If you think distinguishing between repairable and "expensive to repair" are pedantry, I don't know how to help you.
Do you think I'm some kind of spare parts oracle? Why do you keep asking me how much spare parts will cost?
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Props to people still giving Apple their money for the 2016-2018 MacBooks
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If you think distinguishing between repairable and "expensive to repair" are pedantry, I don't know how to help you.
Do you think I'm some kind of spare parts oracle? Why do you keep asking me how much spare parts will cost?
Watch the video I posted again. This is a stress/angle issue on the cable due to it being weak and too short. Everytime the screen opens past 90deg the wear begins. How long it takes will be interesting to see. Please make sure to post back when it starts happening.
Well I want you to be happy. It is fun and exciting to get a new machine. I hope the best for you, but the point of the OP and threads like this is to provide information to would be buyers that there could be problems and to plan accordingly. It might mean not selling an older machine, or buying the extra Apple care, or deciding not to buy. There are some questionable design decisions with these computers and some do feel (I am one of them) that Apple shouldn't be rewarded or given a pass.
[doublepost=1548400721][/doublepost]@leman that document only refers to laptops that are covered by Square Trade warranty. Square typically covers used laptops that are sold by refurburshers. This has nothing to do with Brand New machines purchased from the original manufactures. Good try, but NO...
I am not familiar with Square Trade business since I am not USA-based, but in the document they explicitly state that the survey data describes brand new machines. I also briefly looked at their website and it appears they simply sell third-party insurance that you can register your new laptop purchase with. Directly from their website: "Coverage only available for new laptops bought in the past 30 days." Used or refurbished items are subject to separate conditions.
You don’t have to scrap it. What I usually do is sell it before the 3 years have passed. It’s usually not a problem to get 60-70% of the original price back at this point and so in the end I always have a up-to date machine, with warranty, which costs me under 1000 Swiss franks per 3 years. That’s less than my mobile phone subscription a d is an equivalent to 3 beers per months were I live.
A lot of people are missing the bigger picture here.
Apple has one of the biggest cult followings of any company. I was, once, a massive fanboy. But with their latest practices (my last one was a £700 repair bill for a piece of damaged glass on an iMac - which would have been a £40 repair on older models), and lack of quality, they're turning many of us away.
If you can't keep hold of your biggest fans, you're clearly doing something wrong.
Apple has one of the biggest cult followings of any company. I was, once, a massive fanboy. But with their latest practices (my last one was a £700 repair bill for a piece of damaged glass on an iMac - which would have been a £40 repair on older models), and lack of quality, they're turning many of us away.
If you can't keep hold of your biggest fans, you're clearly doing something wrong.
I think that started with the lack of pro machines and finally compelled apple to say they're working on a modular mac pro, and will roll out (which they did) an imac pro. The butterfly keyboard seemed to have caused the loss of more apple fans,
John Gruber of daring fireball wrote this and while its prior to the announced repair program, but an ardent apple fan as he is, didn't pull any punches
I've been using Macs since the Apple SE days, but I've largely moved off the platform recently myself. I may be a drop in the bucket but I don't think I'm alone. I'll not knock anyone for choosing a Mac because its their money and their decision, but for me, I felt I could get a better machine for less money elsewhere and so far I've not been disappointed.
Agree with above, but what’s perplexing to me is that some hang onto the device when clearly something is wrong and instead of returning it within the 14 day period if they can, they want Apple to fix it instead. After the return period, complain and complain somemore. With me there would be no troubleshooting but a fast return for my money back. Hopefully the next one won’t have the same issue.
While they do sell this warranty service on new computers a few things to note. Aside from the study being a decade old, is that they state 1/3 of that 1 in 3 failure rate is due to accidental damage. They also sell their warranty on laptops ranging from the cheapest of netbooks on up and do claim that these netbooks have a 20% higher failure rate than premium laptops.
Barring accidental damage and not buying a netbook, you should expect to fair better than a 1 in 3 failure rate with a premium model.
The numbers inside the numbers:
Highlights of the study include:
- - Looking at the first 3 years of ownership, 31% of laptop owners reported a failure to SquareTrade. Two-thirds of this failure (20.4%) came from hardware malfunctions, and one-third (10.6%) was reported as accidental damage.
