I purchased a Macbook Pro from Apple back at the start of March - it had multiple bugs (minor AND severe) right out of the box. Called their tech support who gave me the impression they'd quickly & easily fix all the problems. I was then subjected to 40+ hours of troubleshooting, mostly during business hours, over a period of 4 months; consistently the rudest customer service & tech support I've ever had the misfortune to deal with; an ignored formal complaint letter (which they're legally obliged to respond to within 14 days) requesting a replacement and fair compensation (citing the appropriate UK law) for 40+ hours of lost income because I'm a freelancer (over £1900 in billable hours); before finally having it replaced on 30th June - but continued to struggle trying to find someone who'd even read my complaint letter... until they finally offered me the hugely insulting gesture of an iPod for my 40+ hours lost income, and only then if I signed a settlement agreement containing a very threateningly worded secrecy clause, referring to Californian Law (for a UK purchase) no less!

I was reasonable & willing to negotiate, & not even insisting they compensate fully for all my lost income, but they refused even to compensate me for the cost of my (expensive) phone calls to their premium rate support number (which they bill as 'complimentary' support by the way)!

Utter disgrace! Worst consumer experience of my life, by a long, long way!

Unfortunatley for me, small claims court will only waste more of my time, & a consumer lawyer advised me that under UK law, the amount of compensation I'd be awarded is at the judges discretion & apparently they rarely award full income lost even if you can prove the figures!

So far so good (fingers crossed). The lesson here, I guess, is that not all Apple stores are equal.

FWIW, if you price out EQUIVALENT Dells vs. Apple computers, the price is usually a draw. The last two MacBook Pros our office bought were less expensive than the equivalent Lenovo Thinkpad & Dell Latitude models.

I'm not an Apple fanboi by any means. My main computer is still a heavily customized CAD/CAM PC-based system from 2003. Haven't found anything in Mac-land that can replace it. Even the Apple reps spec'd out replacing it with 2x Mac Pros. Haven't found anything in PC-land either though.

The Macbook Pros are a relatively new addition to the offices and that's only because I had the chance to totally disassemble one and was confident in what I saw.

Not allowed: Anything HP or Toshiba or anything else. We had the Dell Latitudes but they just kept making them cheaper & cheaper. Dell next-day-on-site service is great, but it's something I'd prefer not to use. Every single Latitude in our fleet has been repaired at least once.

There's ~25 or so systems I've built which live outdoors on rooftops in the Florida heat and humidity. Figure ~100F ambient air intake on them in the summertime. All motors set to run 24/7, no power saving other than CPU and fan throttling. Heat sinks are hugely oversized and cooling fans are commercial-grade continuous duty fans. The only maintenance I've done on them is clear out the air filters about once a year. Not using a standard ATX case either.

Really? Better inform the systems I have running at various clients' offices then. One of my clients has a whole pile of servers from 1998 that have been faithfully doing their thing 24/7, no hardware failures. As they needed more capacity we've taken their old PII desktops and threw them into server use. So far so good. Wish they would upgrade them, but they're working so might as well let 'em run.

My own personal PC's been running 24/7 since July 2003 (including 2 hurricanes where it ran of generator power for ~2-4 weeks). Last time I rebooted was Nov 26, 2008 and that was because I was upgrading to 1 TB drives. And it gets ABUSED. If I'm not home the AC kicks back to 85F. 8 HDDs + 2 render cards + 1 MPEG encoder card crammed into a desktop case. Still going strong. Good thing as I've not found a suitable replacement for it yet. It still runs circles around most of what's out there today.

If you build anything with quality components and design it well, it'll last for a very long time. Everything gets bench tested in severe conditions (read: oven @ 120F with very dodgy power fed to it) before it goes out in the field. Quite a few failures on the bench. Zero in the field.

I usually get 6-10 years out of my systems before I retire them. So far I've yet to replace a system because it failed. And I have >200 systems out in the field. Been doing things this way since '95.

I tell you I beat the hell out of my old THINKPAD T20 from 2000.....and it NEVER EVER broke....and I traveled with it almost every day and weekend for over 6 years before I decided it finally needed to be upgraded with a new model.

Heck it even spent an entire week in an inch of water during an accident while on vacation. I even sent it flying across an airport floor when it fell 3 feet and I kicked it.

Yes...it still works and use it as a music server.

Why the hell does one need a warranty when you have reliability and toughness already built-in??

