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Is this typical? Was switching from PC to Mac a Bad Idea?

No, not typical.

I would say the first answer was right-you got a dud, which can happen with any make, model, product etc. It is certainly not typical-I and many others here have had no problems with our Macs, and personally I have had Windows machines I would have loved to throw through windows.

I adore my Mac and even if I had problems with a machine I wouldn't go back to PCs. However I would certainly ask for a replacement machine if I had had so many problems with one.

Maybe you should consider buying refurbished Macs in future, as they will have been better tested?
 
your in the wrong place to get any unbiased feedback on that. I would say, always try and back up your data, and anything past that is a crap shoot. Even if the error rate is .0001% that still is some one and try telling that person its not a big deal. Hardware is going to fail, regardless of manufacturer. Prepare for the worst (hardware failure) and hope for the best:D
 
Shiner said:
TMy lab has probably gone through 20-30 alone. The older apple computers just seemed to work much better than the newer laptops IN MY PERSONAL OPINION.
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I totally agree with this poster from my experience. Apple is under the gun to make their units more affordable (the number one criticism of Macintosh) and is cutting corners to make that happen. The chinese construction is questionable at best. My Santa Rosa 17" had a bad logic board, bad trackpad, bad battery, and then the logic board went again. Apple is going to replace it under applecare fortunately. Now, my uMBP is having the flickering screen issues which sucks after owning the ticking time bomb 8600GT. Come on!

I remember the good ol' days of the Powerbooks and early, early Macbook Pros when a laptop going in for repair was extremely rare. This is no longer the case. Always get the Applecare extended warranty.

What you get in the hardware design, operating system and apps is what makes Apple so great. However, the hardware is as prone to failure as any other PC out there.
 
Questions like the OP's are always difficult because there aren't any really good industry-wide numbers on failure rates. From polls (with reporting bias), Apple does quite well in terms of product reliability.

To the extent anecdotal evidence is useful, you can count me among those who have owned multiple macs without any problems at all. However, I think the consensus view on this board is that moving production to China did indeed make a negative difference as compared with older Macs. Of course, virtually every other computer maker is similarly outsourcing, so I think buying a computer generally is slightly more of a crapshoot than it once was.

If you have a lemon, and it sounds like you do, I would push for a replacement. Chances are, it will be smooth sailing from there.
 
Shiner said:
I think your problems are more typical than people on this forum want to believe (apple kool-aid). Anyways, in my current setup I am seeing close to 40% fail rate on new apple products. I think they are cutting even more corners than usual with their production. I had a new 13" MBP that was returned for service 4 times in the first month. I eventually got my money back. I then decided to throw caution to the wind and get another 15" MBP, when the matte screen was released. I will simply say I am writing this post from my PC desktop. My laptop has been in for repairs for that last 4 days. Motherboard failed one week after taking the damn thing home. It just goes to show the hardware is the same in both PCs and Macs. There is no special sauce apple uses. They just have better marketing in the end.
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I agree. Their marketing is great! run windoze through bootcamp! --they forgot to mention you'll burn your legs off after your computer fries itself!
MBP--these little guys run hot!
 
Shiner said:
Thanks for your post it really helps the OP!!! Anyways, I personally have been in charge of well over 100 apple computers in the last 5 years. My lab has probably gone through 20-30 alone. The older apple computers just seemed to work much better than the newer laptops IN MY PERSONAL OPINION. Many times people come on the forums and act like apple is the best thing since sliced bread and do not have the same fail rates as every other company. Statistically speaking the fail rate is the EXACT same as other laptop companies. The number is simply smaller because apple only sells 5-10% the volume. All I wanted to say to the OP was apple makes bad laptops just like everyone else. Do not chose a good fit based off of failure rates from this forum. Decided if the OS and computer specs meet your demands and then you will not be let down when it breaks and gets fixed eventually.
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Well to me the op sounded like he wanted to hear that not all Apple products are faulty. That was also a reason for my post.

As for you I'm sorry if I came across too harsh, since you apparently have many more experience with Apples portables than the 2 you wrote about in the first place.
 
