Slashdot Mirror
Apple Laptop Reliability Survey
Nikopol writes "The venerable Macintouch site recently released the results and analysis of a survey on Apple laptop reliability." From the article: "Our survey spanned every laptop capable of running Mac OS X, encompassing 41 models sold over seven and a half years. A challenge in ascertaining the reliability of any device is that more time gives them more opportunity to break, so new devices should always look more reliable at first glance. Our survey asked participants when their laptop first needed a repair -- 'first year', 'second or third year', and 'fourth year or later.' These correspond to the duration of Apple's standard one-year warranty, the AppleCare extended warranty program, and any repairs that might happen outside any warranty coverage period. We also asked participants if they purchased AppleCare for their laptop."
I hope the computer on which this is hosted didn't pass the test.
I used a PowerBook 140 for about ... oh, I dunno, 12 years. The screen went out in 2003, but other than that the machine runs. Unfortunately, I have no SCSI computers/devices available to pull off the ONE THING I WANT MOST from that PowerBook.
A small little Japanese puzzle game called Katayuri. Does anyone know where to download a copy of this great little game?
Still though, 12 years without a problem is pretty freaking solid. Kudos!
No chance that the summary paragraph could actually summarize some of the information in the article is there? Oh well, I suppose it is easier to just copy and paste a chunk or two of the text instead, then.
We strike again!
Wow.. that didnt take long. OBVIOUSLY not hosted on a Mac server -- that would NEVER happen :) LOL
BTW, anybody got a mirror?
Coral cache link. I tried to get it right away. I don't think I was fast enough.
As much as people like to quote the macintouch surveys, they are still self-selected unverified Internet studies. As such, they are not useful for any real-world decision making, any more than Slashdot polls.
Macintouch claims that this is not a problem, but they have no way to support that claim.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Colleagues and friends have recently had a lot of problems with new IBM portables (by Lenovo), which used to be the standard of reliability. I have been using a Titanium PowerBook for over three years on the desktop and on the road, as my only work computer, without a single problem so far. I wonder how well the upcoming Intel-based Mac will perform in terms of reliability?
I have a dual-USB 800Mhz iBook that is on it's THIRD logic board. It's now out of coverage, so if the board dies again I'm looking at a 500$ repair, basically meaning I have an overpriced disposable computer. Guess I'll buck up for a Powerbook, or just go IBM/Leano Thinkpad, since I'm running Linux I could go either way, next time. Oh, but OT, the battery has been fine, after 3 years it only lasts ~1 hour or so for me.
fak3r.com
I found these sites to be useful in determining where to get the latest deals on used macs:
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
No matter what this survery says, its bogus, people treat laptops like shit. Iv seen more dented up, abused laptops then ones that have "manufacture defects". Also you tend to see alot of bad harddrives in laptops because they are bounced around so much. If your buying an Apple laptop I highly recommend Applecare, just because it is a laptop, and you will be bouncing it around. Hell how many laptop users carry a surge protector around with them?
keanmarine.com
I was thinking, could someone make a program which takes URLs out of slashdot's RSS feed and automatically hits the Coral cache to ensure that a cached copy is available ? If a subscriber did it, all the better.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I would like here from my fellow /.'ers about this because I'm thinking of getting one.
Oh, please, no Apple fanboy Troll posts. I want real feedback.
Here's my story with Apple. I heard so many great things about the iMac (Flavored ones) and when I got one: I was REALLY disappointed. It kept locking up, had to reboot often, etc.... In all due honesty, I was using a lot of MS software on it - yes, I'm paranoid too about that - i.e. MS writing shit for Mac.
I've had my 17" Powerbook for about 3 years now and haven't had a single issue. Awesome!
I wonder if they surveyed any of the people affected by this rather substaintial, but as yet unresolved issue on many powerbooks?
The warranty on dual-USB G3 iBook motherboards was extended. You are still covered. There was a heat issue with the video card on that board which they eventually determined was a design flaw of the series.
As of motherboard #4, the Apple Store decided I suffered enough and gave me a brand-spankin-new G4 iBook. That one has been working like a champ ever since.
I've been burned by surveys and even customer feedback on the web. I'd like to see some honest feedback. Like, "It works great but watch out for when you're running more than n applications." or something like that. Nothing slamming it or being a Fanboy - just honest comments.
