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I just spent 1 hour today at the Apple store and talking to Apple care getting my brand new (2 days old) 15 Retina MBP replaced. It kernel panicked on me and br

I just spent 1 hour today at the Apple store and talking to Apple care getting my brand new (2 days old) 15 Retina MBP replaced. It kernel panicked on me and bricked itself. The only sign of life is a slight hum of a fan when I try to power it on. It's the first Apple product I've bought but I can't shake the feeling that this frequency of bad hardware is becoming normal.

schrodinger 14y ago
I had an 06 MacBook that was an absolute lemon. Had to bring it in for randomly turning off and go through two motherboard replacements before they sent it away for 4 weeks to redesign the motherboard. Then it still had to go back in several times before they finally just gave me a new one almost a year newer because of how troublesome it was. I don't think this is a sign of getting worse! (I now have a 2012 rMBP and absolutely love it)
coldtea 14y ago
>It's the first Apple product I've bought but I can't shake the feeling that this frequency of bad hardware is becoming normal. Probably because you haven't experienced the overheating G4 Cubes, the liquid cooling dripping G5 Pros, the frequently crapping out on the motherboards iBook G3, the wheezing MacBook Pros, and tons of similar stuff. There's even a saying that goes as far back as 2002: NEVER buy Apple 1gen product (like the Retina was) --or at least be cautions. Wait till the put the second generation in the market. So nothing to do with "declining quality" as such. All new models have some ironing out of issues to do, and all models will have some problematic runs. Same thing in the PC world, be assured, just that noone buys 3 million of the exact same PC model, whereas in the Mac world they do.
- nwh 14y ago
  > overheating G4 Cubes I'm not sure that anybody ever had that issue. Mine has been in constant use since it's purchase, and it's never once had overheating issues, even in 40c+ ambient temperatures. Even if it did, there's a dandy little slot in the bottom for adding a fan if you choose.
  - saurik 14y ago
    http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/294758/10-gadgets-we-could-ve-lived-without/5 http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/294758/10-gadgets-we-co... > It had some major overheating issues that produced miniscule cracks in its porcelain body. Another major flaw was that it didn't have a fan, so users had to shutdown every so often and let the vent breathe. Apple stopped selling the Cube within a year of its release.
    - nwh 14y ago
      I don't believe the "shutting down" bit. My stock Cube runs constantly, shuffling backups, processing logs and performing health checks. It's uptime is around 4 months now, and was almost 2 years before I moved to a new apartment.
  - coldtea 14y ago
    >I'm not sure that anybody ever had that issue. It probably didn't affect all production runs of the Cube, but still lots of people had them, search "g4 overheating" for some examples. There were a lot more complaints back in the day. Note that "overheating" doesn't necessarilly mean "shuting down".
    - nwh 14y ago
      I think that's the distinction. They get warm but certainly don't overheat. The only one I've seen with heat problems had a dual core 1.2gHZ CPU retrofitted. Undesirable to the point that half the heat sink had to be filed away to make it fit.
- CountSessine 14y ago
  The irony is that I got my rMBP right after they came out, and it's been golden. It almost seems like the more recent ones have been worse?
  - snowwrestler 14y ago
    The thing to keep in mind with Apple is that they sell huge volumes, so even a low defect rate will result in thousands of unhappy customers. And generally speaking, folks with complaints are much more likely to post them online.
DeepDuh 14y ago
I had the same issue, they fixed it without 2 days without discussion though. A motherboard replacement was required there, billed out for about $800 (of course for me it was free). After all I'm still glad having a macbook. Friend of mine bought a $2.5k lenovo that bricked itself after a month, after having serious thermal management problems (the GPU would suddenly clock down). It took them more than six weeks to get him a replacement.
mansigandhi 14y ago
We spent an hr at the Apple store and 1 hr on the phone speaking with their customer care, but they pretty much refused to believe that it was an actual issue! And we have the same issue with two macs, not one!
noonespecial 14y ago
The biggest problem by far isn't in the computer case. Its in the Apple store. The hardware's the same as ever, in the store however, "let me get that fixed for you" has become "that's not our problem".

schrodinger 14y ago

I had an 06 MacBook that was an absolute lemon. Had to bring it in for randomly turning off and go through two motherboard replacements before they sent it away for 4 weeks to redesign the motherboard. Then it still had to go back in several times before they finally just gave me a new one almost a year newer because of how troublesome it was. I don't think this is a sign of getting worse! (I now have a 2012 rMBP and absolutely love it)

coldtea 14y ago

>It's the first Apple product I've bought but I can't shake the feeling that this frequency of bad hardware is becoming normal. Probably because you haven't experienced the overheating G4 Cubes, the liquid cooling dripping G5 Pros, the frequently crapping out on the motherboards iBook G3, the wheezing MacBook Pros, and tons of similar stuff. There's even a saying that goes as far back as 2002: NEVER buy Apple 1gen product (like the Retina was) --or at least be cautions. Wait till the put the second generation in the market. So nothing to do with "declining quality" as such. All new models have some ironing out of issues to do, and all models will have some problematic runs. Same thing in the PC world, be assured, just that noone buys 3 million of the exact same PC model, whereas in the Mac world they do.

nwh 14y ago
> overheating G4 Cubes I'm not sure that anybody ever had that issue. Mine has been in constant use since it's purchase, and it's never once had overheating issues, even in 40c+ ambient temperatures. Even if it did, there's a dandy little slot in the bottom for adding a fan if you choose.
- saurik 14y ago
  http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/294758/10-gadgets-we-could-ve-lived-without/5 http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/294758/10-gadgets-we-co... > It had some major overheating issues that produced miniscule cracks in its porcelain body. Another major flaw was that it didn't have a fan, so users had to shutdown every so often and let the vent breathe. Apple stopped selling the Cube within a year of its release.
  - nwh 14y ago
    I don't believe the "shutting down" bit. My stock Cube runs constantly, shuffling backups, processing logs and performing health checks. It's uptime is around 4 months now, and was almost 2 years before I moved to a new apartment.
- coldtea 14y ago
  >I'm not sure that anybody ever had that issue. It probably didn't affect all production runs of the Cube, but still lots of people had them, search "g4 overheating" for some examples. There were a lot more complaints back in the day. Note that "overheating" doesn't necessarilly mean "shuting down".
  - nwh 14y ago
    I think that's the distinction. They get warm but certainly don't overheat. The only one I've seen with heat problems had a dual core 1.2gHZ CPU retrofitted. Undesirable to the point that half the heat sink had to be filed away to make it fit.
CountSessine 14y ago
The irony is that I got my rMBP right after they came out, and it's been golden. It almost seems like the more recent ones have been worse?
- snowwrestler 14y ago
  The thing to keep in mind with Apple is that they sell huge volumes, so even a low defect rate will result in thousands of unhappy customers. And generally speaking, folks with complaints are much more likely to post them online.

DeepDuh 14y ago

I had the same issue, they fixed it without 2 days without discussion though. A motherboard replacement was required there, billed out for about $800 (of course for me it was free). After all I'm still glad having a macbook. Friend of mine bought a $2.5k lenovo that bricked itself after a month, after having serious thermal management problems (the GPU would suddenly clock down). It took them more than six weeks to get him a replacement.

mansigandhi 14y ago

We spent an hr at the Apple store and 1 hr on the phone speaking with their customer care, but they pretty much refused to believe that it was an actual issue! And we have the same issue with two macs, not one!

noonespecial 14y ago

The biggest problem by far isn't in the computer case. Its in the Apple store. The hardware's the same as ever, in the store however, "let me get that fixed for you" has become "that's not our problem".