dies? by by computer.
it's not like it takes a lot of space. NVME drives are miniscule. there are computers just as small as the macbook pros. HECK, even smaller, even in Apple's own lineups that had NVME drives on removable sockets.
there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO technical reason for soldering in storage other than to limit the lifespanof a device.
buying one of these used would be foolish. even one of these refurbished from Apple directly would give me serious cause to question the age of the SSD
Getting a 2017 Air gave me a reliable keyboard and a reliable machinery. They keyboard seems to be between the old 2011 keys and the new 2016 keys. It is great.
The Air is a great computer! I had one of the Gen 2 models (original form factor but with updated internals) - loved it to death. I was going to buy an 2017 Air if I couldn't get a 2015 Pro... and debated whether I should get one even if I found a Pro.
Apple's catching ALL kinds of breaks: Breaking keyboards, breaking monitors, breaking batteries....
I was going to say "I can't imagine they continue to refresh this machine this year..." but I bet that is what is going to happen.
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Never used to buy it. Now it's mandatory. Yes, it adds cost, sometimes significant costs, but it is well worth it when things go to pot, which is increasingly frequent with these MBP's. Other options? Older machine (gently used or refurb) or Windows.
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I missed the 7S series and 7S Plus series phones. Any good?
I hear you. I was a Mac user for about the same time, but in December 2018 switched to a Windows laptop and Windows 10 is fine. I had to dig through the registry editor, group policy editor and services to disable the crap I didn't like; but it works well. I'm re-learning a few things (Ctrl versus Cmd keys, etc.) but if you're an experienced computer user switching won't be an issue.
SSDs have improved quite a bit since they first became available and they now last quite a long time, especially with how they internally manage their own writes. It is reasonable to expect modern SSDs to last quite a long time under normal use. That being said, I still do agree with what you wrote; not just because of wear and tear on the drive, but because as time goes on it's easier to upgrade to more storage (and RAM) to get a bit more life out of an older product.
[doublepost=1548229447][/doublepost]I pretty much agree with everything written in this thread (with some exceptions).
I've started moving away from Apple. There are a few things that I like from them, but in general they've done two things which have pushed me away:
- Increased their prices;
- Reduced their value (i.e. the "what-you-get" in the product).
I wanted to get the 2018 iPad Pro 12.9" as I had been mostly using iOS as a primary device for awhile (I use the desktop machine I built when I need desktop software or heavy processing power), but they raised their prices on those, too. I had enough. Last December I bought a Lenovo 2-in-1 laptop for half the price of the 2018 12.9" iPad with keyboard folio. I've been using the Lenovo since and my overall thought is this: competitors have caught up.
I picked this Lenovo because I wanted the option to run Linux so I was specific about the internals it had. But more than that:
- SSD is user serviceable
- RAM is user serviceable
- Battery is serviceable
- Keyboard is serviceable
- In fact, I just downloaded the maintenance manual and all the common parts that fail are serviceable.
- I have USB-C and USB-A ports. Video ports, ethernet, SD, etc.
Sorry, I'm not against Apple--if they release a quality product at a reasonable price, I'm in--but Apple today doesn't have the edge it did when I went Mac-only a decade ago. Not at all. There are some great products from competitors out there and they work.
Also, I ended up using Windows on the machine because of some very specific software I didn't feel like running in a virtual machine in Linux. Windows 10 is fine. Microsoft has significantly improved it since I last used Windows.