I have a 14" iBook. I have only 2 complains:
1) My HD dies after almost a year (gotta love standard warrenties:-D) This seems to be a problem most laptops of any vendor, so...
2) My screen sometimes goes green sometimes (like an overcast). This too seems to be a problem w/ ibooks (search the apple forum...)
Other than that, I love this laptop and it has stud up to a lot. (physical and just computational)
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
Thank you, parent for the feedback!
Sorry, I forgot to append this to my other comment:
I have a Powerbook 520c that's about 12+ years old and it still works liek a charm (minus that battery holding a 15 minute charge...:-/)
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
AND....I would never pay for AppleCare -
Why?
That's not a reliable measure either. Again, people are self-selected. On top of that the evidence is anecdotal.
I bought a PowerBook about 10 months ago. I have since installed an oracle database on it (for development purposes only), along with a tons of different programs. It has performed exceptionally. I discovered the biggest flaw in the PowerBooks about 2 months ago, when I stepped on it. The screens, while very nice, will not hold 250 pounds. I cannot believe they aren't putting 250 lbs. test screens on them now-a-days. -cardwell
Introduction
We thank MacInTouch readers who participated in our recent laptop survey. More than 10,000 laptops were logged, along with many thousands of comments.
Survey Design
Our survey spanned every laptop capable of running Mac OS X, encompassing 41 models sold over seven and a half years. A challenge in ascertaining the reliability of any device is that more time gives them more opportunity to break, so new devices should always look more reliable at first glance. Our survey asked participants when their laptop first needed a repair -- "first year", "second or third year", and "fourth year or later." These correspond to the duration of Apple's standard one-year warranty, the AppleCare extended warranty program, and any repairs that might happen outside any warranty coverage period.
We also asked participants if they purchased AppleCare for their laptop. MacInTouch readers have strong opinions about whether or not AppleCare is a good investment; we hoped to quantify how often it is invoked for service. Hoping to gauge which models might have had repeat problems, we also asked how many times a laptop was repaired (regardless of warranty status) -- as well as providing an option for "It broke, but I didn't have it fixed." (Thus, repair numbers do not always exactly match problem reports.)
We also asked what components were repaired or replaced (if known), with check boxes for most major laptop components, as well as an "other" choice.
Finally, since accidents happen, we asked if the laptop was ever dropped.
Summary
* Overall average: 41% repaired (lifetime)
* Overall standard deviation: 0.17 (large variation between models)
Fewest Repairs:
* original (colored) iBooks
* PowerBook G3
* 12" PowerBook G4 (2005)
* 12" iBook G4 (recent models)
Most Repairs:
* iBook G3 (esp. in 2003, motherboard defects)
* 15" titanium PowerBook G4 (esp. in 2003, optical drive, case/latch/hinge)
* 15" aluminum PowerBook G4 (first version, screen defects)
Component Failures
* Overall component failure average: 5%
Standard deviation: 0.035 (large variation between component types)
* Most common failures (>1 STDEV above average): motherboard, display, hard drive
* Least common failures (>1 STDEV below average): RAM
* Less common failures (0.5-1 STDEV below average): keyboard, trackpad, case, latch
Charts
Repairs by Model and Time
Green cells indicate repairs significantly below average (ie, more reliable)
Red cells indicate repairs significantly above average (ie, less reliable)
iBook and PowerBook repairs by model
* Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding or variations in owner reporting.
Some laptops failed but were not repaired, so total failures (43%) are slightly higher than total reported repairs (40.6%).
Component Repairs
Green cells indicate repairs significantly below average (ie, more reliable)
Red cells indicate repairs significantly above average (ie, less reliable)
Table of Components Repairs
(click to enlarge)
* Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding or variations in owner reporting.
Analysis
In our analysis, we focus largely on first-year and second- and third-year repairs. Although we tracked fourth-year and later repairs, mostly it just tells us older models tend to break down.
The Titanium PowerBook G4s, which were quite popular, were more broadly troublesome than most models, with optical drive problems and case/latch/hinge problems being the most common issues.
But by affected
Introduction
We thank MacInTouch readers who participated in our recent laptop survey. More than 10,000 laptops were logged, along with many thousands of comments.
Survey Design
Our survey spanned every laptop capable of running Mac OS X, encompassing 41 models sold over seven and a half years. A challenge in ascertaining the reliability of any device is that more time gives them more opportunity to break, so new devices should always look more reliable at first glance. Our survey asked participants when their laptop first needed a repair -- "first year", "second or third year", and "fourth year or later." These correspond to the duration of Apple's standard one-year warranty, the AppleCare extended warranty program, and any repairs that might happen outside any warranty coverage period.
