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Hinge Cracked :(
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Man, I'm all up for helping and supporting people especially if something is actually a manufacturer's defect but I asked you earlier to explain what happened to the corner of your Air because it was dented and you said you NEVER dropped it. Now you say you did while back. If you're gonna lie don't come here for help. That just takes the cake.
I'm sorry, but the light aluminum colour of the dent/scratch marks tell me that the "drop" was pretty recent. Aluminum oxide looks darker. Add to that the dust that collects over the 1 year period, which you claim is when you dropped it. There's too many lies for us to believe your side of the story. You are also placing fraudulent advertisement on your eBay listing because Apple Care is voided after the drop.
What the heck are you talking about?!?! That's not my ebay listing, that was sold a month ago by someone in Australia! Look at it again.
The drop in my opinion wasn't related to the hinge falling apart. I dropped it (literally no more than several inches hitting a laptop soft case of all things) and it mildly dented, but everything was fine, including the hinge. For the laptop to be dented after hitting a SOFT surface on a light fall is pretty remarkable, but it was only cosmetic at the time, and was too noticeable, and I guess eventually became an aftethought.
In reference to "dropping" the laptop, I don't think a minor fall would cause the hinge to come apart over half a year after the fact. I don't see them as being causal, unless it helped the hinge to deteroiate, which could be possible. The light fall has been a faded memory since it hasn't affected the quality of the laptop at all in the past several months. The hinge problem has only started recently, with the screen starting to sink it slightly and eventually start scraping the corner of the macbook, and finally the crack of the hinge.
There have been some black remenants I've brushed off a few times (which could be aluminum oxide?).
Again, some of you are trying to make me look like I'm blaming Apple and demanding they fix it, which I'm not, although I do think the hinge would have cracked regardless of whether I dropped it months ago. I didn't try to scam apple, and told them what happened, and they said that a small fall even months ago is enough to break the hinges months or years later, which although I have trouble believing, but I'll accept.
EDIT: And to defend the Aussie listing, he does say it comes with Apple Care, but Apple Care won't cover the damage.
On a seperate note, would it be theoretically possible to have someone who knows what they're doing to replace the hinges WITHOUT removing the screen? That would save resources and money, but would be tricky if it's even possible.
You don't need to defend yourself from anyone. When people don't read it's not your fault.
I think your MBA should be covered. I think anyone that bought a rev A MBA should be able to trade it for a rev B straight across for the aggravation and problems too. Forget a cosmetic dent, Apple was liable for selling you that problematic piece of crap that cannot even play video. In addition, MANY rev A MBAs have broken hinges that are not the fault of the owners. This is Apple not accepting its responsibility.
I would try again... tell them the dent was cosmetic and had nothing to do with the hinge. Tell them how worthless it has been and will not even play videos without stuttering.
At the same time, you probably will come out ok with selling it on eBay or Craig's List if you prefer a MB anyways.
Good luck selling it and getting whatever Mac you want.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/495259/
Post 121
Never dropped nor dented my MBA, hinge simply broke. Apple said it was my fault due to opening the screen too far which of course wasn't the issue. I recommended that they acknowledge the fault with Rev. A. They have taken it and am now waiting. :-(
Post 121
Never dropped nor dented my MBA, hinge simply broke. Apple said it was my fault due to opening the screen too far which of course wasn't the issue. I recommended that they acknowledge the fault with Rev. A. They have taken it and am now waiting. :-(
An amazing turn of events.
Turned out I bought accidental electronic insurance, which covers accidental damage done to laptops, including dropping it.
Looks like I be selling it for a little extra and getting that unibody macbook.
Turned out I bought accidental electronic insurance, which covers accidental damage done to laptops, including dropping it.
Looks like I be selling it for a little extra and getting that unibody macbook.
An amazing turn of events.
Turned out I bought accidental electronic insurance, which covers accidental damage done to laptops, including dropping it.
Looks like I be selling it for a little extra and getting that unibody macbook.
Great news. Congrats. Was that issued with the credit card you paid with? Or how did you get that? I would like that for my next MBA...
My college offers it thru Haylor, Freyer & Coon
The $95 deductible will cover the $800 expense. Would have also covered the laptop completely if it was destroyed or stolen.
Now I just have to get an estimate from the Apple Store, fax the documents over, and my nightmare is over. The laptop falling down last year, and Apple blaming the light fall rather than a naturally faulty hinge has actually kind saved me in the end.
I'm waiting for them to get back this week, in the mean time however I took the pieces of metal which fell out to a solderer to determine the cause and I have now received a response that the small metal casing covering a cylinder inside the hinge appears to have fatigued and snapped. Metal fatigue seems to be the problem. Funnily enough this doesn't seem to be the case on Rev B. Apple must know about this. Even the Rev A model on display in the Service Provider has a loose hinge which I also pointed out.....
I just need my computer working again :-(
I'm making no comment about this *particular* case, other than that it's hardly unique. I'm afraid Apple's attitude toward avoiding admitting faults and finding excuses to avoid service is why I've recently left Apple and do not see any likelihood of going back.
