7 ms·

Don't know about the stats, but this has definitely been the case for me. My late 2010 MBA worked for 5 years then broke one day. Apple fixed it in under 24 hou

Don't know about the stats, but this has definitely been the case for me. My late 2010 MBA worked for 5 years then broke one day. Apple fixed it in under 24 hours for $304.80 (that's with 8.75% NY tax) and I'm typing on it as we speak. PS the thing is basically indestructible... I have no excuse not to buy another some time in the future. Can't wait to try the 12" MB.

kerbalspacepro 10y ago
I love my 2013 MBA, but I feel like switching between its screen and my MBP's Retina Display has been a significant factor in my deteriorating eye health.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  I own a 2013 MacBook Air (13″), and the screen is definitely its worst feature. It's not even that it's not retina (the screen on my desk is just a 23″ 1080p monitor), but something about the vividness and viewing angles is straining on my eyes over long periods.
- Scarbutt 10y ago
  deteriorating eye health The switching or the poorer screen of the air?
freehunter 10y ago
I agree but I would strongly hesitate to say "basically indestructible". Macs are incredibly destructible. They have a very thin glass screen, you could bend the chassis with your hands if you wanted to, and they're not even a little waterproof. How I would describe a MacBook is "quality". It's not especially durable, it just doesn't break down over time. Other laptops break in stupid ways. The hinges snap because it's metal screwed into plastic. The cheap plastic casings wear down, discolor, and crack as you touch it. The trackpad wears down because it's plastic. The logic boards stress with the constant heat flux and end up breaking. Macs don't often suffer from that. MacBooks aren't indestructible in any way. They're just built to a higher standard so they can withstand daily use. It's kind of sad that our bar is set so low, but many other laptops can't withstand daily use for years on end. Even Thinkpads, I've had the hinge areas crack because it's metal hinges screwed into a plastic chassis.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > The logic boards stress with the constant heat flux and end up breaking. Oh no. Macbooks do suffer from this! Remember the NVIDIA lead-free-solder fiasco or the issue affecting a boatload of MBPs with Intel GPUs? At least they fixed my Fall 2011 MBP free of charge (logicboard swap). Getting my old Windows laptop fixed with the NV disaster was a whole other story.
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    And more recently the spring 2011 MBPs with bad AMD GPUs, and that experience soured me on Macs about a decade after switching back to Mac.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    Which is extremely rare. On cheap-ass Windows laptops, it's expected.
- rpazyaquian 10y ago
  > How I would describe a MacBook is "quality". It's not especially durable, it just doesn't break down over time. I've definitely noticed the same thing. Almost every laptop (and computer, for that matter) has broken down within a year to a year and a half for some random dumb reason. Two of my laptops died due to messed up power supply connections on the motherboard, two others died due to the hinges completely snapping off, and another died because the hard drive failed - and that one was an aluminum iMac that I pawned off to my friend, who replaced the HDD and it works just fine still. I've had my current MBP since 2012, and it's chugging along just fine - except for the hard drive, which I replaced with an SSD and have no problems with, and ironically enough the hinges, which totally cracked. I had to buy some replacement hinges off of iFixit, which I'm waiting on delivery for today. Apple computers have by far been the longest lasting and least likely to crap out on me that I've ever had. I'm very happy with my old MBP, and the only reason I'm considering upgrading to a newer model is because I can tell this one might be on its way out in general. The one thing stopping me is the price point... $1600+, yikes.
  - 10y ago
paulmd 10y ago
Apple doesn't have a monopoly on durable laptops. I'm still using a circa-2010 Thinkpad W-series (purchased refurbished in 2013). Needs a new cooling module (starting to overheat occasionally), and it's been through a couple battery packs and a keyboard replacement, but those are essentially wear items and it's otherwise still going strong. So far I've actually stepped right flat on the screen once (it fell out of bed while I was in the bathroom and I couldn't see it under the covers) and I'm going to need to unlearn the habit of picking it up by the screen since other laptops aren't going to tolerate that. The T- and W-series are incredibly, incredibly durable pieces of hardware (note: the new Edge, Yoga, etc series are built much more lightly). Previously I had a Fujitsu Lifebook T4220 convertible tablet from 2007. That was also very durable. It was built quite lightly but ironically the convertible screen would tend to pivot out of the way when you dropped it, which prevented damage, and since it was so light it tended not to pick up a lot of momentum. One day it just stopped powering up, probably some kind of electrical problem. Happened early 2013, so I got about 5 solid years of daily use from it. I have a broken T4200 I picked up for parts, I've been thinking about trying to troubleshoot it one of these days. In contrast my fiance had a unibody MacBook Pro (Core2Duo I think, probably circa 2008?) in college and I wasn't nearly as impressed with the design there. The emphasis on passive cooling and having as few fans as possible tended to lead to overheating. What finally killed it was the screen cable going funky (I think). Could probably be replaced, but eh, I'm tired of repasting the damned CPU every 6 months when the overheating dries it out. She has a Thinkpad just like mine now.
- santaclaus 10y ago
  Is Lenovo shipping laptops with high dpi displays?
  - drd93 10y ago
    Writing the response from my 3200x1800 13.3" screen. High enough for my tastes.
    - paulmd 10y ago
      The 3K screens are seriously drool-worthy. I don't have a really pressing need to upgrade, but that 3K screen has gotten me wistfully playing with their laptop builder a couple times. It's literally quadruple the real-estate of my current screen (1600x900).
