How common? Dead/bright/stuck pixels on MBP?

[Cammer]

I rec'd a very nice 15" MBP from my wife for Christmas. It is a high end model with the 15" HiRes anti-glare screen, 2.8 i7, and 8gb RAM. Within a week of using it I noticed a bright pixel near the center of the screen. Okay, I can deal with that. I'm not that picky. But now, a few weeks later, I have a constellation of bright/dead/stuck pixels on my nice HiRes screen. It is distracting at best. I just got back from the Apple Store, who will replace it, but it is a part that will have to be special ordered and I won't have a computer for a couple of days while they fix it. Okay, well at least they are fixing it I guess.

This is my first Mac computer and so far I'm not really impressed. It doesn't do anything that the three PC laptops that I have owned won't do and now I have my first hardware problem with a laptop, ever.

How common are problems like this? I have been told several times that I REALLY need to buy Applecare because of issues like this, but I have never needed extended warranties with anything that I have bought in the past, and now I am being told that it is truly needed for my $3k laptop that is supposed to be a top-of-the-line product?

Should I expect to have issues like this in the future? The store cost for the new screen is well over $400, which is more than the cost of Applecare, so maybe I should buy it. Either that or switch back to my cheap reliable PC platform.

I'm really not trying to incite anything here, or be a troll, but I feel like I have been led down a dark path. Any thoughts?

 

[miles01110]

It's no less common on Apple machines than any other machine that uses the same brand of panel. AppleCare is generally considered "worth it"- one repair and it usually covers most if not all or more of the cost.

 

[eric.c]

Not very common. 3 15" MBP with High res AG displays later, I have yet to have a stuck/dead pixel. Although uneven backlighting seems to be a problem on some panels.