Sounds like the OP has some bad luck. Personally, I have horrible, terrible luck with Apple products. My friends don't believe some of the problems I have, until they see them. Yet, I never really had troubles with Windows.

I've had Airs with warped cases, dead hard drives, and the lines. I had to sell one and return the one with the lines (they absolutely would not waive the restocking fee, even though I was going to get a 17" MBP instead). I got a 15" MBP that had just awful light bleed, so I returned it. My iPhone's battery is pathetic, I keep getting debris under the glass of the display, sometimes the sound just stops working, and I can't get the slider to work when I turn it on about 1 out of 15 times.

I also had two iMacs with startup/shudown problems. The first Mac I got was an iMac, which was a refurb, and from what it looked like, and the CS woman agreed, was they forgot to refurbish it. There was plastic adhesive, that had fallen off the bottom plate, stuck all over the screen and in the box. Not to mention the plastic foot was rattling around in the box. So, my first Mac experience was spending two hours wiping goo off my new computer. They gave me a partial refund, so that was pretty impressive.

My current machine is a 17" MBP, which I want to love, but it has frequent WiFi dropouts (and I"m talking a dozen in a day no matter what network), the case making popping noises (which I determined is the bottom cover), and I have other bizarre things happen. For example, sometimes OS X just will not shut down. Sometimes I bring the OS out of sleep and the mouse pointer is nowhere. I get kernal panics when I try to restart a lot of the time (from my Mbox 2, I think). Gestures stop working once in a while and I don't know why.

Apple's service is pretty good, but they just won't listen on some things. The supervisor on the phone told me to live with the white circular pattern on my Air's display, from a torn layer, because she had two on her display at work and she didn't mind.

I'm about to take my iPhone in for the third time to have the display replaced because there's a bunch of crap under the "glass" of the display. I'm wondering if they have my account flagged or something because literally every single Apple product I buy is messed up in some way.

Do I regret switching? Honestly, I do. But my experience is not typical from what I've seen and heard. I really do have the worst luck with Apple products out of anybody I know. I go over to their houses and, without even touching it, their Macs start acting up. It's the strangest thing. I hear a lot of "I can't believe the problems you have" and "I've NEVER seen that before."

So, to the OP, I can relate.
 
I think it's the (un)luck of the draw. No mass-produced product will be perfect in every instance. If you are unlucky enough to start out your use of Apple products with duds, that will of course influence how you feel about them.

In my home in the last five years we've had two PowerBooks, a Mac Mini, two iMacs, and nine iPods, none of which has had any problems worth mentioning.
 
I thought that if any apple product required more than three repairs they replaced it with a new one? Shrug.
 
annk said:
If you are unlucky enough to start out your use of Apple products with duds, that will of course influence how you feel about them.
Click to expand...

In my case, I started out with good products, and then the quality control went south from there.
 
Ptyger said:
My Early '08 15" MBP is in for the third repair in a two week period. First, it was the logic board due to the nvidia 8600M GT problem. Then, a bad battery. Now, the superdrive is being replaced.

I switched late last year from PC to Apple, but now I'm questioning whether I made the right choice. I have no fault with Apple's customer service, they've been great up to this point as far as that goes. But I'm getting extremely frustrated that this thing just seems to be falling apart.

Is it just this model that has so many problems, or is it all Apple products in general? I never had so much go wrong on any PC laptop/notebook product that I've owned in the past. I switched to Macs because I wanted assurance that what I was buying was superior in build quality and workmanship, but my experience so far has been far from that.

I'm half tempted to complete this repair and sell ALL of my Apple products and start again with PCs. It's true that you get what you pay for, but to be perfectly honest, I expected much more than this for the price I paid for this computer.

I've even been experiencing difficulties with my brand new mini. If I let it sleep for more than a couple of hours, the display refuses to reinitialize and I have to hold the power button down to get it to reboot. Keyboard shortcuts don't even work. This is with and without ANY peripherals hooked up, except monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

I want to scream, I'm so completely frustrated. Can anyone recommend a course of action or sage advice?

(incidentally, I'm sorry for the rant)
Click to expand...