We also asked participants if they purchased AppleCare for their laptop. MacInTouch readers have strong opinions about whether or not AppleCare is a good investment; we hoped to quantify how often it is invoked for service. Hoping to gauge which models might have had repeat problems, we also asked how many times a laptop was repaired (regardless of warranty status) -- as well as providing an option for "It broke, but I didn't have it fixed." (Thus, repair numbers do not always exactly match problem reports.)
We also asked what components were repaired or replaced (if known), with check boxes for most major laptop components, as well as an "other" choice.
Finally, since accidents happen, we asked if the laptop was ever dropped.
Summary
* Overall average: 41% repaired (lifetime)
* Overall standard deviation: 0.17 (large variation between models)
Fewest Repairs:
* original (colored) iBooks
* PowerBook G3
* 12" PowerBook G4 (2005)
* 12" iBook G4 (recent models)
Most Repairs:
* iBook G3 (esp. in 2003, motherboard defects)
* 15" titanium PowerBook G4 (esp. in 2003, optical drive, case/latch/hinge)
* 15" aluminum PowerBook G4 (first version, screen defects)
Component Failures
* Overall component failure average: 5%
Standard deviation: 0.035 (large variation between component types)
* Most common failures (>1 STDEV above average): motherboard, display, hard drive
* Least common failures (>1 STDEV below average): RAM
* Less common failures (0.5-1 STDEV below average): keyboard, trackpad, case, latch
Charts
Repairs by Model and Time
Green cells indicate repairs significantly below average (ie, more reliable)
Red cells indicate repairs significantly above average (ie, less reliable)
iBook and PowerBook repairs by model
* Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding or variations in owner reporting.
Some laptops failed but were not repaired, so total failures (43%) are slightly higher than total reported repairs (40.6%).
Component Repairs
Green cells indicate repairs significantly below average (ie, more reliable)
Red cells indicate repairs significantly above average (ie, less reliable)
Table of Components Repairs
(click to enlarge)
* Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding or variations in owner reporting.
Analysis
In our analysis, we focus largely on first-year and second- and third-year repairs. Although we tracked fourth-year and later repairs, mostly it just tells us older models tend to break down.
The Titanium PowerBook G4s, which were quite popular, were more broadly troublesome than most models, with optical drive problems and case/latch/hinge problems being the most common issues.
But by affected
5300s - never played with one that wasn't horribly broken in some way but they're Old so that's okay.
:P Mine's got the wonky backlight but otherwise the only issue is disk speed.
Pismo (G3 Firewire) - built like TANKS. TANKS I SAY. Slap a Lombard power brick on them to replace the POS yo-yo (I went through four yoyos in four years) and you're ready for the bomb to drop- the brick is the only part I've ever needed to replace.
iBooks - They seem to break easily (logic boards, etc) but I swear I'm the only person I know who both owns an iBook and doesn't treat it like a doorstop.
TiBooks - early powerbook g4s. I've never seen one without either case cracks, cracked optical drives, or extensive screen damage. I've been close to a half dozen or so and they've all been damaged in some fashion - frequently a cracked optical bezel and screen damage of some sort. Doesn't help that the screens don't seem very good even when they're not cracked or broken.
Modern Powerbooks - they look nice but everyone I know who owns one still misses their Pismo series powerbooks (if they had one). Go figure.
My HD dies after almost a year (gotta love standard warrenties:-D) This seems to be a problem most laptops of any vendor, so...
I've owned multiple ThinkPads, two Toshiba 386/486 notebooks and my wife owns a Dell. Never had a hard drive fail in my life...
-everphilski-
The things that I like to see are like what I see in power tool feedback.
"Even though this recip. saw was put on the "Best" list for so and so magazine, I couldn't put in a 2" wood blade without it htting the guard.
Low and behold, he was right. I wasn't talking about overall stats. Just shit that happens to people. Because, if enough shit happens to enough people, it becomes a statistic.
Ok, I dont know what the fuck I'm talking about. I just like to get feedback, that's all.
The most common problems I've had with laptops of all stripes have been the display, the power connector and the battery wearing out. I've owned or extensively used two compaqs, a Toshiba, a 12" G3 Ibook and a 17" G4 Powerbook.
