CanadaRAM said:
It is an axiom in industry that the first introduction of a product has more problems than subsequent editions; simply because in house testing cannot reveal all of the unaticipated problems that field use by hundreds of thousands of real customers will turn up. Since the design of the second edition of a product has the opportunity to benefit from all of the consumer complaints and service history of the first, the second and successive editions of a product typically get progressively more reliable, until a major change is made which returns the product to an untried first edition again.
This is well known with automobiles. It's not a given that the first generation will have problems, only that they will have more problems on average than subsequent generations.
For example, the Mac Mini seems to have been solid right out of the gate (with the exception of the mysterious "dim screen" effect on VGA screens.) However the iMac G5 suffered from many problems in the first release, somewere up to a reported 30% repair rate, mostly to do with overheating of components and defective capacitors. Second generation brought this down to around 10%. Presumably, the 3rd generation (the iSight model) will be more reliable yet, with a redesigned case and cooling system.
Most people new to Apple don't realize how much the minis and the iMacs
have improved since the first models were released.
The mini started out with 1.25 GHz and 256 MB RAM and the widely cursed
32MB of VRAM.
Now we're looking at 1.5 GHz 512 MB RAM and 64 MB VRAM for the same price in roughly one year.
The iMacs were very attractive at first look, but were also crippled by 64MB
VRAM and turned out as stated to have numerous quality control issues from 3rd party component vendors.
The Rev C iMacs are now vastly improved, again in just about one year.
The very 1st single processor G5 PowerMacs @$2000-$3000 were rapidly replaced by duals and now dual cores and the new Quads.
Now all of us have to watch and wait and see how dual core processors
hold up over time in real world usage.
This goes for IBM PPC's Intel and AMD
Cutting edge may be exciting, but sometimes the best values come in choosing a proven performer at a reasonable price.
You'd benefit from a good price drop while having a laptop that might probably be far more reliable than the costlier new Intel models.