Being in the graphics business, I have owned Apple computers since 1988. I would give you a list of what I have owned but it would take a long time to list the computers. Some examples though were: MacIntosh II, MacIntosh II FX, Quadra 800 x 2, Powerbook, iBooks x 2, MacBook Pro 15" which is 6 years old with no issues, except the Super Drive died this year and I replaced it myself....(an easy repair), various emacs, various pizza box macs for my children, etc.

I have owned desktop computers, and laptops, starting with a powerbook in the 90s. I have virtually had no issues with any Apple computer.

The issues that I had were:
1. Quadra 800 had a defective HD. Apple sent a technician to my studio, checked the drive, ordered a new one, and within 3 days a new drive arrived, and the technician installed the new one...free of charge.

2. I had 2 iBooks, both developed issues with keys that kept falling off. In both cases, Apple repair sent me a free FedEx box to send in for repair and both times I had the ibook back within 2 days.

I am sorry to see you are having issues, but computer are machines with parts that others make and not Apple. Hang in there and your problems will be resolved.

Have you called Apple on your mac mini? Did they give you any solutions with your sleep issues? I would call tech support.
 
DesignerOnMac said:
Hang in there and your problems will be resolved.
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Thanks. As an update, I got the computer back last night. After booting it up in the store to make sure it worked, I took it home and checked my bootcamp installation to make sure that was intact.

After verifying this, I attempted to reboot into the OS X slice. The spinning gear during loading wouldn't stop. Reboot again, this time holding down the shift key to enter safe mode. Same thing. Reboot again, holding CMD + V for verbose, and I get a never-ending list of I/O journaling errors. So, I put my 10.6 install DVD into the drive (repaired flawlessly, btw) and go into Disk Utility. Verify disk, passed. Smart status, verified. Left it overnight to do a repair disk. The thing hung for over 8 hours on the first step of the repair. Oh, dear.

Shutdown and reboot again into the installer (reset PRAM too). Maybe an archive and install will fix this. Well, the volume will not mount. Gives a generic error. So I go into terminal. Won't mount through command line, either. fsck fails. Just out of curiosity, I do an fstyp and get hfs instead of hfs plus back.

I made another appointment with the Genius Bar for this morning, and take it in. He looks around, does everything I had done, and remarks he's never seen anything like it. Even booting off an external Snow Leopard install, the disk won't respond, but reports as everything a-okay.

He disappears for a few minutes, and when he comes back, informs me that they are going to replace the machine with a brand new model. I'm to pick it up when they get it from AppleCare in 3-7 days. So I guess in the end, they do take care of their customers, and I'm happy with the result.

Have you called Apple on your mac mini? Did they give you any solutions with your sleep issues? I would call tech support.
Click to expand...

I called them, but the only thing they could recommend was that I take it in and let the Geniuses hold onto it and run tests for a few days. I've declined that road for now, as with my notebook out of commission, the mini is all I have.

At any rate, thank you all for your input. Hopefully this new machine will turn out much better than the previous one.
 
Apple doesn't actually manufacture most of the hardware. They're commodity x86 architecture components, made in China or other overseas factories. Apple just designs it and chooses what goes into it.
 
Unfortunately, it is. Unfortunately, it's typical for PC companies too nowadays. Granted, I really believe Apple's use of nVidia chipsets - something they never used to use - has greatly reduced the quality and reliability of their products. But the same complete junk nVidia chipsets are rampant in the PC world too. They offer excellent performance for the price. Sadly, nothing resembling stability or reliability...
 
the question is sir, are you a mac or a pc? No pun intended :p I love the way macs operate and what they are used for but they aren't for everyone. Both will have troubles, trust me I work at a repair location for both PCs and macs. Just use whatever works best for you. No, your problems aren't a normal case though if that makes your decision any easier. I see 10+ year old macs still working perfectly fine then again I also see 10 day old mac need a new logic board.
 
motox25 said:
the question is sir, are you a mac or a pc? No pun intended :p
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The problem is that you don't have a choice with Apple - if I want to run OS X (for linux/work compatibility), then I can't go out and buy a Thinkpad to run it on :-s

I'm following the OPs post with interest as Im looking to swtich to Apple...
 