@supercereal: thanks for making me feel better. i work for a division of ibm/lenovo. :)

Also, everytime someone sends in a computer to be repaired, Apple claims no liability if it's damaged or lost unless it is in their posession, according to the Applecare Customer Shipping Preparation Form. This is strange, considering Apple offers to pay for shipping if they determine that an item is defective. Interestingly enough, I called them to make sure my computer would be insured in shipping, and I was repeatedly transferred, and I only got a straight answer out of the fourth person. He recommended I get it insured with FedEx.

I went to FedEx, fully prepared to cough up the necessary dough to insure the thing. Turns out, in order to insure it with FedEx I would have to purchase another shipping lable/ pay for shipping again, in order to insure it.

Frustrated, I called Applecare (again) and demanded a straight answer. Their employee told me that my macbook pro would be covered in the event it gets lost or damaged in transit. This is a direct contradition of their own terms of service.

(Furthermore, they reserve the right to use subcontractors [e.g. a third party], so their is no guarantee whatsoever that Apple would ever be in posession of my mbp, and therefore would never be held accountable if it were destroyed or stolen)

Read Applecare's privacy policy!
Under Section 7, subsection f, reads: "You [the consumer] agree that any information or data disclosed to apple under this Plan is NOT CONFIDENTIAL. Furthermore, you agree that Apple may collect and process data on your behalf when it provides service. This may include TRANSFERRING YOUR DATA to affiliated companies or service providers located in countries WHERE DATA PROTECTION LAWS MAY BE LESS COMPREHENSIVE than your own country of residence, including but not limited to Austrailia, Canada, countries of the European Union, India, japan, the People's Republic of CHINA and the U.S."

Furthermore, in section 4 of the Applecare Protection Plan, Apple, Inc., claims absolutely NO LIABILITY "to MAINTAIN THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF DATA."

There is no wonder they appear so nice... they are making money off of people every time they need a repair through information "sharing."

Of course, it would be nice if those computers actually functioned optimally in the first place for their exorbitant prices.
(Emphasis added)

I'm no fanboy, er... fangirl, and actually began using Macs at work this year. Always used PCs before -and have a vista notebook at home. First month has been a nightmare, nothing was working as I would have expected to. But I got used to the Mac. Or rather, I thought I was just getting used to the Mac -it's more of an addiction.

You see, I'm back to my hometown, and tried to connect an old keyboard (as in music keyboard, not the one you write something with) to the pc notebook.

Cubase doesn't see the keyboard. Oh. Right, the keyboard must be turned on before starting cubase on a pc.

Round two: turn on and retry. Doesn't work. Oh, right... the Roland driver must be loaded when I boot. Reboot.

Round three: it works. Just as well as on the Mac. But on a Mac I can turn keyboards on and off whenever I need to play something, without rebooting, without having to remember anything.

You see, Macs... no, I won't say "they just work" -I'm not yet at that stage of addiction. But I admit: Macs have spoiled me.

that's odd...when I had the white Macbook, I was having a lot of trouble with the chipping towards the front of the palm rest area. Apple fixed it twice without question or charges, though.

All in all I've had great experience with AppleCare for all of my previous iPods, and for my white MacBook. After selling that notebook though, and buying the newest version, I was thinking about skimping on the AppleCare...not after reading this article though. It's definitely going to be my next purchase.

[You probably dont know, so its cool, but we are comrades. as in commies, according to some bitter commenters.]

As a consumer reporter I'm surprised Carey brought this out as a good example.

So... you *were* trolling, then.

Nothing in the computer world comes close to Apples design, robustness, ease of use and ease of service - except the Macbook G4s. Yeesh. Happily, it's back to easy now.

That is what applecare is, if your computer breaks multiple times over three years yet is so much more expensive than other computers made with the exact same parts then the whole purchase should be rethought. Great they provide service while fixing my laptop for the 20th time. Don't you have fun when they quote you 3-5 days for service and 7 days later they haven't even started working on it. Thank god I didn't actually need it at the time. And anyone can drop off your computer without an appointment, they'll hassle you give you all sorts of excuses but if there is no physical or liquid damamge they will take it in. If your computer doesnt boot up guess what they'll run the same diagnostic tests you yourself could run and then youve wasted waiting for an appointment and when all else fails it's either they replace the logic board because they don't know the problem or blame it on software and tell you to do a clean install. And don't forget you can't get genuine apple parts unless you get it fixed at Apple or an authorized Apple Repair Center, but the Toshiba hard drive in my computer is a Toshiba hard drive I can get one for a lot less and replace it myself save something happens.

