I finally got a new MacBook
I got a new Macbook on Monday, 23rd October. It only took, however:
84 days after I asked for a repair (here); 55 days it returned unrepaired (they didn’t fix it); and 38 days after the man from the Apple Center felt it was neccessary to insult me.
I installed the firmware update as soon as it came out.
October 30th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
My first Macbook suffered from this problem, and furthermore would fail to boot. After reinstalling OSX the problem returned so i sent it back to Apple for repair. 6 weeks later it came back. However the first time i booted the system it crashed and refused to load. You can imagine my dispair. I returned the macbook this time for a replacement, which took another month to build, and when it finally arrived the screen was damaged and the webcam was off centre. So I called them up and arranged a refund - finally! I can not being to put into words how frustrated I have been with Apple. I will never buy another Apple product, they are absolute cowboys.
October 30th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Howdy. I wanted my next PC to be a Mac. Really. My wife is using an old PC laptop (Pentium 400 Mhz) that I have finally decided to upgrade - even to a MacBook. Friends have been gently prodding me for years (at least 8 years) to just buy a Mac and put my PC worries behind me. I didn’t pay them much attention until recently when I thought I could actually go for a Mac. Now this. I’m so Mac-problem clueless that I didn’t know any of this was going on until I read the front of the Austin American-Statesman’s “Tech Monday” page showcasing Matt’s plight.
So, if you were a Mac virgin like me, would you go ahead and buy a Mac in the next 30 days, or would you avoid this headache and go with something that only takes a complete re-install of the OS to get working again?
angry - and I’m not even an owner yet. Promise betrayed, I guess.
– Mike
October 30th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Here’s the link to the Austin American-Statesman article on the MacBooks and Apple’s fading quality.
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/technology/10/30/30apple.html
– Mike
October 30th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Mike,
If you must have a machine now, open the box at the store before you buy it and do the following:
Turn the computer on. Go to the Apple icon at the top left corner and hit “About This Mac.” Click the “More Info” button. A screen will pop up and you will be looking at a hardware overview of that machine. This window also tells you the serial number of that machine. In that serial number, you can see what week in which Apple has manufactured it.
The serial number will begin with “4H6″ and then a series of numbers and letters. Look at the two numbers after the “4H6.” For example, my serial number starts with “4H621.” The numbers “21″ indicates that my macbook was made during week 21 of production.
The point is that you want the newest computer you can find. This would be the best way to try and avoid any 1st generation issues. I think at this point the latest week of production is in the 50’s somewhere. So, try and find a macbook with a serial number that starts with “4H650″ or higher. As for any other machine aside from the macbook, I don’t know when they started making them, so I don’t know what week to look for.
Sooo all that said and done, if you’re not in need of a computer really soon I’d simply wait. Wait until everything is updated to core 2 duo. These will be much faster computers listed at the same price. That and they will be Apple’s 2nd generation of machines, so hopefully they will have more kinks worked out of the hardware.
October 30th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
i have a 13.3″ Macbook i bought from Apple online the first week they came out. random shutdowns started after a month or two. not exactly random, though–it consistently shut down after beiing put to sleep (shutting the cover) and then waking up. then, if i rebooted (holding down the start button for a few seconds till the front light started blinking) it would work fine until i put it to sleep again.
i considered this problem annoying, but not enough to send it in quickly. i finally got around to sending it back last week. they fixed it fast–i sent it in Wednesday and got it back Friday morning. they replaced a whole bunch of stuff–battery assy, heatsink assy, etc. also, one of the keys was falling off, so they replaced the entire keyboard and bezel.
so far, no problems and shutdowns have gone away.
i was impressed with their turnaround time.
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