Aral Balkan

Niqui's been having a nightmare of an experience ever since my deafeningly vocal love affair with my own MacBook Pro led her to she decided to buy a MacBook Pro.

The first MacBook Pro she received was a total lemon; crawling at a snail's pace and whining like a patient in Orin Scrivello's office. So Niqui returned it and got a new one. But guess what? The CD drive doesn't work on the new one and some of the keys on the keyboard look like a sandworm tunneled under them.

Is Apple having major quality control issues or what?

I have to say that I have had no problems whatsoever with mine and I couldn't be happier with it (I'll write a post about it soon) but I am going to be hesitant to recommend these machines if there's so much as a scratch on her new one. It's sad because when they do work, they are amazing (I've been singing them praises to whomever will listen since the day I got mine.)

I guess we'll find out tomorrow... (although it takes a few days for these faults to show up, based on prior experience!)

Comments

• Aral, have you ever experienced a DVD refusing to eject? I did. I almost gave up, but while it was in sleep mode, it decided to spit out the DVD for no apparent reason. That was after 2 hours of sleep. I guess my mac was sick and then threw up? :) The DVD was absolutely fine. Hopefully, I don't have a rotten Apple .... hasn't happened again, so that's good! There's something to be said about having a simple drive design that has a reset button to eject in cases like this.

  by Scott Janousek on 2006-09-05 23:13:37

• For the record - I got the MacBook Pro because I broke my PowerBook... (she says as she uses her broken PowerBook - starting to think that rather a broken Mac that works the a new mac that don't work)

  by Niqui Merret on 2006-09-05 23:19:09

• For the record, definitely ;)

  by aral on 2006-09-06 01:34:43

• I got a MacBook about a month ago and haven't encountered a single issue *knock on wood*. I'm loving it. I kept putting off buying a Mac because I'm a .NET developer by profession, but once they announced the Intel Mac that could boot into Windows I figured it was time to take the plunge; although I've yet to install BootCamp or Paralells, haven't had the need yet. I hope your replacement Mac is better than the other two; I hate to hear that people are running into these problems.

  by punkcoder on 2006-09-06 12:32:03

• I know lots of people who have sadly had problems with the Apple laptops, iBook, PowerBook and now it seems MacBookPro too. What's really annoying is sometimes Apple can be really obstructive about fixing these issues - same goes for iPod problems. It's really damaging their reputation as a company imho. I know several people who were really getting into the whole Apple thing but then were completely turned off them due to terrible customer service from Apple. I always advise people to buy their Apple kit from a big third party such as John Lewis as they have excellent customer service and will always replace the product if it's obviously faulty.

  by Matt on 2006-09-06 13:05:41

• damn, this is giving me nightmares -- am expecting my MBP to arrive any day now. Fingers crossed ;)

  by Peter on 2006-09-06 13:08:24

• Are you planning to post a blog item how to break your PowerBook? I wont mind a lemon MacBook Pro ;)

  by Reyer on 2006-09-06 14:00:14

• Hey Reyer, I think Niqui might have a pointer or two for you! All kidding aside, of course it was a tragic accident (poor, thing, repeatedly running into that wall like that.) :P Ay yay yay, I really gotta stop joking about it. By the way, I was at my local apple store today and the chap there basically said that Apple had done a very shoddy job in rushing the release of the MacBook Pros and that our experience was not an isolated case. Apparently they haven't had many returns at all though (and he was surprised at this) so if anyone in the UK wants to know which store that is, just contact me. Perhaps I was lucky I got mine from them and perhaps the Regent st. store just has a bad batch?

  by aral on 2006-09-06 14:06:48

• I got a black MacBook with the shutdown problems(the problem begun just after 2 days of use), returned to the store and they replaced it with a new one, but I had to wait 3 weeks for the replacement as they were out of stock. Now the new one works fine, but the screen makes some friction noises when opening/closing... So, yes, there are some quality control issues, but as long as they do the right thing and help on fixing this annoying things, I'll keep using Macs ;)

  by Freddy on 2006-09-06 19:09:51

• My wife's Macbook pro 2.16 has only had one issue, DVD's with slippery covers can get "stuck" momentarily in the drive after heating up inside. Oh, and Flash runs super slow. Other than that I'm jealous because my laptop is the last generation iBook.

  by LEE on 2006-09-07 01:05:05

• On another note, someone wrote you a book aral. http://www.applecoresolutions.com/?page_id=3

  by LEE on 2006-09-07 12:27:01

• Hey Niqui, sorry to hear about your troubles. The unfortunate thing with laptops is the ridiculous deficiency rate. Apple has problems, but so do all the other manufacturer. I read somewhere (brace yourself for random statistics without quoted source) that the average repair rate for laptops in their first year is somewhere just under 30%. Apple's average was slightly under that (somewhere in the low 20's I think). Laptops have one of the highest repair rates of any consumer electronics. Given that average, it's hardly surprising that some people are unlucky enough to get two or even three duds. It's even less surprising that you see a lot of complaints online. We have two new MacBooks, and one new MacBook Pro in the office, and they've all been flawless so far. Oop... found the source: http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/laptops.html "We're somewhat concerned by the repair rates we saw in our survey, but PC World's January 2006 laptop reliability survey placed Apple squarely at the top of the list for both low problem rates and high owner satisfaction."

  by Grant Skinner on 2006-09-07 17:29:31

• I am on my second macbook pro (15.4 inch 2.0GHz) and had returned my first, because of a warped screen and opening seams along the front of the laptop. I was also experiencing a never ending high pitched buzz when it was in use with the charger, so I returned it (to John Lewis) for this replacement. My stomach curned all the way home, hoping that this would be absolutely perfect. but unfortunatly I had no such luck... As soon as i pulled it out of its 'protective' fabric slip, I noticed a deep one inch scratch to the right of the Apple logo, and I was nearly sick. I then noticed that the screen, instead of just being a but warped, it is actually a couple of millimeters off centre, so it hangs over the left side of the base when closed. The memory cover on the bottom is concaved like the new nanos select button, and there is also an obvious dent above the eject button too! So as far as perfect is concerned, I couldn't be further away!!!! John Lewis have said I can keep this dodgy one until they get some more in (2 or 3 weeks to wait, may I add) And then they will replace this one too, with more sucess hopefully I Love Apple (stupidly? maybe?) and I hate my PC for a number of reasons, So I am reluctant to upgrade to a pc Laptop (because they aint a pretty as 'perfect, non scratched or warped' macs)

  by Anthony Harris on 2006-10-02 17:55:25

• I bought a mac book pro over the x-mas holidays and its just started to shut down while Im in the middle of working. What are apple like returning these things with out the box etc? I obv chucked my box away when I moved house. anyway have any idea if it can still be returned with out box????

  by Nick on 2008-02-24 15:50:34