New MacBook in the house
by Volker Weber
It took me less than two weeks for an aboutface regarding the MacBook. I ordered one on Monday, it was upgraded yesterday and arrived here within one day. How is this possible? You just have to avoid the Apple Store. ;-)
It was time to part with Snoopy. I cloned the harddisk to an external drive, wiped and re-imaged the disk, cleaned its fur ;-) and packed it all up in the original box. There is still three months on AppleCare so that the new owner can have everything fixed that he does not like, but the machine actually has a lot of spare parts and looks almost new. It received a new logic board yesterday (the second one lasted eighteen months), a new battery at the end of last year (still at 100% after 100 cycles), and a new harddisk 10 months ago. There was also one dead trackpad with the first logic board swap and a new keyboard. AppleCare was a really good investment. I hope all is sorted out now.
Now the new MacBook gets all the beating. I ordered it with 36 month of extended warranty, and like the iBook it will be running 16 hours a day. :-)
Update: Since I am getting numerous requests: No, you cannot buy Snoopy. It was sold before I posted. Actually, I only bought the new MacBook because I had promised a friend that he could have Snoopy at any time.
Comments
Black MacBooks can do more as illustrated in this video.
Here is someone who might be happy about Snoopy.
Viel Spass damit ,-) My own MacBook (black) never sleeps - the firth Mac i realy can use every time - some times with windows...
I look forward to hearing how you go with this little machine...I am very close to buying one myself (this weekend if I can get to the store!) and it will be our first forey into the world of Apple.
@Vowe,
2 questions :
1/ How much, if I may ask, did you pay for your AppleCare ?
2/ Did you do anything special to Snoopy to have it go through so many revisions/repairs and changes ?
The reason I ask is that I have a G4 12inch powerbook which has been with me since mid-2004 and which I never had any problems with (touch wood). The only thing that needs to change is the battery, which is diminishing.
Either I'm the lucky one here, or you had a exceptionally bad laptop... ?
So for me, not taking AppleCare has had its benefits (see this for my reasoning then). Soonish I'll be buying a new IntelMacbook with my savings from not taking AppleCare in 2004...
Obwohl du die Empfehlung "warten" ausgesprochen hattest, habe ich meins seit knapp drei Wochen, bisher ohne Probleme (zB Airport), abgesehen von der Hitze. Note: Niemals das heiße Gerät auf staubige Unterlage stellen - das brennt sich ein...
Ich stell jetzt erst mal einen ordentlichen Access Point auf. Dann sehen wir weiter.
Alex, I got a 50% discount on AppleCare three years ago. It probably has paid for itself tenfold. What did I do to the machine? Nothing special, in my book. But I break things. Not because I do not take care of them but because I push them to the boundary of what they were designed for. This is why I am happy that the next owner gets a new logicboard.
For the MacBook I bought a 3 years warranty from Gravis (first link at the top). It was only 80 Euro.
Hi Volker;
Was hat es besonderes mit dem Netgear Access Point auf sich dass Du den Linksys in Rente schickst?
Markus
"Das soll ein Messer sein? DAS ist ein Messer." :-)
LOL - Verstehe...
Two logic boards, a hard drive and a trackpad in 33 months? Now thats what I call an unreliable machine! Are all Apple machines this unreliable or only if you run them 16 hours per day?
I was hoping we'd get away without the Applecare (its an extra 10%) but based on this I'd say it was mandatory!
Buy the Applecare, especially if you're buying a laptop. In fact, always buy the extended warranty on laptops.
My G4 12" Powerbook ran for about 18 months now, without issues, the last month of it's life has been under the use of a thirteen year old who's learning about iLife. No issues, zero issues.
Are all Apple machines this unreliable or only if you run them 16 hours per day?
No, but as others have said, you’d be crazy buying any laptop without an extended warranty.
@Ben,
thank you - this makes me a crazy, which is what I always suspected, but it's nice to be confirmed :-)
To be honest, I haven't take AppleCare when I bought my Pbook as it was at the time hideously expensive in Belgium, and still is.
Today it's still 319 € for a macbook worth 1.319 € which makes it almost 25% of its value !!
Plus while it did travel it's share in my bag, it hasn't travelled extensively (which I knew when I bought it) and maybe I don't push it like vowe does !