Also before anyone starts complaining about user serviceability you try making a computer that thin and light with out getting creating on hardware setups.

Making an appointment takes SECONDS and you can do it in store or at home. It's not that big of a deal and makes waiting far shorter because nobody can claim to be before you.

Oh yeah, it's not saying anything that the last 4 Apples you've had needed repair after the first year.

My last 4 PC clone laptops have required little to zero work, and hey, upgrading my hard drive doesn't require torc screw drivers and an engineering degree.

Apple customers are such sheep, but that's why I like them, they'll buy anything.

Yes, I do not care about the iPhone because I do not have one and do not want one. I am free to be as indifferent about it as i dont care.

And I was only hoping Trai_Dep would say something. He is an Apple fanboy from what I have seen, and its always fun hearing from him.

It sure read like a trolling comment to me. You admit that you don't actually know the details of the situation, and yet it was the supposedly the sticking point that's keeping you from getting a Mac AND something important enough to bring up even though it has nothing to do with this article?

It had nothing to do with me "not liking" what you had to say -

You took an unrelated non-issue, (the dictionary thing,) added flames to it, ("making people dumber,") and threw an impressive leap of non-logic onto it for good measure, ("...what lockdowns could they do on the laptops...")

What lockdowns could you possibly be talking about? Mac laptops run Unix; they're pretty open. Really, this is just more flames.

HowieFelterbush summarized the important details of what really happened with Ninjawords - if you want to know more details, they were covered in several places including wired, giz, and engadget.

I want you to know - I really wasn't trying to call names, and I feel kind of bad so many people have jumped on this... You are generally a great commenter who adds to the discussion. That's why I was so surprised when I read a comment coming from you that seemed out of character.

Read your comment again and see what you think.

They replaced an optical drive, which may or not have been broken (I'm starting to think it was the blank discs I was using), but they did it anyways.

Got the magsafe adapter replaced, no problem. Even got the new, smaller version.

And now my battery is getting replaced, its swelling and coming apart. I was telling a coworker about it, and her Dell battery stopped holding a charge after less than a year. Dell, according to her, does not cover batteries, at all.

Oh, and CS reps are in the US, not India. ANd I have the option of using an Apple Store, an authorized repair center, or calling. That's nice to have.

ALl of this costs more, but after 3 years of having a MBP, I'd say its worth it.

/took your comment waaaaaaaay too seriously

Basically, the difference between Apple Care and other extended warranties is this: most warranties are made to cover manufacturer defects and that's it. Apple Care will basically make sure that your product works as if you bought it yesterday for three years (with very few exceptions).

So if your hard drive breaks after a year, a usual extended warranty would call it normal wear and tear and deny a replacement. Apple Care, however, would be glad to replace it.

Now if only I had bought Apple Care for my iPod, which stopped working this weekend ...

Since I was still under warranty, I took it to my local Apple Store, they said the drive was basically dead, but they had replacements in the back and could install it, format it, and send me on my way if I knew how to install OS X myself.

I was in and out in 10 minutes.

I bought AppleCare for it the next week.

Their customer service is one of the reasons I continue to buy their products.

Showed the guy at the genius bar what was up and he gave me a newer MagSafe cable on the house. Of course it was a known issue, so I would've been upset if it WASN'T replaced for free. But I was glad there wasn't any runaround.

AppleCare isn't the only extended warranty that's cost-effective, especially considering that you have to go find an Apple store to get your computer fixed, or you have to ship your machine out (and who doesn't love being without their computer for two weeks?).

Dell and HP both have extended warranty options. For about $250 extra, you can get three years of not only warranty coverage, but on-site, next business day service and accidental damage coverage.

My own experiences with Apple service technicians have been beyond bad. I've been condescended to, laughed at, and basically told that I was an idiot user who didn't know what I was talking about.

I think I'll stick with Dell. Their business and education support has been beyond great.

I've owned two cars in 20 years and probably 40 computers. I always had the attitude of "if my computer breaks that's great..I can now get a new one." But it seems moving files from an old computer to a new one has become such a pain that I'd rather just run my old computer longer to avoid the experience. Maybe it's like moving apartments or houses. After a few times you realize it's such a pain that you don't want to do it again.