I had a 3 month old Rev B Air which was in absolutely perfect cosmetic condition and had been looked after very carefully. It *was* dropped (slightly, in a case) when it was a week old which did a *tiny* amount of cosmetic damage to the screen edge as far away from the hinge as possible), but I paid huge amounts of money to have the screen replaced on the express condition that I was doing this in order to ensure that everything was still under warranty, i.e. that they wouldn't refer any *future* problem to the drop. There was no problem with this.
However, they actually made it much worse with the repair. They bent the bottom plate of the laptop, and after they repaired it the screws in the baseplate never tightened properly again, though I didn't notice these things immediately I took it back into the store a couple of days after I got it back. The manager agreed that since I couldn't afford to be without the computer at that time, I could bring it in in future. Alas the 'genius' bar know better (the same genius bar that has told me so much blatantly incorrect information over the past few months I've given up expecting them to know anything). Also, in the ensuing couple of months it rapidly developed wobble/play in the hinge that was not present prior to the repair (even after the drop, which did not in any case distort the case or hinges at all anyway).
Suffice to say that damage *they* caused required immense amounts of patient and polite argument on my part to get them to even look at it. They were astonishingly patronising and kept saying that I caused all of this when I dropped it, despite none of these problems existing AFTER I dropped it when they took it in (I still have the repair authorisation sheets with the details).
Finally, as the hinge got worse and worse, such that it was unusable on a train due to the wobbling, they turned round and said that they wouldn't fix it because this was normal, and it was intended to be like that. Their justification for this was that the one single Air they had on display was also like this - which indeed it was (this is a bad sign too!), with lines on screen (which they denied point blank was an issue for anyone - do they seriously expect us to believe *That* is a rare issue???? they seem to have a policy of denying anything that is written about in forums, no matter how extensively, or the fact that I was standing in the shop *pointing* at it) and loose fitting screws. They literally claimed that ALL Airs are like this from the word go because that's how they're designed. They were in no way interested in the utter illogicality of their position, given that many people have Airs that *aren't* like that, and my own was not like that when I bought it. They just said I was wrong about that.
Funnily enough, I was not satisfied with this service, particularly on four figures laptop with applecare.
On the day I went into the store it was my intention to buy an iphone, as it was I paid for repair, sold the Air, bought something else non-Apple and a non-Apple smartphone, and a Sony S series mp3 player (which comes with fantastic headphones and sounds superb, even if its interface doesn't have *quite* the finesse of the nano). At this point I am so disillusioned I can't actually think of anything that would make me feel like I wasn't just setting myself up to be shafted if I bought another Apple product. I have been an Apple customer for a very long time and have often defended them against other people complaining. I'd bought 4 apple laptops in the past year alone, and around 20 in total, plus two desktops, for various people and purposes, and a total of 6 ipods, plus two printers, a scanner, several copies of Office etc, almost all from Apple stores. They don't care. In my experience if they can possibly find an excuse to not give you service (once it's out of the two week replacement/return opportunity) they will. And let's not mention the lines, or the creaking trackpad. I bought an Air because I wasn't happy with the build quality of my previous plastic macbooks and because I can't abide the mirror screens on the new ones. I was quite prepared to pay a premium, and would have also upgraded as soon as a Nehalem/4GB version came out. It was, frankly, a beautiful laptop - I still adore its design, I still like OS X, but after 3 months it felt like it wouldn't even last a year, and it was the only remaining Apple computer I wanted.
This may of course vary hugely by the Apple Store, but that's not much comfort - if you spend that kind of money on a computer, you need to be able to trust it and the service that comes with it. Given my own experience watching it seemingly fall apart in front of my eyes, and reading about these cracked hinges, and listening to the distraught man next to me at the genius bar with his week-old iPhone that had stopped working that he insisted hadn't been near water (there are enough of these people that even if some are trying it on, some must be telling the truth!), and having recently watched my friend send in her macbook for the eighth time for random overheating and shutdowns and they won't replace it, it all just turned sour. It's not that I necessarily assume the customer service *Will* be better elsewhere (though there's a very good chance - it could hardly be worse) but if my new Toshiba laptop (which is lighter than a MacBook, though of course can't keep up with the Air's weight, but has a nicer screen than either, plus e-sata, firewire, 3 usb ports, HDMI, etc) does have a problem, it was £500 so I won't care half as much and there are plenty of other companies to move to.
If anyone wants to call me a troll, that's fine. I really don't care. I'm not a troll. I'm simply reporting my experience. I'm very saddened by the whole thing on my own behalf. For everyone else that buys and is happy with Apple stuff, and for all the (many people, judging from surveys) who get good service, great - enjoy
I also, very much, hope that Apple continue to make nice products and do well, but I struggle to see how I could ever have sufficient confidence to buy from them again.And I do think this kind of experience deserves reporting.
