Why I want to sell my MacBook and never look back.

[Primejimbo]

To be honest this whole PC vs Mac thing is so lame. Seriously, what is this? War of the nerds? They both have good things about them. Hating one side just because you don't like the image/style of how a company depicts themselves (marketing) is totally superficial/empty (which IMHO is why a lot of people don't like Apple - think its too smug and 'cool')

I agree, go with what you like. I got sick of MS and decided to try something different so I went with Mac. So far I like it a lot and I am happy with what I got. I just hope my palm rest doesn't start to crack. I got mine in July and a part of me wish I waited til the new Macbooks came out, but I do like this styling.
I don't think mosx is being annoying. He's just saying what he knows and his opinions.

 

[Eidorian]

I'm in my local Apple Store. Wish me luck on getting my cracked case fixed.

 

[marbles]

I'm in my local Apple Store. Wish me luck on getting my cracked case fixed.

Ah.....it should be a forgone conclusion , but good luck all the same .

 

[CrimsonTider]

I have never had a problem with any piece of Apple hardware that they have not covered, you say that you baby the thing but really, none of us know how you truly treat the machine. I mean I could be wrong you might truly baby the thing but I kinda side with Apple when it comes to not wanting to replace the plastics. If you think Dell will solve all your problems go for it but you will have to deal with the biggest problem of all, Windows Vista.

Im really sick of these threads, if you dont like your Mac or you think Apple is screwing you I really could care less and the only reason that Im posting this now is to make that clear. You want to go gripe about how bad Apple is go to dellrumors.com.

This is a ridiculous post. The guy spent $1500 which was obiously hard to come up with and this is the product he got. I would be ticked off as well. Especially with the "service" he has gotten. If he would have bought the $800 spec'd machine he mentioned and they would have done nothing with the same problems, he could have bought another one and basically have a brand new laptop what essentially having spent the same amount.

I totally understand his frustration. I also am on the fence and waiting to see what the Macbooks are going to have in them. I have never owned a laptop but I have been in the market for several months but have waited for the updates. I also struggle with the fact that they are several hundred $ more that similar spec'd products.

I did the same thing with the iPhone. I spent $500(not elgible for upgrade) and it has crashed, dropped way more calls than all my previous phones, and have had apps crashing the whole time. I stood in line to make sure I got one the day they came out. I have done all of the updates the day they came out but still have problems.

My final opinion after researching and spending lots of time over the last 6 months is that there is not a "premium" computer manufacture or software compare or digital music player than others. There are some bad ones to stay away from but their is several good to very good models normally from several companies. Technology constantly changes so quickly so even if you bought a product last Christmas there is already an updated or soon to be updated model that is probably lower with more features out or soon to be out.

With all of that being said, it looks as though when I do buy a laptop that I have it for roughly two years. Whether a superior product comes out to replace it or it breaks down.

 

[Eidorian]

Ah.....it should be a forgone conclusion , but good luck all the same .

They called back into the shop to see if anyone would take an upper case replacement. They said it'd take 90 minutes but I was called back in 38.

I have a new keyboard and upper case now! Luckily I was going to that side of town to meet a friend anyways.

 

[mosx]

Adium has service icons to differentiate which contacts are on which services. As for your other complaints, I see them as non-issues.

How are they non-issues? Everything I've described, including the non-mashing of buddy lists, has been in Windows multi-messengers for years before Adium was even being thought of.

I think Adium is just another classic example of a Mac OS app that tries to be as good as Windows apps but is still several generations behind.

But that is not going to make me go back to Vista because the graphics in Windows is ugly. I suppose looks matter and Windows has some work going for it before it catches up with the Mac.

Vista looks considerably better than OS X. At least in Vista you can change the colors and you're not stuck with a depressing gray.

and if apple uses integrated discreet graphics =) i would be super happy!
seriously i would settle for anything BUT intel IGP's. An ATI or Nvidia chipset would be nice!

