Horrendous Drop of my 15" MBP

[thatoneguy82]

Hi,

Just wanted to share my story of my 15" MBP that I got in early May from BestBuy. As I was getting ready to leave, I placed my MBP in my bag and set it on a slanted stool (my first mistake) because I was getting ready my bag to put it in. Next thing I know I hear a THUD on my tile floor. I look and inspect and notice that bottom part is misaligned and looks open. It was barely an 8" fall. I could live with that cosmetic damage after kicking myself for a few minutes. I then opened it and it was working fine. I decided to turn it off, and take off the bottom part to see if anything was loose and see if I can "re-seat" the bottom part. No luck, it was forever misaligned and deformed. Great. I turned it back on, the progress bar showed up on the boot screen, then spinning wheel for over 30 minutes. Did all the resets I found online, nothing. Turned it off again, and this time after the progress bar, a folder just shows up. Crap.

I knew taking it to Apple would be worthless since it has damage. So I took it back to BestBuy where I bought it. I told them that the laptop fell, and it won't start anymore and asked them my options. And since I'm a BB RW Premier Silver customer, they said I'm still within 45 days to return/exchange if I wanted to. And so, I did. I feel sorta guilty. But, it was them that offered. They asked if I wanted the same 15" i7 model or something else. I asked if they had a 17" MBP model and they did.

So, now I have 17" MBP with a HR screen but a slightly slowly processor (i5 2.53 v i7 2.66) but the increase in resolution and screen size was worth it. Plus, I only do minimal video/photo editing as is.

Just felt like sharing.

THanks =)

 

[ijen0311]

I can understand why you feel bad. But, BB has the policy and you used it. No worries, glad you're happy.

 

[apple.gr]

You were very lucky that the fall happened in the first 45 days. Congratulations for your new MBP and you know now what you must not do with your newone!

 

[imac9556]

Wow bestbuy has a 45 day return policy with no questions asked including damage? Whats the details on this program? Lucky man!

 

[THX1139]

You were very lucky that the fall happened in the first 45 days. Congratulations for your new MBP and you know now what you must not do with your newone!

If luck had anything to do with it, it wouldn't have fallen in the first place.

 

[thatoneguy82]

Wow bestbuy has a 45 day return policy with no questions asked including damage? Whats the details on this program? Lucky man!

The extended return policy is only for their Reward Zone Silver Premier members. You have to spend at least $2500 with your RW points. You kinda get treated better (from my experience) when you're at this level. You get a special number to contact Best Buy that's for Premier Silver members only if you have any problems/questions.

 

[thatoneguy82]

Additional thing - Did that extremely SMALL fall damage/corrupt the HD? Isn't the SMS suppose to protect the HD from these kinds of things?

 

[HappyDude20]

As a Best Buy employee I can tell you that if you got the Black Tie Geek Squad protection it covers accidental damage...

So you could be drunk one night, grab a baseball bat and beat your MBP to death and still drop it off once a year and get it replaced for no deductible or any additional charge aside from the one time $170++ fee, or whatever it is.

 

[thatoneguy82]

I'm now having a weird remorse of not knowing if I made the right decision of going to the bigger 17" MBP but the lower i5 rather than staying with the 15" and getting the i7.

The default HR is GORGEOUS with the 17" and it's only SLIGHTLY larger and that really that heavy compared to the 15". But, I'm stuck on the whole better i7 processor that's more Mhz, 1MB more cache. I won't really do any major video editing (if at all), just photo editing in Aperture, PS CS5, LightRoom. And will be running VM of WinXP.

 

[mac2x]

Additional thing - Did that extremely SMALL fall damage/corrupt the HD? Isn't the SMS suppose to protect the HD from these kinds of things?

Not if the machine is off. Sorry to hear about the damage, but thank goodness you were able to get another machine without much pain.

 

[Jaro65]

I'm now having a weird remorse of not knowing if I made the right decision of going to the bigger 17" MBP but the lower i5 rather than staying with the 15" and getting the i7.

The default HR is GORGEOUS with the 17" and it's only SLIGHTLY larger and that really that heavy compared to the 15". But, I'm stuck on the whole better i7 processor that's more Mhz, 1MB more cache. I won't really do any major video editing (if at all), just photo editing in Aperture, PS CS5, LightRoom. And will be running VM of WinXP.

Why don't you have a remorse thinking what could have happened if BB told you to bugger off instead and now you would be stuck with your old and damaged MBP? How about that? You have a great machine. Enjoy it and stop dreaming.

 

[HLdan]

You won't notice any difference in the processor speeds and cache does nothing in terms of how much faster the computer runs as it's primary function is for relaunching apps. You did the right thing, the i7 vs. i5 dual core processors is a complete 180 from the i7 vs. i5 Quad cores when comparing the 2 processors. Be happy you had the option, you were lucky, they didn't have to offer it since you brought in a machine you actually damaged. You won no matter how you look at it.

 

[thatoneguy82]

True, true. I really should count my blessings and not dwell. I just always the best there is but I'm limited at Best Buy. I'm hardly mobile with my laptop, usually when going from my house to my siblings, parents, etc. So, 17" was better. I doubt I was ever going to utilize the i7. Heck, C2D was probably sufficient. I'll just focus on upgrading the RAM later on when price goes down and SSD (Momentus XD on order).