Let's follow this logic. You'd like an Apple laptop but are not going to buy one because the iPhone App Store won't allow a certain type of dictionary? If I search dictionary on the App Store, I find more than I could possibly ever want. How many different ways do you need to define troll anyway?@MostlyHarmless:

We recently got an Apple store opened in our local mall, which has been fantastic. I've taken my MacBooks to them twice and had the repairs done in under an hour each time. The wait time at the local store would have been one week or more.

Definitely depends on the genius level of your Geniuses.

That said, Apple has been good when I've called them, although I can't say the same for their local store. I find the local AASP to be excellent. The AASP actually receives their parts on the next business day and will get your computer back on the same day; I've been quoted 3-4 days for parts at the Apple Store. I'm not sure why third-party Apple service providers can receive parts faster than Apple's own corporate stores.

@ShariC: I don't have $1,100 to spend on a laptop every two years. My Macbook is running perfectly fine the way it is, and the fact that I have Apple Care means I have some chance of getting something fixed, rather than being totally out of having any computer. Some of us like keeping laptops around for as long as the machine is useful.

@Red: Apple does have a warranty, it's that Apple Care is an extended one.

In terms of laptop quality, out of all the laptops I have seen, the apple ones break the least. And when they do break, its always an easy, fast repair, with replacements of large sections (for speed and to prevent associated problems). My computer got shipped from the store to the factory, HD replaced & overnighted to my house. Three day repair and I drove to the store only once. Or they just give you a new laptop. Apple Care is awesome even though I have used it rarely.

The guy salvaging my old HD that broke told me this: new laptop drives last reliably for a year, two tops. As they add more and more platters (? really)?, and have them spin faster and faster, and people move them around, the slightest imbalance magnifies more. An 80 or 100 gig 5400rpm drive has a lot more wiggle room than a 500gig 7200rpm drive in the same space. Made sense to me.

I never bothered with extended warranties on regular PCs as replacing the components (the most failure prone component is the hard-drive) are as easy as opening the case.

Also, why SHOULDN'T the person who paid more get better, longer-lasting service? I don't understand your point at all. "Regular people" do get the same warranty service within the 1 year though...

This is not a complicated matter to understand. Laptops contain moving parts, and components which are susceptible to heat. Over time moving parts (especially the likes of fans and hard drives) will fail, and the chief cause of these failures, barring abuse, is simply wear and tear. When a computer is sleeping the hard drive and fans hold in place (they *will* spin [up] if you leave it on overnight to perform scheduled tasks). Also, in sleep mode, the laptop holds closer to room temperature, while if you leave it on it will operate at much hotter temperatures.

If someone is not running programs on their laptop overnight they should shut it down or put it into sleep mode. If it is not used for an extended period of time it should be shut down.

This is a non issue if the cost of a laptop is not great to a person, but odds are someone's $1,200+ laptop is actually enough of an investment that they won't shrug off an early replacement. These devices will generally last even longer if they are taken care of properly.

I'll continue to purchase macs since they do what I need and do it well. I'd never purchase one without AppleCare though (unless I'm dumping it within a year)

If you love Apple so much, why don't you marry it?

Or, errr, mmm, your boyfriend? ;-)

BTW I am on about my tenth Mighty Mouse thanks to AppleCare.

This was the U Village in Seattle.

All around, I've always had a pleasant experience (even though if something goes wrong again, this'll be #4 and I'll ask for a replacement)- The people on the phone answer immediately, speak English as their first language, know their product, and most of all, seem to care. My nastiest experience was my logic board going out (it had a bum Nvidia chip) and I was out of commission for about a week (mostly due to me having to wait to head to an Apple Store).

My iMac (bought June '08) started shutting down spontaneously, and because it was hot to the touch when it happened, it's probably because it crossed a heat threshold and shut down on purpose to save the hardware.

I called Apple and on the phone they decided it was hardware, so I was given an appointment the next day at the Genius Bar of a nearby Apple store. I brought it in, explained the problem, they took it to run diagnostics (which I assume meant they ran it for a few hours until it overheated and shut itself down, then examined it). Three days later I hadn't heard from them so I called and they said they were still testing it. Another three days later I called to see what the status was. I expected to hear at the least that they'd found out what the problem was.

But no. They told me to come get my iMac, it's all fixed. I asked what it turned out to be, they said it was the RAM. I found this a little suspicious ... if they'd repaired it, why hadn't they called me to let me know? And how did RAM have anything to do with heat? Bad RAM can cause all sorts of problems, but overheating is not usually one of them. My BS meter also pegged when they told me they hadn't replaced the RAM, they'd merely reseated it. I asked if they were sure this was the problem and if they'd run it to verify it was fixed, and they said they had.