optophobia said:
I have the same model MBP as yours.
My superdrive needs replacing but I dont use it, so I am just living with it. I have it under Applecare and will probably wait until right at the last minute to get it replaced, That way, they may just give me a new MBP instead :)

Crossed fingers, my logic board hasn't needed replacement yet.
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hmm..maybe it would be wise to get the superdrive replaced right now..cause the new superdrive u get might also be a lemon :rolleyes:
 
Here is my experience:

I bought an early 2008 MacBook Pro for college in June 2008. In October, the hard drive / logic board failed simultaneously and the trackpad wasn't working properly (loosing track of finger, multitouch was messing up, even the click button was malfunctioning). I sent it in, and Apple fixed all of that and replaced the top case because the screen didn't have enough support in my bookbag and was wearing down the edges of the laptop.

Move to November 2008, trackpad still gave me problems, fan broke, sent it in for the second repair. Brought it to the Apple store and they said nothing was wrong. Picked it up and took it back to college 5 hours away. Turned it on and fan blades shot out of the back of the machine. Nothing wrong my butt.

Called Apple Customer Retentions and explained my issue. They said to just send the computer in for replacement, and if I have any more issues to contact them again.

Sent it in, got the fan, logic board, and trackpad replaced. Note this is the 2nd logic board and trackpad replacement in a month.

Got it back, and still had a trackpad issue. Called Apple Customer Retentions again, they said that they will configure a new laptop (Unibody) to best match the specifications of my original 5 month old MacBook Pro.
Original machine specifications:
15" MacBook Pro - Antiglare
2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo
512MB Nvidia 8600M
4GB RAM
200GB 7200RPM drive.

Look below for the current specifications. They did me well.

When I got the new laptop, the first time I pressed the delete key, it popped off. This upset me because I could not simply pop it back on. The key was defective and had a clip missing on the bottom. I had to send the brand new machine in to get repaired.

This was back in January. Since then the machine has been running fine and looks like new except for some small scratches on the bottom from normal wear and a small dent on the lid where I pushed my laptop against something, but a dent so small that you have to look at it at an angle.

Call Customer Retentions and explain your situation. They will more than likely be happy to replace your laptop for a new one. My only regret is that they did not have the antiglare option back when the Unibodies were first released.

This is also not my first laptop either. I had a Dell Inspiron E1505. It had a number of repairs done to it as well including a new DVD drive right after I received it... then later two new screens, a new motherboard, 2 batteries, and the keyboard. The only thing that wasn't ever replaced is the hard drive and the trackpad. I feel that Apple's quality is above everyone else. Take for example an HP. I've worked on a friend's HP that had the metal speaker grill. The sweat from her body caused the speaker grills to rust on a 1 year old machine. It looks awful. Dell... explained above. I've seen Gateways that overheat just sitting on a flat table playing a WMV file. Acer... haha

My two choices on laptops now are IBM (Now Lenovo) and Apple. I feel that those two companies produce the highest quality laptops right now.
 
Ptyger said:
My Early '08 15" MBP is in for the third repair in a two week period. First, it was the logic board due to the nvidia 8600M GT problem. Then, a bad battery. Now, the superdrive is being replaced.

I switched late last year from PC to Apple, but now I'm questioning whether I made the right choice. I have no fault with Apple's customer service, they've been great up to this point as far as that goes. But I'm getting extremely frustrated that this thing just seems to be falling apart.

Is it just this model that has so many problems, or is it all Apple products in general? I never had so much go wrong on any PC laptop/notebook product that I've owned in the past. I switched to Macs because I wanted assurance that what I was buying was superior in build quality and workmanship, but my experience so far has been far from that.

I'm half tempted to complete this repair and sell ALL of my Apple products and start again with PCs. It's true that you get what you pay for, but to be perfectly honest, I expected much more than this for the price I paid for this computer.

I've even been experiencing difficulties with my brand new mini. If I let it sleep for more than a couple of hours, the display refuses to reinitialize and I have to hold the power button down to get it to reboot. Keyboard shortcuts don't even work. This is with and without ANY peripherals hooked up, except monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

I want to scream, I'm so completely frustrated. Can anyone recommend a course of action or sage advice?

