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My little rant: Selling my MBP.

emac82 said:
I don't think PC manufacturer's solder motherboards, they replace them. I mean it is hard to get them to replace the whole computer with a brand new model.
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As far as I know, it takes three repairs, then the costumer is entitled to a replacement unit. This is the law in Denmark, and manufacturers follow them - because mostly they will end up being charged with it otherwise.

But hey, if Apple chooses simply to replace the macbook pro before three repairs, I'm happy.
 
e12a said:
all of those saying your laptops got over 4 hours of batt life have to realize...
its a Pentium M with ridiculous (in a good way) SpeedStep technology which can underclock dramatically. I used an old T40 with a worn out battery. I got barely one and a half hours...one lecture.

Give me some stats on equivalent (in terms of feature sets) Core 2 Duo/ Core Duo laptops please.
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Well officially the T60 core 2 duo models state the same standby time as the earlier pentium M T4x series. So in relation, it should be the same.

Reality can of course be another matter. I'll try and find some individual tests on the C2D's.
 
Well you tried it and now you're done with it. At least you tried it. I do have to agree, the battery life deal is sub par and if I really needed to be portable then I'd be pissed.
 
Truly, sorry to hear about your story with the MBP.

I too ran into similar problems with my MBP experience.

I first bought one in late November of last year when the C2D versions came out. The FIRST MBP I had (within a month of use), the latch broke on it, the one that kept the lid closed, so it was replaced with another MBP.

This SECOND one, its fan broke and essentially fried the motherboard (according the Apple genius). So it too was replaced.

The THIRD one was great for about 2 weeks, then out of nowhere 4 dead pixels appeared in the middle of the screen! :eek: The Apple store refused to exchange it again, since they already did with 2 others and according to their policy 4 dead pixels wasn't enough for an exchange.

So, I sold that THIRD MBP on Ebay, got some cash out of it and being fed up with Apple, went and bought a Sony lappy. WORST MISTAKE I MADE.

The Sony lappy hardware-wise was fine, not great (the battery slid around in its place), but it was fine. But Vista was just horrendous. Nothing worked as it should. I had so many errors and trouble trying to get software like InDesign, Photoshop, etc to work. And so much trouble using it in class (college), going from one wireless network (at home) to my school's was a pain in the ass, it would always require me to reboot, it was odd. And all the random errors from using the pre-installed software was ridiculous. I can make list of all the errors I got with Vista, but there's not enough room on the internet for that. ;)

So, I returned the Sony and bought my FOURTH MBP and this one I love. I know the keys don't align quite right, and the lid on the bottom covering the RAM sticks out a bit, but I'm willing to live with these flaws over living with error after error with Vista.

OS X truly just works, plain and simple.

PS The Sony laptop's battery life was 1.5 hours. My MBP is almost 4 hours, even your 3.5 hours MBP was better and is better than most other PC 15 incher lappies.
 
barkins said:
PS The Sony laptop's battery life was 1.5 hours. My MBP is almost 4 hours, even your 3.5 hours MBP was better and is better than most other PC 15 incher lappies.
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Exactly. dont compare your 14" Pentium M Thinkpads to a high powered C2D/CD 15"

ive seen the PM underclock to about half its original "plugged in" clock. Went from 1.2GHz to ~600 off battery. I dont think a C2D can make that big of a drop at least on apple laptops.
 
barkins said:
Truly, sorry to hear about your story with the MBP.

I too ran into similar problems with my MBP experience.

I first bought one in late November of last year when the C2D versions came out. The FIRST MBP I had (within a month of use), the latch broke on it, the one that kept the lid closed, so it was replaced with another MBP.

This SECOND one, its fan broke and essentially fried the motherboard (according the Apple genius). So it too was replaced.

The THIRD one was great for about 2 weeks, then out of nowhere 4 dead pixels appeared in the middle of the screen! :eek: The Apple store refused to exchange it again, since they already did with 2 others and according to their policy 4 dead pixels wasn't enough for an exchange.

So, I sold that THIRD MBP on Ebay, got some cash out of it and being fed up with Apple, went and bought a Sony lappy. WORST MISTAKE I MADE.

The Sony lappy hardware-wise was fine, not great (the battery slid around in its place), but it was fine. But Vista was just horrendous. Nothing worked as it should. I had so many errors and trouble trying to get software like InDesign, Photoshop, etc to work. And so much trouble using it in class (college), going from one wireless network (at home) to my school's was a pain in the ass, it would always require me to reboot, it was odd. And all the random errors from using the pre-installed software was ridiculous. I can make list of all the errors I got with Vista, but there's not enough room on the internet for that. ;)

So, I returned the Sony and bought my FOURTH MBP and this one I love. I know the keys don't align quite right, and the lid on the bottom covering the RAM sticks out a bit, but I'm willing to live with these flaws over living with error after error with Vista.

OS X truly just works, plain and simple.

PS The Sony laptop's battery life was 1.5 hours. My MBP is almost 4 hours, even your 3.5 hours MBP was better and is better than most other PC 15 incher lappies.
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That's the thing. There IS better hardware on the PC side (more choice, better build, better GPUs, easier upgrades, more durable, less heat etc etc), BUT what good is good hardware if the software is making you want to pull your hair out??? I used a wonderful thinkpad T40 (I love the hardware, keyboard, size, durability..), but windows XP was terrible and I spent more time troubleshooting ridiculous problems in a few months than I've spent in 12 years as a mac owner. I won't ever try that again, even if the hardware on some PCs is tempting.

