Many of those who bought MacBook Pros in 2006 – when Apple made the switch to Intel processors – noticed a series of issues with these machines. Built quality and heat being the most common cause of complaint. The late 2006 series – featuring among other things new Core 2 Duo processors, wireless n-enabled protocol – seemed to be more mature with an improved built quality.
At the time the new series came out it took me a while to decide whether to buy the newly released MBP or rather the previous one for cheaper. Since many applications still ran under rosetta at the time and couldn’t fully take the advantage of the powerful intel processors – i.e. Photoshop, Office,.. – I decided to go with a refurbished old model (a MacBook Pro Core Duo 2.0 GHz), the lower price allowing me to get a 3 years international coverage with Apple – my budget was 2000 CA$ (1700 the MBP + 300 the apple care). Since I was paying big bucks for a laptop I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have to deal with expensive repairs: a great move the apple care, it was worth every penny.
Macs have been the rolls royce of computers for a while: attention to design and materials, great operating system etc. The sale surge of these past years, mostly due to the ipod popularity and the iTunes music store, brought about some arguable decisions among with a decrease in quality. Of course overall today’s products are rockets compare to those of a few years ago and have fantastic new functionalities, but take for example the screens: why can’t I choose a matte (antiglare) anymore? I hate the glossy screens because of light reflex and false colors. They did realize some customers wanted the matte but they offered it for extra money and only for the MBP 15 or 17″. Think about an iMac, a terrific machine I will never buy with a glossy screen!… And where did the firewire 400 go? It was so practical and fast!
The superdrive of the refurbished MBP I got was defective, it kept giving errors when burning cds or dvds… I had it changed once, and only a few months later the same errors reappeared so I brought the baby not only to get the superdrive fixed, but also to get it checked for a heating issue. When touching the top case near the airport antenna (bottom of the display) you could feel an unbearable burning heat, same with holding the machine on your lap, it would start cooking!
As a result they replaced the superdrive and the logic board. The machine seemed to be working great …. except for the superdrive,… again! I eventually gave up burning cds or dvds but I was pissed, I had a 2,000 $ machine that had had the superdrive changed twice and still I wasn’t able to burn media… What a piece of crap…. I called the Apple Care number in Italy, told my story and complained with resentment, claiming a new MBP.
The guy was nice but wouldn’t let me have a replacement and suggested me to get the superdrive replaced AGAIN at an authorized repair centre. Ok, I did that, fine! But after a couple of weeks my hard drive broke and I could only stare at the grey screen with a folder and a question mark. Thank god I had made a back up just a few days before!
This time after several expensive calls (calling Apple Care costs like 15 cents/min in Italy!) and a lot of complaints I got a replacement. I sent back my machine and after a couple weeks I received a brand new MBP 15″. I was pretty happy: I went from a 80 gb to a 250 gb hard drive, from a 2.0 CD to a 2.4 C2D processor, from a small to a large and multitouch clickpad and so on. The only dud was the glossy screen with the black frame around which I found ugly and not a bit as classy as the former macbook pro or the powerbooks.
The nice thing was that the new machine has a one-year warranty and the possibility to activated an apple care plan. Given my previous experience I was motivated to get one!
Ironically it turns out that a few months after I had the new machine I notice a screen blinking. I do a quick search online and find out it is a well known issue with MBP probably due to the nvidia graphic chip…. Basically the screen blinks randomly, it is not constant, it can be fine for hours then happen once then not happen again for a while. It blinks regardless of using the slow 9400M or the faster (dedicated) 9600M GT.
When I have some time I will get this screen issue checked,…. but what a hassle! What I have learned is that if you have an expensive machine (and I find MBP beautiful and powerful but extremely expensive!!) it’s worth having a protection plan, you never know!!

Posted by karmaps 