greggman 10y ago
Everyone has their own anecdotes. I've owned 1 Toshiba (5 years), 2 Vaios (both still work, one from 2000, the other from 2006), 3 Macbook Pros (2008, 2012, 2014). Of those only 1 broke. The 2nd Macbook pro about 2 years in the GPU died. I didn't buy the service contract and Apple told me my only option was to buy a new one full price.
- weaksauce 10y ago
  my gpu was failing and they did a full replacement of the motherboard and replaced the battery because it was out of spec for 300$ flat-fee out of warranty repair. Not sure what the conditions of that were, maybe it required to have a bootable mac. The few times I have needed to repair my macs it has been quite painless.
  - scarecrowbob 10y ago
    I had the gpu die in my 2011 MBP about 12 months ago, and they even waived the $300 when they fixed it (and replaced the battery). It had to be gone long enough that I ended up purchasing a new MBP (I'm a freelance dev and couldn't afford any down time), but it came back a-okay. I dunno the whys and hows of getting them to do that kind of thing, but I'm still using the computer. Which is way better than the toshibas that I have owned over the years which last about 3-4 years as my daily drivers.
    - weaksauce 10y ago
      That particular time I had to pay it but there was a recall on them later and I got my money refunded a year or so later so that was nice. I imagine you got that fixed during the time the recall was active.
orf 10y ago
Not everyone's experiences are the same. My macbook has been in for repairs a total of 7 weeks this year, for basically the same problem
gaga666 10y ago
Writing this from hp prBbook that worked 7 years changing 4 users without any single issue.
werdna123 10y ago
Why would you pay $300 to fix a 5yo MBA? Just dump it on eBay or CL and buy a new one...
- mschuster91 10y ago
  Because new MBPs have their RAM soldered and instead of SSDs weird NVMe sticks which you can't just put into an old Mac Pro/iMac and keep on working (or trivially upgrade). Oh and you can't just simply swap the battery (I needed < 5 minutes). Oh, and the new ones don't have basic stuff like Ethernet connectors, DVD drives, Firewire connectors or connectors in general. I don't want to carry around a box of flimsy adapters! Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to my trustworthy Fall 2011 MBP.
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    >> Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to my trustworthy Fall 2011 MBP. You're very lucky you don't have an early 2011 MBP. Infamously untrustworthy. If I had waited a few months to get your model or the 2012 model, I'd probably still be a Mac user.
    - sosborn 10y ago
      > You're very lucky you don't have an early 2011 MBP I have one. Still works great.
      - slantyyz 10y ago
        15" with Quad Core i7 and AMD GPU? -edit 13" models did not have this issue
    - mschuster91 10y ago
      Funny enough, we have about 50 Spring 2011 MBPs in service, no major failures yet except people drenching their MBPs in coffee and letting them fall (disks broken).
      - 10y ago
allemagne 10y ago
My own issues with my mid-2012 Unibody MacBook Pro: I've had to replace the main SATA cable twice for about $60 each time. Also, a couple years ago updating to a specific version of OS X while LaTeX was installed caused the update process to freeze indefinitely, forcing you to reinstall everything. I had everything backed up, but it was a pain and could have easily caused me to lose important stuff if I was just a little bit lazier. Still, everything runs smooth and great. Actually noticeably better than the 2015 hp ZBook I use for work.
to3m 10y ago
My old Macbook Pro was very good. I had it for 5 years, and it was hard-wearing and reliable. I'd probably still be using it, only it turns out that, while durable, it wasn't splashproof. Most of the "savings" for me over that period came in terms of reduced hassle and bother. OS X proved reliable and low-maintenance, minimizing the amount of time I had to spend playing IT man. And, unlike Windows, it didn't fuck up over time, even proving resilient to upgrades (I did every step from Leopard to Mavericks), so the regular reinstalls that I was used to doing weren't necessary. (And, unlike Windows, it had a decent backup tool supplied, so when I bought an SSD, which was the closest I got to needing to do a reinstall, I had to do little more than leaving it running overnight, unattended, once.) Of course, things progress, and Windows vs OS X is moving closer to parity... thanks to efforts from both companies. But I replaced my soaked Macbook Pro with a new one anyway, on the basis of my experience - it certainly wasn't the sticker price, that's for sure - and it's working out OK for now.
vbezhenar 10y ago
On the other side, my macbook is the worst notebook I ever own. Faulty SSD (replaced by warranty, but still 1 month downtime because of terrible service), faulty battery after 3 years (which can't realistically be replaced), non-working audio port and speakers (I'm using USB headset), faulty keyboard (half of keys don't work as I'm typing it using Keyboard Viewer), 1 failed charger (worked 2 years), 1 charger will fail soon (cords are peeling off). There were various issues with Asuses, Lenovos I owned, but never so much. I used to own 25-year old BMW which was failing every month or two, so I had to constantly repair it and always guessing which part will fail next. I have the same feeling about Macbook, I never had so unreliable device.
jordache 10y ago
what was wrong with it? mechanical failure or failure of the logic board? I've opened up my MBA 2013. It's basically a large battery, smallish logic board, speakers and CPU fan.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>My late 2010 MBA worked for 5 years then broke one day. I had the same experience with the 2011 model. About 6 months ago the motherboard went, computer is non functional. And yet...I have 13 year old Gateway laptop (first laptop I ever owned), and a 10 year old Dell that both still boot without a hitch. And that Gateway has some miles on it (bought it to play World of Warcraft). But, as someone else here said, the "quality" difference between the Apple and PC products is immense.
walterstucco 10y ago
I still run desktops with Windows 2000... does that make Windows desktops Immortal?