I wondered if they hadn't really done anything to it, if they'd just let it sit around and, when I called 6 days after dropping it off, had decided it had taken up space in their shop long enough, and told me to come get it, so it'd be out of their way.

I picked it up later that night, set it up the next morning ... and wouldn't you know it, 3 hours later it shut right down again.

My suspicions were confirmed. They hadn't done anything to it. They couldn't have, since if they'd tested it after they'd "repaired" it, they'd have seen it shut down and would have known it wasn't working.

I called and demanded another appointment at a different Apple store, since I could no longer trust the people at the first one who'd claimed to have fixed it but didn't. (I happen to live c. 20 miles from 2 different Apple stores.) I brought it to the second Apple store, told them the first store had done nothing to it, and asked if they could REALLY fix it this time. They took it and said they'd diagnose it.

That was three days ago. I called this afternoon and they said they had no idea when it would be repaired. I asked if they knew what was wrong with it, they didn't know. I asked when they thought they might know what's wrong, they said they couldn't say. I asked if we were talking days or weeks to a repair, they said they didn't know.

So after having done nothing to it at one location except leave it untouched, they're now in the progress of doing exactly the same thing, at another. I'm not too thrilled with the Geniuses just now, especially since they appear to have no clue what they're doing with my iMac, and don't even seem to have any interest in figuring it out.

Since they're holding my iMac hostage, I don't dare escalate this, but if I don't get word on the status of it by the end of the week, I'm going to have to do something to get someone's attention.

Apple did this because?

You promised to write a positive blog about the experience.

But if you are a corporate customer with an office full of Apple machines that are unable to load Adobe software products unto any of the machines then Apple will tell you to go hurt yourself rather than supporting the products they sell.

So what was apple's response about it?

And just because someone says something you do not like does not make it trolling - especially if it is preceeded by a positive comment.

@lihtox: Thats cuz they know that whoever can afford more than one macs will probably shell it out for a legal copy as well ;)

[Unless you are hackintoshing it.]

Apple's pricing is not nearly as high as you allude to. Apple employs premium materials and manufacturing processes in the development of their hardware, not to mention significantly value design and aesthetic. in addition, if you ever call their tech support, you do not get redirected to india, indonesia, malaysia, or the philippines... and for those that need it, you can take your issues directly to a corporate owned store to get solutions.

all of this comes with a price. people *want* north american tech support staff but they dont want to pay for it. people *want* beautiful design and high build quality, but again, do not want to pay for it. you cant buy (or build) a chevy aveo and expect lexus service. why? because you didnt pay for it.

now if apple charged their current pricing for a dell quality laptop and dell quality tech support, i would never support them again after that as *that* would constitute a rip-off.

for those ignorant to the issue mentioned (and lacking pertinent details)

1. it was the Ninjawords Dictionary app. not exactly Webster-Merriam or Oxford.

2. it was voluntarily censored by the *developer* in hopes of getting it approved *prior* to the app store deploying their "mature themes" age restriction in OS 3.0. the words "censored" were commonly accepted "derogatory slang". an ebook by David Carnoy, titled "Knife Music" was rejected by the app store long before this due to the (admittedly sparse) use of the "F-word" in print.

3. once OS 3.0 was dispersed with it's parental control functions, the "Ninjawords dictionary" app was then approved with a "mature, 17+" warning but the version that was still in the pipeline, and therefore approved, was the "abridged" version. this was what started all of the drama.

but after the facts came out it's obviously just a bunch of undue drama, especially when bloggers left out pertinent details like what kind of dictionary it actually was, or the backstory leading up to the reason for it being abridged... all for the sake of creating needless drama in the wake of the Google Voice/GV Mobile app drama that occurred days prior (which actually IS a legit issue, unlike the Ninjawords "dictionary" issue.

but people tend to make lame excuses like this or the ever-popular, "i'll never get a macbook pro because there's no matte screen option" when the truth is they had no intention of buying a macbook in the first place. this may or may not apply to him or likely he's just trolling.

On the flip side, I own two IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads. Now THOSE are, hands down, the most solid laptops money can buy. My older one was purchased in 2002 (2002!), has never needed a replacement anything, and still runs *relatively* well as my makeshift media server.