Wish Apple would get its act together and produce new laptops that are worthy of the operating system.
 
I really like the look and feel of the new HP 14" notebooks...

What Apple should do is get HP, Toshiba, Sony, etc to start making laptops with OS X on it, so if someone doesn't want an Apple Computer but they still want the OS they have options.
 
emac82 said:
I really like the look and feel of the new HP 14" notebooks...

What Apple should do is get HP, Toshiba, Sony, etc to start making laptops with OS X on it, so if someone doesn't want an Apple Computer but they still want the OS they have options.
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You do understand thats why Macs exist...to run OS X.

If you license it out to other manufacturers, there's no point in buying a "higher priced" mac. That'll destroy the computer sector of Apple.
hypothetical: Its like Microsoft producing their own laptops and have it priced higher than what HP, Dell, Gateway offers with Windows. Microsoft laptops would flop.

if OS X is ever licensed (which is probably never) to third party manufacturers, hands down i am selling my MBP.

and you said it yourself, people would rather buy a third-party laptop with OS X than a Mac.
 
emac82 said:
I really like the look and feel of the new HP 14" notebooks...
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I have seen multiple HP laptops with dead backlights. And their PCMCIA slot is awful! I had to use plies to get my card out of the last one i had my hands on.:mad:

Careful what you wish for.:)
 
I agree with the OP's point about Apple's obsession with thinness. An extra 1/4" wouldn't make any difference to portability and they could use the extra space to improve sturdiness or increase the battery size.
 
Sorry you had such a bad experience! I personally love my MBP. I bought mine refurbished though, so mine was a little less pricey. Good choice with the Lenovo Thinkpad, though. An IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad is the only Windows based laptop I would even consider purchasing now. I've got an old IBM Thinkpad 600E (complete with 300mhz processor, 256mb ram and a 12gb hard drive!) and it runs XP Pro like a champ.
 
I sold mine off a week ago, that lousy piece of **** isn't even worth 3/4 of what Apple is asking for it.

Anyway the grainy screen issues are not logic board related, it is the screen itself. Glossy screens are affected a lot less than matte, and same deal for the 17" when compared to the 15".

You may choose to believe that the 15" have differently designed logic boards but I prefer the more intuitive answer: Apple put in cheap low quality screens.
 
I still love macs and will go back to them again....its in my blood.....but for now I am very happy with my HP touchscreen desktop....and all the things imacs dont offer......
 
I just saw a 15" C2D MacBook Pro (in the flesh for the first time) at Future Shop the other day ... the first thing I noticed was a grainy display.
 
Sorry to hear that. I guess I've been lucky. I picked up a PBG4 1.67 GHz 17" - the last one before they switched over - and it's been running like a champ. I also have an HP Tablet too. Both have been great. In general, I've had few problems. Even my Dells desktops have gone 3+ years before a problem occurred.

OS X is great, but for a few select things, Windows got it better. I have to admit though, OS X makes computing a just a bit smoother and more sane. I wish we did have more hardware choice though for Macs. Tablets, ultraportables, etc.
 
live4ever said:
I just saw a 15" C2D MacBook Pro (in the flesh for the first time) at Future Shop the other day ... the first thing I noticed was a grainy display.
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same actually

there were 2 display models. One was ridiculously grainy. If my laptop came that way I would return it instantly. The other was fine.
 
Freyqq said:
same actually

there were 2 display models. One was ridiculously grainy. If my laptop came that way I would return it instantly. The other was fine.
Click to expand...

Just went through
3 macbook pros.

The screens were the major problems. Certainly budget-level quality and macbook pro screens were identical. In fact, the macbook screen was better.

The long and short of it is:

09c56 is the good screen, made by samsung.
09c57 and 09c60 screens are the ones that are responsible for the graininess, horrible viewing angles, etc.

Absolutely, $2000, is nothing impressive.

I am unfortunately not buying an apple again. It's just not worth anything for the premium.
 
pufftissue said:
The screens were the major problems. Certainly budget-level quality and macbook pro screens were identical. In fact, the macbook screen was better.
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I was worried about this beforehand, but I'm actually quite pleased with my Macbook Pro screen, and very impressed with the machine overall. Meanwhile, I got a 24" LCD to hook up to it at home; I knew OS X handled multiple screens well, but I'm still impressed at how well!

I'll be the first to say that Apple should be a lot more firm with the firms that assemble their laptops; nevertheless, if you look at the annual reliability surveys from PC Magazine and PC World, Apple is always at the top. The typical PC user puts up with a lot more crap.
 
Martin C said:
I call BS on that.

I just looked it up on Google. Go down to battery time and read 3.6 hrs. Not 6 1/2 hours. 3 and half.

http://shopping.msn.com/Specs/shp/?itemId=572665367
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You do realise that manufacturers who are less peeved by design and aesthetics have been putting in multi feature bays in their portables for the past decade right?

Don't need that DVD-RW drive on the plane? Take it out and pop in a 2nd battery! Hook it up to an "Ultrabay". 12 hours of battery life easy with 3 batteries.
 
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