

Macbook Reliability Is Overrated - wyclif
http://www.binplay.com/2010/09/reason-5-why-i-will-not-buy-macbook-not.html

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marknutter
Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

Here are some hard facts:

[http://www.rescuecom.com/blog/index.php/computer-
support/the...](http://www.rescuecom.com/blog/index.php/computer-support/the-
rescuecom-computer-reliability-report-2nd-quarter-2010)

[http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/21/pc_industry_cu...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/21/pc_industry_customer_satisfaction_again_dominated_by_apple.html)

Highest customer satisfaction, second highest reliability (after Asus).

Also, my laptop is carved out of a _single block of a aluminum_. I'm pretty
sure that makes it awesome. My buddy bought an Asus laptop last spring and I
saw it for the first time yesterday. The left hinge cover had been broken off
and the thing looked like it was 2 years old. He also said was upset about the
quality because he expected more from Asus. See, I can provide anecdotal
evidence too.

~~~
kls
Not that I get too much into these discussions because they seem to be the
type that people never see eye to eye. But you did touch on a point that I
think is overlooked here, customer satisfaction. One of the things with Apple
is that they are pretty good at repairing product quality defects on their
dime.

To me that is part of the package of reliability. If I can buy the most
reliable but 30 days after walking out the door I am on the hook for the
repairs or I can but the second most reliable and be covered for any defects
for a year, I am going with #2. From my experience Apple makes up for any
defect in craftsmanship with their focus on customer satisfaction.

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tumult
Whiny and with no facts to substantiate his claims. Note that the only data he
cited is provided by a company that sells exploitative 'extended warranties'
for 3rd party products (SquareTrade), and that it's in their best interest to
cast the most popular manufacturer of non-bargain laptops as less reliable.

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bad_user
I don't know about this article (imho, the components on macbooks are pretty
good), but I once spilled a cup of coffee on a MacBook Pro ... the keyboard
and the dvd drive became nonfunctional and I had to take it to be repaired.

On the other hand I did the same thing to a Dell, twice ... coffee, and coke
(with sugar). All I had to do was to clean it up a bit because the keyboard
got a little sticky (and I could do this by myself).

Unfortunately I can't help it, any laptop I use has to be baptized with
coffee.

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Udo
(-1) Unsubstantiated and anecdotal. There is really no product on the market
with zero percent failure rate and whoever gets a faulty unit will often
instantly hate the brand. I have had several iBooks, MacBooks, MacBooks Pros
and never once has one of them failed. But at least I realize that it was
pretty much luck and randomness - not any inherent quality of Apple products
in general.

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kunley
"Asus, Sony and Toshiba all lead."

I wonder how would this comparison look like about 5 years ago, before
Thinkpads production went to that chinese Lenovo.

Personally I recommend buying as an experiment an original IBM's Thinkpad,
esp. T series, in some outlet. I did it and looks like I'm going to use this
stuff for more than I usually used new laptops.

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dchest
Unreliability is one of the consequences of Apple's constant redesign and
application of new unproven manufacturing processes and materials.

For example, they used fragile metal for MacBook Air hinges -- I have screen
replaced two times due to this (the second replacement had hinges made of a
different material) <http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2948>

Now I have a new white MacBook and its newly designed beautiful rubber bottom
began peeling off (and I know others with the same problem).

~~~
chopsueyar
Maybe you should adopt less early.

------
chopsueyar
I'm sure someone here remembers the iBook G3s (the white ones), that would
have their logic boards die.

I still have my g4 ibook and it works perfectly (except for the smallish HD,
but still works). Had the best suspend-resume from a low battery of any laptop
I have used.

Typing this on a unibody Macbook. It worked better on 10.5, not 10.6. Resume
is much slower. (BTW, the G4 only had 512mb less of ram).

The most important advice I can give of Apple hardware...always wait for 2nd,
or 3rd gen product (Hypocritically, I did buy an iPad).

~~~
zdw
FYI, Intel MacBooks (and the last G4 models) support hibernate (suspend to
disk) and use it by default instead of sleep (suspend to RAM), and thus take
longer to sleep/resume.

You can change this behavior at the command line, or with a utility like
SmartSleep: <http://www.jinx.de/SmartSleep.html>

~~~
chopsueyar
You made my day with that link.

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spacemanaki
Couple of posts ago there's a boring bit about college students switching to
Macs en masse. A few posts before that there's an equally boring piece on bad
Linux desktop adoption... ".NET Jerkface" sounds like someone with real
insight to offer

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frou_dh
Component reliability overrated by who? Mac reliability praise is almost
always about __software __reliability, from what I've seen.

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bumbledraven
Always get the AppleCare.

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napierzaza
Everything breaks, especially mobile hardware. Anecdotally I think they are
more reliable than other PCs. But most importantly I've never gotten such
amazing no-questions-asked service in my life. Not to mention the turn-around
for repairs or free upgrades if they can't fix it.