I can repair any of my numerous PC/Linux computers with parts salvaged from other comps, bought online for a tiny fraction the cost of apple parts, or at any brick and mortar store that sells electronics. All for cheap.

Also, another question to dwell on: Were you offered this great service because of the extended warranty you purchased? Or do regular people get access to it too with the 1yr out of the box warranty?

If regular people DONT get the same kind of service, its kind of unfair that 2 people who buy the same product get treated differently because one person paid more for it.

If regular people DO get the same service, it kind of makes the extended warranty pointless, as 90% of problems with computers/decision to exchange them come in the first year. Outside of 1 year, most people replace the electronic item with another one. That is the idea of how companies MAKE money with extended warranties, they bank on the fact that under 5% actually make a CLAIM after the first year. Therefore making the warranty useless...

Catch 22.

Also, just a little bit of transparency: I sell these bloody useless warranties every day against my will, and sometimes I even feel bad for bilking people out of money that gives them a useless warranty they will possibly never use. I have no choice...

You got a replacement over 2 years after it wasn't their problem technically.

The computer and the support was worth every cent.

But given that it's not my computer, and I won't pay anything to have it replaced, there's really no point to ever shutting it down...

Respectfully,
DTE

Putting your computer to sleep is kind of a pointless idea, it should be off or on, sleepmode is just a useless feature that people don't really need.

My department 15" MacBook PRO (Late 2006) has had to have its battery replaced, HD replaced and cooling fans replaced. The battery & HD was replaced under warranty, the fans were not. Our college President had his logic board, HD and fans replaced on my 17" MacBook PRO (Early 2007).

We have 24 MacBook's (2008) for student use. I know students are hard on computers yet we have had 3 MacBook failures, (HD, logic board and LCD).

Of the 2100+ computers we have on our campus, roughly 200 are Macs. Most have worked OK. We have about 1500+ Dell OptiPlex 620, 745, 755 & 760 and another 125 Dell Latitude 820, 830 & E6500's that have had almost no problems. We had about 4 Latitude power brick failures and some CMOS batteries die in the 620's...

My own department Latitude's (D830 & E6500) (2007 & 2009) have been rock solid with no problems at all.

My point? All computer brands have one issue or another and both companies have stood behind their computers with no complaints for the majority of their users...

What I do find funny is all the people talking about how great AppleCare is, yeah it is a good service but I thought Mac's don't break down and do no wrong??? :)

hmmm... interesting to see that apple has so many issues, and still ppl say proudly that they bought it.

I bought a Dell XPS M1210, which went through three motherboards, a hard drive, an optical drive, a display, a trackpad, and two keyboards in two years. It was exchanged for a Vostro 1310, which needed everything but the drives and CPU replaced after six months. It was exchanged for a Vostro 1320, which was delivered with a corrupted BIOS and no RAM. That was exchanged for a Precision M4400.

During all this, Dell called me a liar, a thief, a "picky bastard", insulted my mother, interpreted "on-site" as "on a cardboard box in the back of a Ford Escape parked a mile away", attempted to pry a computer apart with two screwdrivers, and tried to bribe me with a $100 coupon I would have to spend $20 to use.

Just last week I had the power adapter for my iPhone die (the little usb one). Made an appointment online for early in the morning before work.

In, geek checked it and verified it was bad, replaced on the spot.

I was in and out the door in < 10min.

I should mention this was in NYC a VERY busy store even before 9:00.

Very friendly fast service. Same as Apple has provided for years.

That couldn't have been any more painless.

"...so let's just say Apple has really changed my life."

LMAO

Anyway, I am wondering whether or not to get Applecare for my 15" late-2008 unibody. I'm a total computer tinkerer, and have built the last 4 desktops I've used (but kept the same case, keyboard, etc...). The unibody literally is like a desktop in that if you take off the bottom, the motherboard and components are right there screwed to the case. If anything inside the body of the laptop breaks, is it cheaper to get replacement parts and install them yourself? Does it depend on the component?

When I take my computer to an Apple Store, I expect them to ship it out for repair (unless it's trivial like replacing a power supply, which they've done for me under warranty a couple times). Taking that into account, I've never had a problem with Apple Store employees.

Pretty much immediately thereafter, I discovered that the new laptops were coming out, and I (pressing my luck) went back in and asked if I qualified to swap. I would have completely understood if they said "no," and honestly, I probably would have if I were in their position. Not only did they NOT say no, but they told me that they would essentially process it like a brand new purchase, and I'd qualify for a promotional printer toss-in.

