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12" PowerBook Wobble?
RedWingsSuck asks: "I recently purchased a 12" PowerBook from ADC. I absolutely love it, but I have noticed an interesting little issue. As it warms up, other users have said the case gets as hot as 120 degree F, it develops a wobble on a flat surface, like a table or something. As it gets warmer, the wobble gets worse. When I first noticed it, I thought I had lost a rubber peg from the bottom, but apparently my problem is not that simple. While on spring break, in San Diego, I went to the Apple Store there, and I was told that a few other people have had this problem, and that if I had purchased the PowerBook from there, they would have replaced it with a new one. Then I called Apple Care, and they told me that they were just informed of this problem. Has anybody else had this problem, if so, what did Apple say about it?"
If the heat is enough to warp the casing, I'd hate to think what it might be doing to some of the other components.
I've had a similar issue. So have many, as the Apple forums indicate. Slowly the rubber feet have been coming off and recently the last one fell off so my powerbook is completely with the rubber feet. It's since stabalized, but now it slides around a little more easily. I called AppleCare and they will replace the rubber feet for a $6 charge when they have the rubber feet marked for the 12" powerbooks which will be soon. They mentioned that the rubber feet are exactly the same as the 15" model, and if you can get hold of those, either by a friend ordering through applecare or a 3rd party vendor, that should work. I've also read about people completely replacing the rubber feet with ones they bought at a hardware store.
Okay, this is a real long comment, but since you brought it up, here is my 12" Powerbook story.
I support an open-source network management product, and a friend of mine turned me onto OS X (which is one of the operating systems we run on). I was just about to buy his iBook when the new Powerbooks came out. I fell in love with their styling, and I "switched" big time (loaded Powerbook, iPod, Soundsticks, warranty, etc.)
It took a month to arrive, and everything about the packaging, the look of the machine, etc., was pure Apple. If I were to ever buy a new Mercedes, this is the feeling I would hope to have (only more so).
But the honeymoon didn't last long. While it worked great on my lap, when I put it on the desk it would wobble. Cold or hot (and it does get hot), there was an obvious wobble.
Then I noticed that whenever I pressed down with my right hand, there would be a "click". Closer examinination found that the "palm rest" on the right side of the mouse was actually bent. You could see it and definitely feel it when you ran your finger along the ridge between the mouse and the keyboard. If you close the unit, the little rubber pad on the left side of the screen met nicely with the rest of the laptop, but there was an obvious gap on the right side. Finally, if I put the spare battery in place of the original (which goes in on the right side) it seemed to require a lot more effort than it should to get it in.
Conclusion: Bent laptop.
Having purchased the warranty, I called Apple, and they told me that, yes, they knew about the wobble (they also told me it was worse on 17" Powerbooks) but that they didn't know what they were going to do about it yet. As far as the bent palm rest, they told me to take it to the Apple Store and have them send it in.
At the Apple Store I dealt with some rather nice people, but became very worried when one said "oh, they'll say this is abuse."
Abuse? I hadn't had the thing long, I normally take care of my laptops very well (I travel a whole lot, so they have to work) and I have taken even better care of this unit. Luckily, that never became an issue.
So I sent it off, and they kept it for over a month. I would call in weekly and hear things like they were waiting for parts (one time I heard the word "mainboard") but eventually it arrived back on my doorstep.
It was the same laptop I had sent out, with the same wobble issue, but someone had spent a lot of time getting everything to fit the best they could. The bend is gone, but you can still see that things don't quite fit well on the right side, the screen still has the gap, and if you look under the keys in front of the mouse, there is some sort of plastic film that is buckled - as if it doesn't quite fit.
But these things are too minor to do without my laptop for another month. I took a razor and trimmed one of the rubber feet down to fix the wobble, and I'll just live with the other problems.
The downside for Apple is that I will be hesitant to buy another product from them. For much less than the $3500 I shelled out, I could have gotten a small Linux laptop that would function to meet my needs. The reason I bought an Apple was for the "fit and finish" and quality I used to associate with them, and I am very disappointed. I still like my iPod, though.
My name is Tarus. I'm a consultant. And I'm a sucker.
