A MacRumors forum member, project_2501, has posted this extensive log (via Nick Heer) of his attempt to work with Apple’s support to get a refund for one of the latest MacBook Pro’s after his couldn’t play video at 4K without overheating. Of course that overheating also caused other issues, like the glue holding the glass onto the screen peeling off. It’s an eye-watering account, I really recommend reading the whole post.
One of the reasons I’ve chosen, and recommended, Apple hardware in the past has been the often incredible customer support.
When the hardware fails, rarely, they’ve stood by it and repaired it or replaced it with the latest version in case it was a design flaw.
Their latest laptops seem to be incredibly poorly designed. So many people have written about the keyboards failing due to (what should be) insignificant specks of dust permanently interrupting keys.
Perhaps it’s true that less dirt gets under butterfly switched-keys. But therein lies the problem — when dirt does get in, it cannot get out. A piece of dust is capable of rendering a butterfly switch nonfunctional. The key won’t click, and it won’t register whatever command it’s supposed to be typing. It’s effectively dead until someone can either shake loose the debris trapped under it or blow at the upside-down keyboard Nintendo-cartridge style. Meanwhile, Apple quietly put up a page with instructions expressly to try and help people with dead butterfly switch keys.
Having worked in a computer repair center in the past five years, I’m not likely to recommend Windows laptops, they’re cheap (or sometimes expensive) shit.
My current laptop is a late-2013 MacBook Pro that was Apple Support’s replacement for a 2011 model that had repeated issues with the GPU. This 2013 model has had issues, the rubber grommet around the screen has been slowly falling apart while the screen flickers at the login screen and takes forever to wake up with the machine after it’s been sleeping. This all started happening after their last repair on it, and their support surprised me by refusing to fix the issues caused by their repair. Instead offering a $700+ repair option. I’m holding onto it until it falls apart.
I hope that Apple can get their shit together. project_2501 ended up buying one of the 2015 models that Apple still sells for some odd reason, perhaps because the current models aren’t working out so well.
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