So, for my month-long keyboard trouble, I got a free upgrade and a free printer. Apple costs a pretty penny, but for my money, I've always been able to get prompt attention, from people willing to accept that I know what I'm talking about with my machine and not waste my time running me through stuff I already did at home, and speedy turnaround time. I've sent in Apple products a few times, and they've ALWAYS had a box with a pre-paid shipping label on my doorstep the next morning, turned the product around the day they got it, and had it on my doorstep again the next morning.

By comparison, I had a problem with a Sony where the screen randomly turned pink, and first had a moron try to tell me this was normal behavior, then had them try to weasel their way out of the warranty by demanding a shipping label instead of the invoice, then had them demand an invoice instead of a shipping label, then had them sit on the laptop for weeks.

That is the essence of a fanboy. Similar experience with my Lenovo, but I am not a lifetime customer. I'm /just/ a customer as long as they are the best in the market for my budget. The current ThinkPad line happens to be fantastic.

What laptop, MP3 player or cell phone IS made to be user serviceable?

I found out that many of my coworkers don't turn off there laptops at work (we use them as desktops with external monitors). The building lost power last night, so the laptops ran on batteries until they died. This morning everyone was quite confused as to why things wouldn't turn on as normal or were slower.

If you are running programs over night, leave your computer on. If you aren't - don't leave it on. Hardware won't run forever. Fans will stop working, things over heat. You wouldn't leave your car running overnight (even if gas was free) so why leave your computer running?

Since every model depreciates in value through time, a low end (or even high end) Mac as it hits the end of its first and second year may be replaced by an equivalent or superior low end model which makes the warranty purchase look more dubious or less of a good value when you balance the benefits of a new machine against an old one.

While the OP was given a new laptop to replace broken ones, that is not always the case. Apple can simply say "no" (and they have to other customers) or fix only the problem at hand. That means that other components are still aging and more likely to break down (which is another factor in favor of using the money you'd spend on an extended warranty toward the purchase of a new machine).

Frnakly, as someone whose first Mac was a Classic and who has bought a parade of Macs, I find the speed with which current models fail in part or in whole troubling. My Macs used to last forever without warranties, then around the time that Apple switched from SCSI to IDE, optical drives started to fail with regularity. Now, both optical and hard drives fail with regularity within a year or two. Apple used to make better hardware that didn't fail so often so AppleCare wasn't necessary. Perhaps because I grew up on better quality Macs, I find the applause for AppleCare a little like praising a company for fixing something which shouldn't have broken in the first place.

This article seems to be to the contrary. His computer's hard drive died twice and so did his optical drives. I'm guessing he practiced due diligence and backed up his data regularly, but had he not; I'm sure he would not have been so happy to lose his data.

I've owned a Powerbook in the past and had Apple Care on it, through the three years I had it, the notebook was replaced once, the hard drive replaced, the screen replaced twice, the trackpad replaced, battery replaced three times, and the optical drive was replaced. Once the warranty lapsed, the keyboard and trackpad died, it is now a fancy paperweight. I don't understand why the product is so fragile, the laptop still looks pristine outwardly as I tried to baby it.

Similarly, my brother's Macbook Pro has been in the shop numerous times. I'm counting, a screen replacement (new screen came back with a crack in it), upper chassis was superglued by the Genius, upper chassis was then replaced when the glue came undone, magsafe charger has been replaced 4 times, and now the upper chassis is coming undone near the fan vent.

I guess the only positive out of this is that we got our monies worth from the repairs, but reliable they are not!

And yes, I have had to use it. The keyboard got flaky. Replaced for free. The screen started getting dead spots all over. Replaced. The power adapter cable shorted -this is the common issue affecting Magsafe. Replaced. And finally at almost three years old, the battery suddenly stopped holding a charge. That was replaced.

Now you could say I have had a lot of problems. Maybe so, but this is (or at least was) a cutting edge product. The engineering that went into it was pushing the boundaries of what could be done at the time and that means things will go wrong. I accept that.

Apple has totally stood behind this product and their warranty and more importantly their word. No other business I have ever dealt with has kept up their end of the deal as faithfully. I'd say that even if I wasn't a happy customer. But I am. And eventually the warranty will run out (two months or so) and someday I will need a new laptop and only one company will be on my list.