I don't own a PowerBook (only a G4 Cube), but from what you describe, it sounds like the different expansion rates of the materials that make up the case are great enough to cause the bends, much like how a bimetallic strip bends at different temperatures. If the laptop were out of warranty, I'd suggest that you loosened the screws that hold its case together, and turn the computer on. If the case stays straight that way after it has warmed up, tighten the case back up immediately, and you should be OK. If it still wobbles, you might have to loosen the PC board inside.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
If what you need is a "a decently fast Unix-ish laptop with 802.11b," an iBook would more than fit the bill, and not have the heat or wobbly problems of the 12" PB. iBooks are also a helluva lot cheaper than a PowerBook.
For me, I don't really see too much appeal for the price in a PowerBook. I mean, yes, they're incredibly machines, but I am perfectly happy with my 500 MHz 12" iBook. I've had no problems with it for the two years I've owned it, and it was pretty darn cheap to boot. I can safely say that this is the best computer I've ever owned.
And I still end up without much of a dent in the wallet, along with the side effect of getting a very nice, tiny, fast enough machine (naturally, the newer 0.9-1 GHz iBooks are faster) that does everything I need to do well. Having come from Linux/x86 prior to this, I also get a bost in productivity in a number of areas.
Besides, who in their right mind buys computers with a loan? Maybe I'm just safe with my money, but I never buy anything that I can't afford with real money, a house or car excluded. (and I have no car, thank the lawd)
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Hmm. I swap my battery out of mine while in sleep all the time. You might want to have that checked out.
--
I know there are some definately high-end thinkPads, but all the friends I've had with thinkpads had little things flake out or fall off on them. They also were very heavy and very thick. Granted, they were all i-Series, which I understand isn't the top of the line...
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
My friend has the exact same problem in reverse. His 12" TiBook wobbles like crazy when it's cold, but once it heats up, it gets level.
I guess there is something to be said for the plastic casing on my iBook. Totally unrelated, I heard that the iBook casing is bulletproof. Is that true?
Apple is an early adopter:
Cube - lots of complaints about "scratches" and manufacturing issues.
TiBook - manufacturing issues.
AiBook - manufacturing issues.
Consumer computer hardware mass-produced on a pretty quick turnaround to market might impact QC a little. The fact that they have a relatively low market share doesn't help matters.
But that is the Apple way. There are dozens of instances where Apple has looked at the market and said decided that they wanted something cool that wasn't out there. So they build some "new thing" (insert your favorite cool Apple thing here).
We all know what happens next:
1. "mainstream" computer media sniggers, predicts Apple's pending demise (I think Dvorak popped a prolapse when he found out the iMacs were floppy-less).
2. Wintel Intelligencia (oxymoron?) nod their heads in agreement.
3. 18 months later it's a BTO option on the Dell site.
4. Some asshat goes on about this "new thing" being the reason why Wintel is superior to the Macintosh (I actually heard someone say this about QuickTime in a company annual meeting)...
5. Approximately 6 months after that, it's supported in the latest Linux kernel. Sort of. FreeBSD support comes sometime later.
I was an early adopter on the TiBook as well. My rubber feet fell off. Apple put them back on. 3 dead pixels? LCDs have dead pixels on occasion. Sorry, but you won the bad pixel lottery. They happen.
I've had nothing but good service from Apple over the last 15+ years and 5-6 boxes I've purchased ( I've gone through at least 2X as many PeeCees - glad they're so much cheaper...).
Too much of your post sounds like a troll, but I figure I may be wrong and my blood sugar's a bit low, so I bit. HAving said that, I have a real problem believing that you have a warped case and they won't fix it/swap it out/ etc.
I've never had the kind of issues you've had with Apple Support. I *did* have a lemon DP G4 that went back about a half-dozen times: they replaced it and they took really good care of me on the trade up. When I got the feet replaced on my laptop, they took care of a bunch of other minor cosmetic stuff, one of which was replacing the lid on my Tibook. If you're going to buy a laptop from Apple, buy the extended warranty. It's always paid off for me. Whether or not I've had the extended warranty, I've never had the kinds of poor quality problems your talking about, nor have I seen them in the hundreds of Macs I've worked on or around.
It sounds like you'll be a lot happier on a Linux laptop.
- learn to swim.
I think I heard somewhere that 120 degrees is the point where aluminum gets pliable, and after a while, picking it up after running it for a while can cause some slight bends. I haven't heard about the 17 incher having problems, but that is probably due to the huge amount of surface area on it. Summary:The 12in is so small and powerful, that this pushes the aluminum to the edge. If anyone has any metallurgy experience, please shed some light on this.