What Would You Do?

[RubberShoes]

Hi guys (and gals),

I'm in a bit of a predicament, so as always I turn to you wonderful people in search of answers.

I spent $1500 on a 13" MBP in 2009 for college. It was a great machine for 4 years and as I moved onto more powerful machines for film editing and graphics work, I could always count on it for its reliability, great keyboard and portability.

Then this July it decided to die. Hard. A failed logic board due to "moisture" (yet nothing was ever spilled on it) and a $750 repair cost is not even remotely rational for a 2.53GHz Core2 with Nvidia's 9400m. (3rd party also looked at it and determined the same fate)

I have a great 4.5GHz Hackintosh with 24GB of RAM and 6TB of storage at home. It's pretty obvious the thing handles everything I could ask from a machine...

..except portability.

Now that I live in NYC I have so many places to work and I have nothing to work on. My aging iPad2 really doesn't cut it haha.

But I'm not looking for something powerful either. I'm mostly writing, web browsing and VPNing into work or home. I think an air fits this lifestyle perfectly, except I really don't think this is a good time to buy an air.

Haswell, while great, is going to be trumped by Broadwell's power consumption vs. performance next year. The screen on the 11" is pretty sub par and the 13" is pretty great until you glance at the rMBP.

I just can't justify spending the money on a new Air when new designs, Broadwell chips, 12" retina rumors and a slew of other improvements seem to be just on the horizon.

However, I can see myself spending a couple hundred on a used Air in this transitional period. I like the idea of all day battery life, but let's be real I'm that hipster in the cafe with a power brick so it's not a necessary feature. My Hackintosh has all the USB3 and Thundebolt ports I need, and I just want the OS X environment with a great keyboard and even better trackpad.

So what do you think? What would you do in my situation?

 

[brdeveloper]

Well... you could try the following:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/13-MACBOOK-...702?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a80008076

 

[mynameis321]

How on earth did it die of moisture if u had spilled no water on it?

That's scary

 

[DisplacedMic]

How on earth did it die of moisture if u had spilled no water on it?

That's scary

it likely didn't. those moisture sensors are notorious for false positives...humidity can set them off too so people who bring their laptop into places that are super humid (which isn't a great idea anyway) might get "caught"

what's more likely if he really and truly got no liquid in there is that something else killed the LB and since the water-sensors are active that's what's getting blamed.

 

[ritmomundo]

How on earth did it die of moisture if u had spilled no water on it?

That's scary

I know someone who had a similar problem. He used to take his laptop into the bathroom to play music while he took his hour-long hot showers.

----------

So what do you think? What would you do in my situation?

I would buy a new 11" Air (or 13" if thats your pref) and forget about the 12" rumors. There will always be something better worth waiting for "on the horizon" or "just around the corner." But you need something today. The Haswell MBA is a fantastic piece of technology.

 

[Mrbobb]

If all you have is a couple of hundreds to spend, sounds like that motherboard repair thing is your thing.

 

[bubbleboyjones]

But I'm not looking for something powerful either. I'm mostly writing, web browsing and VPNing into work or home. I think an air fits this lifestyle perfectly, except I really don't think this is a good time to buy an air.

Haswell, while great, is going to be trumped by Broadwell's power consumption vs. performance next year. The screen on the 11" is pretty sub par and the 13" is pretty great until you glance at the rMBP.

I just can't justify spending the money on a new Air when new designs, Broadwell chips, 12" retina rumors and a slew of other improvements seem to be just on the horizon.



So what do you think? What would you do in my situation?

I think a 13" MBA is an an easy choice unless you don't have issues with the 13" rMBP display(some people say ghosting issues)

 

[RubberShoes]

I was a college kid for 4 years. I can't begin to tell you the things that machine was around haha the fact that it ran smoothly for all four years makes me pretty happy, but I'm not terribly surprised something got the best of it.

I took the whole thing apart and looked at the board. There is some discoloration on a couple of the chips/connections compared to the nearby chips and connections above it. One of the ribbon cables also had a spot on it like mold or something.

I'm over the whole logic board failure and sold it for $200 today. So now I have $200 towards a new machine, and I'm eying either a refurbished MBA or a potential deal on a Ivy Bridge 13" rMBP. Considering there seem to be a flock of sales now that they announced the much better ones.

I'm in a tight spot because I don't need a MacBook. I could probably get away with a netbook for all intensive purposes. So it's difficult to justify $1000 on a new machine when I only spent $1100 on my Hackintosh Mac Pro.

Any good deals on MBA's? MacMall seems to have some good ideas, think with the new models today they'll for some reason drop their Air's prices even further? Craigslist is great and I've found some things on there, but I'm slightly hesitant considering I now know MacBook's are not quite the tanks I thought they were