(incidentally, I'm sorry for the rant)
Click to expand...

mac is more the OS that everyone raves about..the hardware is the same as any PC, just with a pretty case
 
Shiner said:
I think your problems are more typical than people on this forum want to believe (apple kool-aid).
Click to expand...

Right..... 3 failures per machine is typical and somehow Apple is able to maintain a false reputation as a quality vendor. Since everyone on the internet drinks the kool-aid it's all good.

:rolleyes:
 
SMC1991 said:
Because they sample idiot Mac users like you, who will ignore every problem and still claim to be satisfied. I've talked to my fellow Mac users, who "love" it despite having a superdrive replaced, logic board replaced, etc...
Click to expand...

I dunno. My problem has been resolved to my satisfaction (see my post above). I am loving my new MBP, and Apple customer service did take care of me. Certainly more so than experiences I have had with HP/Compaq or Dell, where they just keep repairing machines.
 
Ptyger said:
I dunno. My problem has been resolved to my satisfaction (see my post above). I am loving my new MBP, and Apple customer service did take care of me. Certainly more so than experiences I have had with HP/Compaq or Dell, where they just keep repairing machines.
Click to expand...

Cool, glad to hear it got sorted and your happy, if the replacement machine is what you have in your signature then that's a sweet replacement :D

Agree with what some people are saying about hardware in general being susceptible to failure, the price we pay for cheap mass produced goods. My 6 month old MBP has just gone in for it's first repair, aiport card failed. However feeling fairly pragmatic about it, faults are going to happen to some people, still love using it and wouldn't dream of swapping it for a windows lappy.

Found it odd that anyone found the OP's originally post offensive, was a genuine vent of frustration, there were no derogatory terms used or name calling, some people seriously need to lighten up and grow thicker skins lol.
 
I definitely understand your frustration, but it's no reason to discount Apple entirely.

HOWEVER--their customer service in recent years seems to be less than it once was. I had a Powerbook 5300cs back in the 90's that I dropped on a cement sidewalk. My fault, pure neglect.

Apple replaced the display and the upper housing in 4 days flat, no questions asked.


That sold me on their laptops.

However, my last Apple laptop was, without a doubt, a lemon. In 4 years, I had:

• Multiple keys detach until Apple finally replaced the keyboard
• 2nd keyboard replacement because of stuck mechanisms
• Dead pixels on the screen I was repeatedly told by an Apple store "genius" that Apple would not cover
• Damaged, lighter areas of the screen where an InCase backpack apparently didn't protect the back of the display from the notebooks in the backpack
• Display finally replaced after many trips to the Apple store, only to have the backlight fail a few months later
• Hard drive failure
• Weird, undiagnosed issue where the computer could not find the startup disk
• Freezing problems and Kernel Panic so bad that Apple finally wiped the hard drive to try and solve the issue
• Repeated hardware-related Kernel Panics, several related to the faulty upper RAM slot I now understand Powerbook G4's have an issue with
• Trackpad failure and replacement


Now, I'm not gonna lie here. I beat the crap out of my laptops. I expect it to work, or be fixed. And all those headaches aside, Apple really has taken good care of me over the years. I'm convinced the Powerbook G4 was a lemon, but they covered it well past the end of my Applecare warranty.

My girlfriend is now using it--more gently--and it seems to be doing fine.

You have to realize, computer hardware is not perfect. Failures are possible. Lemons are possible. What matters is that Apple will take care of you, even if you have to call the 1-800-SOS-APPL line and send in your machine.

I know it's frustrating, and for a while there it seemed like my computer was failing every other week. I believe Apple should have replaced my machine with a refurbished model. I actually asked them to replace it, both through the general manager of the store I bought it at, and directly through Apple via the 1-800-SOS-APPL line multiple times, and was either outright laughed at, or told "well, we don't consider these issues major failures, so if it happens again..."

But, even after all that drama, I still got suckered into buying a MacBook Pro and am loving it. What can you do.

My other two machines ran flawlessly right up until the end, save for some minor cosmetic issues that cropped up in the 4th or 5th years of use. I'm hoping the current MBP will follow in their footsteps rather than the lemon's.
 
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