That would be nice. ATI/AMD's Radeon 3200 chipset is a great chipset. Outperforms the X4500 by miles and has all of the same advanced video features of their dedicated cards, unlike the X4500 which only has basic decoding features.

But I doubt we'll see Apple use it. After all, it probably costs $2 more to put that into the MacBook over the Intel chipset! Can't have Apple's profit margins being hurt that much!

My palmrest just start cracking today.

Thats one thing that hasn't happened to me yet. I'm sure it will at some point in the future. And I'll most certainly take Apple to court if they refuse to fix it out of warranty. It's a clear design flaw.

To the mods:
You should ban mosx he's nothing but annoyance.

Yes! Ban the person who owns a MacBook and points out all the flaws with Apple! We don't need to hear that Apple is far from perfect and really doesn't care about us after all!

I don't think mosx is being annoying. He's just saying what he knows and his opinions.

Thank you

If he would have bought the $800 spec'd machine he mentioned and they would have done nothing with the same problems, he could have bought another one and basically have a brand new laptop what essentially having spent the same amount.

Except those $800 Dells, HPs, and Gateways don't use materials that can crack like the MacBook

But you're right. If the OP had bought a cheaper notebook and had issues, and in the unlikely event that the company did try to weasel they're way out of honoring the warranty or manufacturing defects, like Apple is known to do, he could have bought another.

I totally understand his frustration. I also am on the fence and waiting to see what the Macbooks are going to have in them. I have never owned a laptop but I have been in the market for several months but have waited for the updates. I also struggle with the fact that they are several hundred $ more that similar spec'd products.

If you're willing to spend the money on a Mac, you should look at other options. $1299 (seriously) at HP will get you a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 1680x1050 screen, blu-ray, GeForce 9600M GT, 250GB HDD, 2GB of RAM, and a lot of other nice little things, like fingerprint reader, memory card reader, HDMI output, full size ExpressCard, etc. Take out blu-ray and all of that will cost $1099. Seriously. $1099 gets you a system with a better screen and significantly more powerful GPU than the MacBook Pro costing $900 more. Without blu-ray, for $1199 you can get a built-in HDTV tuner.

I did the same thing with the iPhone. I spent $500(not elgible for upgrade) and it has crashed, dropped way more calls than all my previous phones, and have had apps crashing the whole time. I stood in line to make sure I got one the day they came out. I have done all of the updates the day they came out but still have problems.

Ouch. Did you take it back? My iPhone (original 4GB) has been that way since 2.0. 1.1.4 was relatively stable, just Safari liked to crash daily sometimes multiple times. But even 2.1 is so unstable that I have to reboot the iPhone at least once every other day.

The experience with OS X is only marginally better.

With all of that being said, it looks as though when I do buy a laptop that I have it for roughly two years. Whether a superior product comes out to replace it or it breaks down.

HP, Dell, and others have the option for 3 and 4 year warranties WITH accidental damage. Dell even offers on-site support for consumers, while HP offers 4 years of accidental damage coverage.

 

[tkermit]

[not quoted to save space]

I can see that you don't like a lot of the things that set OS X apart from Windows, so it's only reasonable that you would want to and probably should switch back. If you honestly believe that Vista looks better, is easier to use and got more attention to details, then you've found your system. You should realize that a lot of what you don't like about OS X, others enjoy (dock/exposé/time machine/quick look/central menu bar/theme with subdued colors/selectively displaying only important options...), so don't assume because of your experience you're doing everyone a favor by telling them that OS X is nothing but hype and shouldn't be regarded as an honest alternative to Windows.

I find that performance differences between OS X and Windows have come down to a small enough amount to disregard them. It's just gotten less important.

I actually think the Flash 10 beta now does use hardware acceleration for videos on OS X, though. It's still a POS on OS X , personally I'm rooting for Flash's future demise.

I didn't, by the way, claim that you must experience flickering, too. But as you can read right from the horse's mouth following the link I posted, not everything in Vista is hardware accelerated and there is still a possibility of flickering windows when resizing - which I only bring up because it means that I didn't necessarily "[do] something wrong" as you said.