And yes, I did make a complaint (entirely polite, reasonable etc) several weeks ago. They haven't even bothered to reply.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but I have a feeling most of the problems are from people who try to push the screen back further than it's designed to go.
I've got a macbook air. Several times people who've I let use it have initially pushed the screen back and pressed, expecting it to go further back than it does. I'm convinced that doing that on a regular basis would certainly break the hinge. It's resisiting there for a reason - because that's as far back as it's designed to go. But I've seen a heck of a lot of people who are not very gentle, either with my own, or their own laptop screens.
Just my 2 cents.
Also, I've made a habit of only lifting the screen up from the center. When you grab a corner of the screen to open it up, that's putting a lot of torgue on the hinge.
All I'm saying is, just because it's a 24-hundred dollar laptop doesn't mean it's indestructible. In fact, because of that, I handle mine with particular care. I've done that with all my Apple laptops I've had over the years (probably a dozen or more) and never once have I had a hinge problem.
I've got a macbook air. Several times people who've I let use it have initially pushed the screen back and pressed, expecting it to go further back than it does. I'm convinced that doing that on a regular basis would certainly break the hinge. It's resisiting there for a reason - because that's as far back as it's designed to go. But I've seen a heck of a lot of people who are not very gentle, either with my own, or their own laptop screens.
Just my 2 cents.
Also, I've made a habit of only lifting the screen up from the center. When you grab a corner of the screen to open it up, that's putting a lot of torgue on the hinge.
All I'm saying is, just because it's a 24-hundred dollar laptop doesn't mean it's indestructible. In fact, because of that, I handle mine with particular care. I've done that with all my Apple laptops I've had over the years (probably a dozen or more) and never once have I had a hinge problem.
I'm not sure if that could be the only reason why this machine would break... The hundreds of people including myself using Rev A and opening it too far whereas no reported issues with Rev B. So the masses who bought the second model know how to open and close the display correctly? Without a doubt there are careless people and there are not so careless but I think there are many people who don't see their MBA as 'indestrucible' and have looked after theirs well with more care than a regular laptop due to its fragility only to be told that it's their fault for opening it too far.
This might be the case however it should be resilient enough to withstand people pushing back the screen with a bit of force pass the locking point. It's not usable if that's fragile.
'past the locking point'!
The reeason it's' resisting there is that the metal on the bottom of the hinge is pressing against something else (also metal). So, if you push it 'past' that, it only stands to reason that something's got to give - metal will be bent or the hinge will crack.
What if you 'open' a car door past it's 'locking point'? Do you think that should cause no damage to the car door hinge?
Seriously, that's the kind of thinking that is odd to me.
As far as the question of why the rev A's seem to have the problem, it's again my guess that the breaking of the hinge is a cumulative effect from repeatedly putting too much pressure on the screen once it's already at it's stopping point. Over time, the people who are abusing the hinge on their rev. B's will start to have the problem in large numbers as well.
If almost every time you open your laptop you're jerking the screen back hard until it stops, over time I would think that would damage the hinge.
And I don't think that could be called a 'design' flaw. That would be called using a finely crafted piece of equiptment too roughly.
I mean honestly people, look at the damage in the pictures from the first post. Look at how that metal is bent and scratched. So we're saying that he was handling his laptop with proper care and that just 'happened'? Please...
I don't think people are pushing their screens back until it can't budge any further. Even if the do, they're still using the angle Apple allowed them to view their screen with when they bought the device. If it's caused by the angle of the screen then apple should change how far they let you tilt the screen back on future models. A hinge should not crack on a $1600-2500 laptop simply by tilting the screen back over 90 degrees.
I think most macbook air users are very careful and see the Air as an investment.
I don't think you'll do any damage gently pressing your screen back until there's resistance. And where it stops is the viewing angle Apple allotted for.
But I've seen a lot of people who open their laptops and JERK the screen back with a fair amount of force. If you consider how much force the typical human adult can exert (60 pounds of pressure) and then consider the multiplying effect of torque compared to the size of the hinge ... I would think it would be easy to break any hinge on ANY laptop without much serious effort.
All I'm saying is, treat it like a fine instrument (which it is), and don't yank it around like it's a tool from the shed, and it probably won't break.
Probably won't break isn't the same as "never." It's unfair to blame owners for problems which can happen because their model has a defect or weakness. Many people have had their hinges break, I don't think they're all exerting pressure on their screens. I think Air owners realize the limit of their screen tilt...just because our friends don't realize the limits of the screen tilt doesn't mean Air owners are stupid enough to exert pressure time after time.
I'm not blaming anyone specifically, but in GENERAL, watching people use their laptops over the past 15 years, in countless airports and coffee shops, along with some friends and co-workers, I would say that there's a LOT of people who treat their laptops too roughly. More roughly than I have ever treated mine. Is the MacBook air more delicate than your average Dell? Probably so, after all ... it is rather thin and light. That fact, along with how much I spent on it, makes me inclined to baby it a bit and NOT thrash it around like a 500 dollar Dell.