kerbalspacepro 10y ago

I love my 2013 MBA, but I feel like switching between its screen and my MBP's Retina Display has been a significant factor in my deteriorating eye health.

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
I own a 2013 MacBook Air (13″), and the screen is definitely its worst feature. It's not even that it's not retina (the screen on my desk is just a 23″ 1080p monitor), but something about the vividness and viewing angles is straining on my eyes over long periods.
Scarbutt 10y ago
deteriorating eye health The switching or the poorer screen of the air?

freehunter 10y ago

I agree but I would strongly hesitate to say "basically indestructible". Macs are incredibly destructible. They have a very thin glass screen, you could bend the chassis with your hands if you wanted to, and they're not even a little waterproof. How I would describe a MacBook is "quality". It's not especially durable, it just doesn't break down over time. Other laptops break in stupid ways. The hinges snap because it's metal screwed into plastic. The cheap plastic casings wear down, discolor, and crack as you touch it. The trackpad wears down because it's plastic. The logic boards stress with the constant heat flux and end up breaking. Macs don't often suffer from that. MacBooks aren't indestructible in any way. They're just built to a higher standard so they can withstand daily use. It's kind of sad that our bar is set so low, but many other laptops can't withstand daily use for years on end. Even Thinkpads, I've had the hinge areas crack because it's metal hinges screwed into a plastic chassis.