As an aside: I am one of the people who are actually aware of a lot of the technological advances that Vista brings with it and from experience I can say that it isn't crash-prone at all for me(I don't think OS X is, either, though, which you did claim). And they didn't just spend "some" money making it look and function good, they spent an awful hell of a lot of money and time, and conducted tons of user research, and personally I still don't enjoy the end result. I'm glad you do, though, and I'm sure a lot of others do.Like you said: it's good that there's competition out there.

 

[Dybbuk]

Exactly. The OP got a lemon. It happens and it really is a shame. I'm sorry Apple seems to be unresponsive, though it sounds to me as if they've done quite a bit. To the OP- is there anything you've liked about your Mac?

For the most part, I do like the Mac. I just think the build quality of the MacBooks is really poor. Aside from all the cracks and breaks I've had, the screen bevel is lumpy and uneven, the case appears to lift in some parts and the left side of the MacBook flexes an absurd amount. The thing feels like it was glue-gunned together by a child.

OS X is great, though.

 

[Dybbuk]

They called back into the shop to see if anyone would take an upper case replacement. They said it'd take 90 minutes but I was called back in 38.

I have a new keyboard and upper case now! Luckily I was going to that side of town to meet a friend anyways.

Congrats on getting it taken care of

 

[crogue5]

I have had my macbook since feb 2008 and i love it. I have had no problems with it. Although i did buy a plastic outer-shell for it, a keyboard cover (iSkin) for when i am out and about and a wireless bluetooth keyboard for when i am at home so i dont mess up the palm spot with my dirty hands.... i am beyond happy with this laptop and i would buy more if i could afford them.

So i am sorry to hear about your problems, but i still think macs are better than any other computer/maker out there at this point.

 

[lamadude]

For the most part, I do like the Mac. I just think the build quality of the MacBooks is really poor. Aside from all the cracks and breaks I've had, the screen bevel is lumpy and uneven, the case appears to lift in some parts and the left side of the MacBook flexes an absurd amount. The thing feels like it was glue-gunned together by a child.

OS X is great, though.

I agree, I bought my macbook 1,5 years ago. I've had the cracked palm rests, and my charger started to only charge every 5 seconds or so, which made my battery lose all capacity. Also my hard drive crashed, the last back-up was a week before so I still lost quite some work. All this happened literally days after my 1 year warranty had passed. I always kept my macbook in a protective case and never had any problems with my pc laptop.

Apple replaced the palm rests because under Belgian law you have to give at least 2 years of warranty on consumer products, but it took me weeks to convince them of that, even showed them a print-out of that law.

I love OSX and I would buy a new macbook because of that, but I can't stand hearing people praise the "amazing" build-quality and service that apple offers anymore.

 

[Dybbuk]

What garbage and stupid software? My HP only shipped with a Norton trial. By contrast, my MacBook shipped with Big Bang Board Games, iWork trial, Office trial. Thats 3x as much trialware on the Mac as on the HP

big bang boardgames saved my life while i was waiting for my internet to be hooked up

i'm a connect-4 fiend

 

[Vulcan]

For the most part, I do like the Mac. I just think the build quality of the MacBooks is really poor. Aside from all the cracks and breaks I've had, the screen bevel is lumpy and uneven, the case appears to lift in some parts and the left side of the MacBook flexes an absurd amount. The thing feels like it was glue-gunned together by a child.

OS X is great, though.

While I love my MacBook and OS X, the build quality of the machine isn't the greatest. I don't have any cracks yet, but the just about all MacBook's have their screen misalign. If you close it on one side instead of the other too much (only using the left/right side of the screen when closing the lid) it will squeak when you close it. I had both on my first MacBook, got an no-questions exchange, after the first two weeks this became misaligned and I just figure I'll live with it, it's only a mm off.

The screen is extremely thin and honestly feels it can be bent like a piece of cardboard. Okay, it isn't that bad, and most people won't be bending their screens, but I assumed it was to decrease thickness and weight on the machine.