The first compaq I owned was a business class yacht of a laptop that was decent. I ran into power connector issues with it and the display eventually started blanking out because the connector would get loose.
The second compaq was a piece of junk. Had a memory problem I could never get solved even after repeated attempts to send it to compaq support. Just generally a mess which lead me to getting the Toshiba.
The Toshiba has been pretty solid. It's not a stellar laptop but it's been pretty reliable. Did have the fan die on it but was able to get it fixed under the warranty pretty easily. Oh yeah and the power supply died but I replaced it with a 3rd party universal adapter that works like a charm.
The two apple laptops I owned were really solid. I had some display problems with the G3 ibook, but haven't had a single problem with the powerbook yet. Also, as a purely aesthetic thing, the apple laptops just look better after a couple years of abuse. Well, correction, the powerbook does. The ibook, being that white chicklet plastic stuff is all dirty and scuffed looking.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
it's that you shouldn't buy the first revision of any new Apple product. Look at the figures for each model. Every one of them shows the same thing: higher defect rate in the first rev, dropping as later revisions (speedbumps, generally) come out.
This shouldn't be news to anybody, but it's still an interesting stat to draw out from the article.
I don't get it.
That's pretty damn good for a computer, especially an iBook. I say "especially for an iBook" because when I 've used those, they've seemed pretty, well, cheaply built. That's good to know that you've had what I think a pretty good experience with them.
'Nuff said
http://www.macintouch.com.nyud.net:8090/reliabilit y/laptops.html
Apple's products have always had the lowest or second lowest failure rate. Apple has always had the highest customer support satisfaction.
Taken from Consumer Reports, THE reviewing company you can trust.
Someone on the Apple discussion boards pointed me to DT&T Computer Services. They charge $225 to replace the logic board (with a refurb). I haven't used them, but they're quite helpful on the phone. They also don't charge for the diagnosis. You pay shipping (there and back), diagnosis is free, and then you decide whether to pay for repairs. Also, other common problems (e.g. broken video cables) are cheaper still.
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a pbook may sustain drops onto the pavement, even when turned on and running, with only minor scratches and bumps on its surface. All working fine...
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something dropped onto it may prove fatal, even if it's not too heavy, if it hits in the wrong place (hint: on the LCD or over the place where the hard disk is located)
FWIW, it was out of warranty and applecare, not that it would have helped. But of course, YMMV, AFAIK and IMHO. And especially, DTTAH!I heard so many great things about the iMac (Flavored ones) and when I got one: I was REALLY disappointed. It kept locking up, had to reboot often, etc.... In all due honesty, I was using a lot of MS software on it - yes, I'm paranoid too about that - i.e. MS writing shit for Mac.
Which family of flavored CRT iMacs, those with tray-load CD-ROM (266 and 333 MHz G3, 66 MHz FSB, RagePro) or those with slot-load CD-RW/DVD-ROM (350 - 700 MHz G3, 100 MHz FSB, Rage128)? Which version(s) of Mac OS?
The original tray-load models had some firmware-related stability issues. I think it was the third or maybe even the fourth revision of the firmware that finally fixed the last of the bugs, especially the really pesky USB related bugs. Flashing the firmware wasn't difficult, but involved some strange steps including holding down the NMI button until beeps were heard, etc. Thankfully the documentation was very easy to follow. The slot-load models had one or two firmware updates, the later of which was required for newer versions of Mac OS X.
The iMac original came out in the days of Mac OS 8.1, which was an OK release of the Classic Mac OS. Most of the ickyness of the System 7.5 days and the slowness of the original 8.0 were corrected. 8.5 had some problems again, but 8.6 and 8.6.1 fixed that. Ditto for 9.0, its problems were solved by 9.1. The last release was 9.2.2. I personally haven't used anything newer than 9.1 before I moved to OS X. See the thing is, Apple did release major updates to the OS with lots of bug fixes... but it still was Classic Mac OS. Roughty translated, that means a fine OS for doing one task at a time. Quake 3 and FAKK2 even ran ok on the slot-load iMac. Photoshop and iMovie were a pleasure to use on 400+ MHz models. You mentioned Microsoft software, I have to admit that Mac version of Office 98 was a fine peice of Mac software. Office 2001 was a little slower, but 98 ran great on even the 333 MHz models.