- - Netbooks are projected to have a 20% higher failure rate from hardware malfunctions than more expensive laptop computers.
- - ASUS and Toshiba were the most reliable manufacturers, with fewer than 16% having a hardware malfunction over 3 years.
I hear ya. I was a self-proclaimed Apple Fanboy for many years. But lately, though I still stuck with them, I am definitely a more jaded one.
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I'm unsurprised by the supposed failure rate of laptops. Considering most of the laptops I've opened have been broken or unsatisfactory in some way out of the box. The most you can hope for these days is that the laptop you buy either has the warranty coverage or repairs cheap enough to make keeping it more than a few years worth it. And I hate to say it but in my experience Apple is still head and shoulders above everybody else in the 'initial quality' game - regardless of their longevity.
The 13" Pro I bought - I actually really like but the known failures of the keyboard and staingate hover over that machine every time I use it. Much in the way battery bulging and my fears that the bezel are going to pop off on the Razer I bought as well.
Nothing is perfect but it seems a lot of consumer devices as of late are especially imperfect. It's driving me insane! I'm about at the point I'll buy something used and cheap so I don't have to care about what happens or how long it lasts. Plenty of ThinkPads for like $200 on eBay...
The 13" Pro I bought - I actually really like but the known failures of the keyboard and staingate hover over that machine every time I use it. Much in the way battery bulging and my fears that the bezel are going to pop off on the Razer I bought as well.
Nothing is perfect but it seems a lot of consumer devices as of late are especially imperfect. It's driving me insane! I'm about at the point I'll buy something used and cheap so I don't have to care about what happens or how long it lasts. Plenty of ThinkPads for like $200 on eBay...
My mistake, I was not precise enough. I meant to quite the premium segment, which is somewhere in the ballpark of 1/5 expected failure in 3 years. It is true that the study is a decade old now, but it's still most thorough one being done on the
subject and anything need I've seen parts a similar picture. For instance, this 2017 report (which I take with a grain of salt since the methodology is unclear and there is no original source): https://www.geckoandfly.com/6311/th...p-survey-best-netbook-reliability-comparison/
At any rate, these figures are in line with my personal experience (being an IT professional who manages a mid-size workgroup) and also mirror what other people in the business told me. I'd expect approx 20-30% of all laptops we buy (and we only buy high-end) to fail within first 3-4 years. About 5% fail within first two years. We deal with it by a) owning extended warranty for 3 years (which we can get for cheap from our service provider) b) generally replacing machines after the 3 years, the old ones are kept as replacement/auxiliary units and c) not paying for any repairs, since it doesn't make any sense economically. This strategy translates to expenditures of approx. 60-80 Swiss franks per employee per month, which isn't even 1% of the total cost of hiring someone in the first place.
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P.S. I just realised that I might have not been clear in what I was saying. I didn't suggest that you should scrap your 4k MBP. I was responding to your comment that paying to have an MBP does not make economical sense. What I tried to say is that repair usually don't make sense with cheaper laptops either, since you are almost better off buying a new machine.
To add my own (completely anecdotal) figures. In our office we have 17 computers: 11 MacBook Pros and 6 Dell laptops.
Most of the MacBooks are 2016 models (bar one which is 2015), and are now ~2 years into their 3 year AppleCare. The Dells were all purchased in 2015 so are ~3 years into their 5 year pro support.
We've had to call dell once - for a cracked body (which, tbh, I'm assuming was user damage). We've had to take 5 trips to the local apple store (3 machines once, 1 twice).
During our previous cycle on the apple side of things, when everyone had 2012-2013 machines, we had one repair across the whole lot.
As I said, completely anecdotal, and excluding the 2015 from this, we are currently on a 40% "warranty failure" rate after 2 years, compared to the previous generation which was 9% after 3-4 years.
The failures we've had:
Machine 1: SSD
Machine 2: dGPU
Machine 3: Keyboard
Machine 4: Keyboard, Display
Don't get me wrong here - these machines get used 7-8 hours a day, every day, but the failure rate compared to the previous generation is noticeably higher.