Now don't get my wrong, the current MacBook looks beautiful. MacBooks and Pros are incomparable because they both look so wonderful in their unique ways, but the build quality on both has really went down since the iBook/PowerBook transition.

 

[kabunaru]

MacBooks and Pros are incomparable because they both look so wonderful in their unique ways, but the build quality on both has really went down since the iBook/PowerBook transition.

What do you think caused the degrade in build quality since the transition to Intel?

 

[Vulcan]

What do you think caused the degrade in build quality since the transition to Intel?

I stink at identifying rhetorical questions, so if yours is, sorry

iBooks and PowerBooks were both thicker than the MacBook/Pro and allowed more room for extra metals, etc. To save money and earn Apple's 30% profits, they most likely got cheaper stuff to save cash.

 

[kabunaru]

I stink at identifying rhetorical questions, so if yours is, sorry

It is not a rhetorical question. Do not worry.

iBooks and PowerBooks were both thicker than the MacBook/Pro and allowed more room for extra metals, etc.

And that gave more breathing space, thus cooler-running laptops.
Was Apple really that desperate to save money?
Again, it is not a rhetorical question.

 

[Vulcan]

It is not a rhetorical question. Do not worry.



And that gave more breathing space, thus cooler-running laptops.
Was Apple really that desperate to save money?
Again, it is not a rhetorical question.

I phrased it poorly, not necessarily saving money, but much rather earning more money like every company's goal is.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

What do you think caused the degrade in build quality since the transition to Intel?

These issue have all plagued Macs well before the switch to intel. In fact the OP's specific issue has been around since the introduction of the iBook (it's just plastic).

Other issues like the one where the iBooks would stop turning on after a certain amount of boots because of a connection breaking apart and the only fix was either squeezing a certain place of the computer or unit replacement. Or the issues with the liquid cooled G5's cooling system leaks. Or the Cube's over heating issues because of its fanless design. (Over heating has affected many many other apple products, not so much since the intel transition actually)

Need I go on? I think that the build quality has actually increased since the intel transition. The real issue is that there have been many switchers recently since the switch to intel so the number of people using Macs has increased thus the number of problems have increased.

 

[kabunaru]

since the switch to intel so the number of people using Macs has increased thus the number of problems have increased.

Oh, I see now. Thanks for clearing my mind. I thought of it differently (not more people but the Intel chips/thinner designs caused the problems) before this post. Thanks.

 

[puffnstuff]

How long does it take to fix the crack? Sorry if this was mentioned already.

 

[Vulcan]

How long does it take to fix the crack? Sorry if this was mentioned already.

To fix the crack, they replace the entire top case. One poster who has his repaired just today said it took 90 minutes, some people have stated less.

 

[puffnstuff]

To fix the crack, they replace the entire top case. One poster who has his repaired just today said it took 90 minutes, some people have stated less.

Ok thanks I have to take mines in soon! If I put a hardcase on it would it prevent these issues in the future?

 

[Eidorian]

Ok thanks I have to take mines in soon! If I put a hardcase on it would it prevent these issues in the future?

A hard case isn't going to prevent it. In fact I think it might hasten it.

To fix the crack, they replace the entire top case. One poster who has his repaired just today said it took 90 minutes, some people have stated less.

It took 38 minutes from when I left me laptop until I got the call that my laptop was repaired.

I have a friend with an identical laptop that had to have theirs shipped off from the store though. They've been without their laptop for over a week now.

 

[madfresh]

I will admit the quality of apple's products may not be the best, but they still do make amazing products when all the problems are taken care of. I personally never had a problem with any Apple product, so maybe I have been lucky. But what happened with this macbook could have happened with any other laptop from any other company.

 

[DarthTreydor]

jeez, what a troll fest.

so you got a lemon. that sucks. just deal with it. hound apple till you get a replacement. don't come to a message board and complain to everyone who tries to point out something you don't want to hear.