mschuster91 10y ago
> The logic boards stress with the constant heat flux and end up breaking. Oh no. Macbooks do suffer from this! Remember the NVIDIA lead-free-solder fiasco or the issue affecting a boatload of MBPs with Intel GPUs? At least they fixed my Fall 2011 MBP free of charge (logicboard swap). Getting my old Windows laptop fixed with the NV disaster was a whole other story.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  And more recently the spring 2011 MBPs with bad AMD GPUs, and that experience soured me on Macs about a decade after switching back to Mac.
- freehunter 10y ago
  Which is extremely rare. On cheap-ass Windows laptops, it's expected.
rpazyaquian 10y ago
> How I would describe a MacBook is "quality". It's not especially durable, it just doesn't break down over time. I've definitely noticed the same thing. Almost every laptop (and computer, for that matter) has broken down within a year to a year and a half for some random dumb reason. Two of my laptops died due to messed up power supply connections on the motherboard, two others died due to the hinges completely snapping off, and another died because the hard drive failed - and that one was an aluminum iMac that I pawned off to my friend, who replaced the HDD and it works just fine still. I've had my current MBP since 2012, and it's chugging along just fine - except for the hard drive, which I replaced with an SSD and have no problems with, and ironically enough the hinges, which totally cracked. I had to buy some replacement hinges off of iFixit, which I'm waiting on delivery for today. Apple computers have by far been the longest lasting and least likely to crap out on me that I've ever had. I'm very happy with my old MBP, and the only reason I'm considering upgrading to a newer model is because I can tell this one might be on its way out in general. The one thing stopping me is the price point... $1600+, yikes.
- 10y ago

paulmd 10y ago

Apple doesn't have a monopoly on durable laptops. I'm still using a circa-2010 Thinkpad W-series (purchased refurbished in 2013). Needs a new cooling module (starting to overheat occasionally), and it's been through a couple battery packs and a keyboard replacement, but those are essentially wear items and it's otherwise still going strong. So far I've actually stepped right flat on the screen once (it fell out of bed while I was in the bathroom and I couldn't see it under the covers) and I'm going to need to unlearn the habit of picking it up by the screen since other laptops aren't going to tolerate that. The T- and W-series are incredibly, incredibly durable pieces of hardware (note: the new Edge, Yoga, etc series are built much more lightly). Previously I had a Fujitsu Lifebook T4220 convertible tablet from 2007. That was also very durable. It was built quite lightly but ironically the convertible screen would tend to pivot out of the way when you dropped it, which prevented damage, and since it was so light it tended not to pick up a lot of momentum. One day it just stopped powering up, probably some kind of electrical problem. Happened early 2013, so I got about 5 solid years of daily use from it. I have a broken T4200 I picked up for parts, I've been thinking about trying to troubleshoot it one of these days. In contrast my fiance had a unibody MacBook Pro (Core2Duo I think, probably circa 2008?) in college and I wasn't nearly as impressed with the design there. The emphasis on passive cooling and having as few fans as possible tended to lead to overheating. What finally killed it was the screen cable going funky (I think). Could probably be replaced, but eh, I'm tired of repasting the damned CPU every 6 months when the overheating dries it out. She has a Thinkpad just like mine now.

santaclaus 10y ago
Is Lenovo shipping laptops with high dpi displays?
- drd93 10y ago
  Writing the response from my 3200x1800 13.3" screen. High enough for my tastes.
  - paulmd 10y ago
    The 3K screens are seriously drool-worthy. I don't have a really pressing need to upgrade, but that 3K screen has gotten me wistfully playing with their laptop builder a couple times. It's literally quadruple the real-estate of my current screen (1600x900).

greggman 10y ago

Everyone has their own anecdotes. I've owned 1 Toshiba (5 years), 2 Vaios (both still work, one from 2000, the other from 2006), 3 Macbook Pros (2008, 2012, 2014). Of those only 1 broke. The 2nd Macbook pro about 2 years in the GPU died. I didn't buy the service contract and Apple told me my only option was to buy a new one full price.

weaksauce 10y ago
my gpu was failing and they did a full replacement of the motherboard and replaced the battery because it was out of spec for 300$ flat-fee out of warranty repair. Not sure what the conditions of that were, maybe it required to have a bootable mac. The few times I have needed to repair my macs it has been quite painless.
- scarecrowbob 10y ago
  I had the gpu die in my 2011 MBP about 12 months ago, and they even waived the $300 when they fixed it (and replaced the battery). It had to be gone long enough that I ended up purchasing a new MBP (I'm a freelance dev and couldn't afford any down time), but it came back a-okay. I dunno the whys and hows of getting them to do that kind of thing, but I'm still using the computer. Which is way better than the toshibas that I have owned over the years which last about 3-4 years as my daily drivers.
  - weaksauce 10y ago
    That particular time I had to pay it but there was a recall on them later and I got my money refunded a year or so later so that was nice. I imagine you got that fixed during the time the recall was active.