My personal opinion and I could be off base, but starting in 2016, there seems to be a move by apple for cost cutting. I know many people will disagree and that's fine, but my 2012 MBP was the best laptop I ever owned. When I bought the 2018 model, it lacked that solid feeling particularly with the keyboard.
I didn't think my 2018 MBP would last 3 years in all honesty and based on my unscientific approach, it seems many people are dealing with keyboard issues from 2016 and 17, and we're seeing an uptick in complaints in 2018. Like I said, this is my opinion but Apple seemed to change from focusing on building insanely great products to focusing on the bottom line and cutting costs.
I don't know what the future holds, but my Thinkpad feels solid, its faster then the MBP, the keyboard is light years ahead of the butterfly keyboard, while only being .13" thicker. That keyboard by the way is spill proof and while I don't eat/drink near my laptop accidents do happen.
Right out of the box and if there is an issue it goes back while others keep it and try to get it repaired and that is perplexing to me. Why go through the hassle in keeping it and trying to get it repaired?
I also find this perplexing, but maybe they were trained by the warnings manufacturers like to place in boxes telling them to call for a warranty repair instead of returning the item to the store? I've never followed those as that request is all about lower costs for the manufacturer and not the consumer.
Warranty is for when you encounter an issue after the return policy has ended. Before then and you should just swap it out for another or a refund. Full stop.
This wouldn't matter if these items came with a "full warranty", but nothing does and they always come with "limited warranties" which afford you less rights than the return policy does.
Another thing I do when I experience an issue with a device during a return window is be sure that the retailer does a full refund and I purchase the item again to ensure I have no issues with my return window being extended. That way you're doing dealing with an annoyance where you get it swapped on day 12 of a 14 day policy and notice an issue on day 16 with the replacement and they refuse your return of the replacement.
You do not seem to be listening! Most are very happy with their MBPro units but you insist we should not be?
The only brand new machines they cover are "seconds" and outliners from various companies. An example would be items that didn't sell well for various reasons and companies sell them wholesale to various resellers and refurbs. These resellers then have contracts with Square Trade in order to be able to provide warranty service to their customers. And Netbook? Most of the were of the "cheap pc" variety that is not even worth mentioning. Square Trade has nothing to do with first run top of the line machines put out by top manufactures. I actually use Square Trade because I buy all my Macs from resellers (refuse to throw my money at any of their recent machines). They offer a nice two year warranty at a reasonable price. Again a new machine bought from a top company should last at least six to ten years. And unfortunately Apple fails in this regard often.
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So in other words, according to your beliefs the systems are a ticking time bomb that you expect to fail, but you then resell it to some poor unsuspecting soul. Do you tell them that you expect it to fail unless they get lucky?
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I'm unhappy with my sticky butterfly keyboard too. I've bought and returned a Windows laptop, trying to find something better. Here's my question for you more-experienced cross-platform people:
If I find a Windows laptop I'm happy with, what do I do about service, since I can't go to the nationwide network of Apple stores? Do Windows laptop users primarily mail in their failed devices and keep a spare on hand in the interim? (Let's assume for this question that everyone, both Mac and PC, is backing up regularly). Thanks.
If I find a Windows laptop I'm happy with, what do I do about service, since I can't go to the nationwide network of Apple stores? Do Windows laptop users primarily mail in their failed devices and keep a spare on hand in the interim? (Let's assume for this question that everyone, both Mac and PC, is backing up regularly). Thanks.
Frankly, I think having Windows 10 is a bigger flaw than any of the hardware issues that some people experience on their MBPs. And that flaw occurs 100% of the time.
That seems a bit dramatic. Windows 10 has worked flawlessly for me, something I can't say of any of the recent macOS releases.
I like Windows 10 as well. Have had no issues with it. I switch back and forth between them daily, don't really love or hate one any more than the other. They both do the job and mostly get out of the way.
Seems like that should be what the OS does -- provide a solid platform upon which to use your software and otherwise be out of your way.
At the moment, I happen to find Windows to be more responsive than macOS and overall a better experience (once set up the way I like it). Not crazy about their telemetry/privacy direction, though. Linux is also a great bet these days provided the software you need/want is available.