Criticize this as fanboy cheering if you like but none of the other laptop brands have gone to this length for me or anyone I know who uses the other brands. It just doesn't happen. Why should I set aside Apple, a brand that has earned my respect and business, and take a risk and hope Dell or Toshiba or Acer might stand behind their products? Is Dell going to have stores in the malls that can help me on the spot? Is Acer? No. Don't mention the Microsoft stores. They don't make laptops. Not the same thing.

I've built several PCs, and have a mac with boot camp/windows, as well as a Dell Mini 9 with Linix, so hopefully no one will accuse me of having an apple bias. I haven't used Vista or Windows 7 yet, so I can't speak for those, but OSX works better than XP with fewer crashes because Apple is able to test any combination of motherboard, sound card, video card, and processor, whereas Microsoft can't even begin to test them all. Other add ons such as mice, keyboard, external drives and printers don't cause the crashes that a bad combination of internal hardware sometimes can in Windows.

Mac's do have a history of not liking the cheapest RAM, but you are correct - there is no need to spend $300 on Apple's RAM when a good quality stick costing much less will work just as well.

@snowmoon: ok, lemme get this straight. you recommend apples. you've had every major component replaced at least once & the display replaced 4 or 5 times since late '06? it's late '09 so that's like, 3 years? i work for a major hardware manufacturer. i would have been FIRED in mid '07 for that kind of lacksidasical incompentence.

that "performance" is not acceptable at all with solid state devices. and you paid a premium. hmmm.

I deal with Dell at work, and my experiences with them have been *nothing* alike.

Stories like this are going to help me partially move to Mac when I upgrade laptops this winter.

I have a 17" Dell that I have owned for over 3 years, it stays on 24/7 and gets used extensively and I've never had any sort of problems with it. Also, I only paid like $700 for it, the same thing from Apple with a different logo and their O.S. installed would cost 3x that price.

funny, you know what else is worth buying? a laptop that doesn't need an extended warranty, like my lenovo.

;P

@cknight: One thing to note is that Apple Card does not cover accidents the way other warranties do (like Dell). If you accidentally drop or spill water on your Apple Card covered laptop, you are screwed.

Never had that problem with any of the Dells I have owned which were only covered by the normal extended warranty.

Got it back 5 days later and opened the box... items replaced: LCD and assembly! I about flipped and checked the screen for dead pixels.. luckily, just like my old LCD there weren't any. Anyway, the problem is fixed.

They also made it so the CD/DVD drive wasn't so loud when starting the system up: I never requested that :).

Oh, and then there's the whole blind loyalty thing that the very vocal minority of Apple users have.

They just replaced the logic board (motherboard) in my MacBook Pro free of charge, over a year after the warranty expired. My logic board had died, possibly due to an Nvidia issue (which is a known issue and qualifies for a 3 year extended warranty). I first took my MacBook to the Apple Store for replacement, but since my logic board failure was non-standard (the diagnostic they normally use for this issue would not run), they didn't know the cause of the problem and said they couldn't replace the logic board.

A day and a very short, very easy call to Apple Support and I had an exception number and authorization to have my logic board replaced under warranty.

I don't really know why, but Apple has always been willing to help me, seemingly more than others (at least from some of the Consumerist stories I have seen).

They've also helped me in the past for other issues, but this one was above and beyond.

I'm typing this on a replacement MBP after my late-2006 unit had nearly every major component replaced at least once. They gave up right before the fifth display.

My 2 main machines are PC however and I have a Toshiba laptop for my wife. My iPhone though is the best phone I've ever bought and will always encourage others to try the one current Apple experience I have.

[I know they are unrelated, but it always makes me a bit uncomfortable with what lockdowns could they do on the laptop.]

That said, the Apple Store is the LAST place you want to go to get warranty repair. Apple loses money each time they do a repair, and it shows in the way their 'Geniuses' treat users bringing in broken hardware. You should not need to make an appointment. You should not need to convince someone your hardware is broken. You should not need to pay an extra $99 a year for 'Pro Care' so that you can drop off your computer without an appointment, like you can at any decent repair facility.

So, what should you do? Use the Authorized Service locater tool on the Apple Support page to find the nearest Apple Authorized Repair partner in your area. The difference, for an experienced end user, is amazing. Apple Authorized repair partners get paid for every repair they perform, so their attitude towards the customer is entirely different.

There is one near me in Oakland CA, who I won't name because I don't know the etiquette here. I've taken two laptops to them for repairs, and the last time they actually called me to apologize that the repair was going to take three days rather than their regular two. I've never had that kind of service directly from Apple.