orf 10y ago

Not everyone's experiences are the same. My macbook has been in for repairs a total of 7 weeks this year, for basically the same problem

gaga666 10y ago

Writing this from hp prBbook that worked 7 years changing 4 users without any single issue.

werdna123 10y ago

Why would you pay $300 to fix a 5yo MBA? Just dump it on eBay or CL and buy a new one...

mschuster91 10y ago
Because new MBPs have their RAM soldered and instead of SSDs weird NVMe sticks which you can't just put into an old Mac Pro/iMac and keep on working (or trivially upgrade). Oh and you can't just simply swap the battery (I needed < 5 minutes). Oh, and the new ones don't have basic stuff like Ethernet connectors, DVD drives, Firewire connectors or connectors in general. I don't want to carry around a box of flimsy adapters! Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to my trustworthy Fall 2011 MBP.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  >> Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to my trustworthy Fall 2011 MBP. You're very lucky you don't have an early 2011 MBP. Infamously untrustworthy. If I had waited a few months to get your model or the 2012 model, I'd probably still be a Mac user.
  - sosborn 10y ago
    > You're very lucky you don't have an early 2011 MBP I have one. Still works great.
    - slantyyz 10y ago
      15" with Quad Core i7 and AMD GPU? -edit 13" models did not have this issue
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    Funny enough, we have about 50 Spring 2011 MBPs in service, no major failures yet except people drenching their MBPs in coffee and letting them fall (disks broken).
    - 10y ago

allemagne 10y ago

My own issues with my mid-2012 Unibody MacBook Pro: I've had to replace the main SATA cable twice for about $60 each time. Also, a couple years ago updating to a specific version of OS X while LaTeX was installed caused the update process to freeze indefinitely, forcing you to reinstall everything. I had everything backed up, but it was a pain and could have easily caused me to lose important stuff if I was just a little bit lazier. Still, everything runs smooth and great. Actually noticeably better than the 2015 hp ZBook I use for work.

to3m 10y ago

My old Macbook Pro was very good. I had it for 5 years, and it was hard-wearing and reliable. I'd probably still be using it, only it turns out that, while durable, it wasn't splashproof. Most of the "savings" for me over that period came in terms of reduced hassle and bother. OS X proved reliable and low-maintenance, minimizing the amount of time I had to spend playing IT man. And, unlike Windows, it didn't fuck up over time, even proving resilient to upgrades (I did every step from Leopard to Mavericks), so the regular reinstalls that I was used to doing weren't necessary. (And, unlike Windows, it had a decent backup tool supplied, so when I bought an SSD, which was the closest I got to needing to do a reinstall, I had to do little more than leaving it running overnight, unattended, once.) Of course, things progress, and Windows vs OS X is moving closer to parity... thanks to efforts from both companies. But I replaced my soaked Macbook Pro with a new one anyway, on the basis of my experience - it certainly wasn't the sticker price, that's for sure - and it's working out OK for now.

vbezhenar 10y ago

On the other side, my macbook is the worst notebook I ever own. Faulty SSD (replaced by warranty, but still 1 month downtime because of terrible service), faulty battery after 3 years (which can't realistically be replaced), non-working audio port and speakers (I'm using USB headset), faulty keyboard (half of keys don't work as I'm typing it using Keyboard Viewer), 1 failed charger (worked 2 years), 1 charger will fail soon (cords are peeling off). There were various issues with Asuses, Lenovos I owned, but never so much. I used to own 25-year old BMW which was failing every month or two, so I had to constantly repair it and always guessing which part will fail next. I have the same feeling about Macbook, I never had so unreliable device.

jordache 10y ago

what was wrong with it? mechanical failure or failure of the logic board? I've opened up my MBA 2013. It's basically a large battery, smallish logic board, speakers and CPU fan.

forgetsusername 10y ago

>My late 2010 MBA worked for 5 years then broke one day. I had the same experience with the 2011 model. About 6 months ago the motherboard went, computer is non functional. And yet...I have 13 year old Gateway laptop (first laptop I ever owned), and a 10 year old Dell that both still boot without a hitch. And that Gateway has some miles on it (bought it to play World of Warcraft). But, as someone else here said, the "quality" difference between the Apple and PC products is immense.

walterstucco 10y ago

I still run desktops with Windows 2000... does that make Windows desktops Immortal?