Hi, I‘ve owned two MacBook Pros.
My 2009 MBP was a bear and lasted over a decade with one battery upgrade, and some ram and a ssd added along the way. It survived my kids using it and abusing it. Ultimate cause of death on autopsy was a broken display hinge from my youngest opening it too forcefully—at this point, it was so old, repair wasn’t worth the cost.
My most recent purchase was a MBP 14 inch which I purchased in November 2021. It’s a beautiful little laptop which I’ve adored and treated with great care (my kids are now all grown up and have their own computers). It’s left the house twice in its young life and is only fed electricity, never my beverages or my leftover food. Despite being babied, the display on my MBP stopped working, with my laptop
only 14 months old. Diagnosis, display or logic board failure according to the Apple Authorized Repair store pathologist.
Fast forward to a recent phone call with Apple Service— rep tells me my MBP can be resurrected for the princely sum of $1,200. Apple Care? Nope, didn’t have it. Apple has a reputation for selling a high quality, dependable product and the reputation fit with my experience as an Apple user over the past 20 years. In practice, I avoid products that due to low quality require an extended warrant— Apple in the past was never one of those companies but apparently now they are. Apple Service wasn’t willing to budge on the repair fee (I think they should fix it for free as this is a manufacturing hardware defect). I have purchase protection on my credit card which will ultimately make me whole if Apple doesn’t, but this one is on Apple I believe. I sent a letter to the office of Tim Cook asking for a review of my situation and hope to hear back with favourable news from Apple. Barring that, this will be my last Apple purchase as the quality on the purchase of this premium product has disappointed.
Short answer— not reliable in my experience.