Doing more than one or two things at a time with the Classic (pre-OS X) Mac OS was a recipe for disaster, however. **Especially** when one of those tasks was running a web browser. Netscape 4.x was a buggy mess and without proper memory protection, liked to kill the OS. (Mac OS 8.6 and later had limited memory protection and it was possible to kill ("force-quit") and restart applications without rebooting, but this was still a pain). Mac versions of Internet Explorer were, in my opinion, just as awful as anything Netscape ever put out, maybe even worse. The poor theading support and poor networking of Classic Mac OS didn't help the situation any.
To sum this up, I have used many Macs from that era for many tasks, including Apple/Claris/AppleWorks, MS Office, Photoshop, WebStar (web serving), Rumpus (FTP serving), FileMaker (database client and server) and have been generally pleased. However, as a web surfing machine, it sucked... it sucked badly.
On the bright side, I still use several 500 MHz slot-load iMacs in a variety of fruity flavors for web surfing at home and work. With 384mb ram, Mac OS 10.3.9 and 10.4.x, they run Safari, Camino, and Firefox just great, especially when running G3-optimized builds of Camino and Firefox. I have not yet tried any of the nightly builds of Safari/Webkit. I now prefer Mac OS X as a web surfing platform. Funny how things change.
A FANBOY wouldn't have said ANYTHING negative. You did. And, thankyou.
I want to hear things that would be quite unfair to the average consumer.
We all have problems with BIG companies, even, gasp, Apple, but you were treated fairly and with dignity. Which is more than I can say for many corps out there!
Several years old, and the only problems:
DVD drive is flaky enough not to make installing OS X or playing a movie a guaranteed possibility. CD-ROMs, it's fine with. Since it's a departmental machine, I have no idea what kind of abuse it's seen. Also, if it were upgraded to OS X the DVD player would be useless because the hardware's too different.
CMOS battery dead, and not normal enough to find at Batteries Plus.
Batteries won't hold a charge.
"Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on
It seems like the reliability of the original PowerBook G4 (the titanium "TiBook") varies greatly. Some people have had nothing but trouble, others have beaten on theirs for the past 5 years without any problems. You seem to be one of the luckier ones.
The second generation PowerBook G4 (the aluminum "AlBook") seems to be pretty sturdy. WAY better hinge. Much heavier duty. Doesn't show scratches. Etc.
This is pretty good timing since I've been looking into the purchase of a 12" iBook for the past couple weeks (now waiting another week to see if there are price drops due to the alleged impending Intel-based iBook announcement).
;)
Then again, I'm taking the article text with a pretty decent "grain of salt" considering what other users on here have already said - it's probably about as reliable as your typical SlashDot poll...
Nonetheless, I just arrived back at work from the local computer store (went there to take a look at an iBook on display), loaded up Slashdot, and well... nice timing!
I'm sure there will be a lot of iMacs up for sale. Here's some great reasons to get them cheap to do some great tasks!
My mom's iBook G3/900 just died. We called Apple Support and they basically said if you don't have the extended "AppleCare" warranty there is nothing they can do. That program expired in March 2005.
Fewest Repairs:
* original (colored) iBooks
Yep, that's my Navi. "Blueberry" original 300MHz iBook. My Aunt Karen initially owned Navi, and the thing literally went around the world with her when she was a travel writer. She passed it off to me last year when she made the questionable "upgrade" to a VAIO. I sent it to the folks at Wegener Media to get a 30GB HD and 512MB SO-DIMM to bring the specs up from the 3.2GB/192MB it originally shipped with. I run Navi on Mac OS X Panther 10.3.9. It's not a speed daemon with that...you can only push a 300MHz G3 so far. But it gets me there.
I have been using Navi at college now for the past semester, and it's been great. Navi has an AirPort card, and using wireless on Mac OS X is a satiny smooth experience when you compare it to the fiddliness of wireless under Linux or under Windows. (Wireless+Windows=security nightmare!)
The original clamshell iBook is built to last. It's made out of that Fisher-Price ABS plastic that the iMac and the "flavored" minitowers are made of. It was designed to take the kind of bumps expected from the K-12 kids it was designed for. Yeah, it's heavy. Yeah, it's got an 800 x 600 screen when 1024 x 768+ is normal. But that's a solid machine. I fully expect it to be still running and still useful in 5 more years. Maybe Apple doesn't make lappies to last now like they did in the past. But the iBook comes from a time that they did.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Thier servers arnt as reliable as those laptops I guess. Cant know for sure, havn't read the article.
Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
Stats. are not acurate someimes.
See my post on powertools.
Come on, we should know better about extended warranties. Applecare on a Powerbook is $349. That's a pretty steep bet that you're probably going to lose. After all it doesn't cover accidents like drops or spills, which are the primary cause of laptop demise. The second leading problem is hard drive failure, which, if it happens, can be repaired by a tech for less than $200 (cost including the new drive.) Third are logic board or screen problems, which are expensive but not so likely. You may be out $700 if that happens (and it's a small chance), but if you go with Applecare you are certainly out $349 either way.
Remember, you get a year's warranty with purchase. If the model has a defect that will show within the year. If not, it will probably last for three or four years without trouble. The chances of a serious problem (other than drive failure) within the second or third year are pretty slim, and if there's not a problem Apple keeps the cash. If you're anything like me in two, three or four years you'll be eyeing a new notebook anyway, and the $349 you blew on Applecare would go a long way towards a brand new model.
If Applecare was less-- like $100-- I'd say it was good insurance. But right now, it's just a cash cow for Apple.
Wow.. Placed Katayuri in Google and I received 0 results.. I'm shocked...
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XenoPhage
Technological Musings
The site has set itself up to redirect slashdot referers back to slashdot.org. Copy the URL to your location bar and it will let you in.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I've opened several ibooks that have been the subject of spills. So far I've had good luck and only had two that didn't fully work after their accidents. The 1st had water spilled on the table it was on and it sucked up the water into the main board and that killed it dead. The other had sprite spilled on its keyboard and got in too many places and its keyboard / track pad don't work anymore. Two others that had beer and red wine are completely functional.
I don't think the ibooks are very well designed inside. Its a portable computer, its going to get stuff spilled on the keyboard and a bit of consideration from the engineer who designs the RF shielding would mean spills should be diverted. Other laptop companies do this so why not Apple? The thing about the old powerbook 165C sucking water off the table into its insides was just wrong but it was a old machine then so maybe the new ones won't do that.
From a corporate point of view, I don't like the fact that the thing must be fully disassembled to get the hard drive out. The company policy on warranty repairs is very clear that the hard drive doesn't ever go back without being wiped 1st. If the machine is in bad enough shape that it won't go into firewire drive mode, then the entire machine is a write-off. Its tough to get the boss to approve a purchase order for an iBook once they had to write off one.
It seems that everyone has problems with that cool light up AC adapter plug/socket as well. Maybe its time to come up with a new design for that.
Had a powerbook (lombard). Lasted two years great. Then the hinges that held the screen wore out. Screen became very dim. Key broke off the keyboard (my fault). By the end it stopped reading dvds too, mechanical faliure. I built a PC a year later. Will never buy apple again. But I do have an ipod. Which broke too.. As well as the second one I got.
Everyone in my MUG told me the handle was gay! Now who's laughing? Ha! HaHa! HaHaHa~ oooh! pink ipod mini!
I have a 15" powerbook, approximately 20 months old. I am on my *3rd* power cord (with the brick). It just does NOT work well. I've heard the same complaints from friends and others. The connector where it hooks into the notebook is very weak. Even now, on my 3rd connector (about 3 months old) I need to wiggle sometimes, move it around, to get it to work. The first one caught on fire about 11 months after I had it--CAUGHT ON FIRE. The second one last about a year (after I was VERY careful with it, and actually put tape around it to hold it steady. The third one looks like it will have a similar lifespan. I hate hate hate the power connector.
Other than that, I love the powerbook!
Personal experience: I have a 2003 Dell Inspiron laptop and a 2004 12" Powerbook. I used to have a 2002 12" iBook. The Dell had a bad wi-fi card (which was an Intel part) which was replaced free of charge, and that's been my only problem. It's ugly and plastic, but everything works. The PB has a bad modem which freezes the OS when I try to use it, the and the hard drive died after 6 months. I did the HD replacement myself. I didn't try using the modem until after the warranty had expired, and it's kinda hard to replace the modem since it's on the motherboard. The iBook had a bad touch pad, a non functioning latch, and a powersupply failure. I ended up pitching it into a dumpster. I'm going to try a Sony or HP for my next laptop.
I've owned:
PowerBook 520
PowerBook 540c
Powerbook G3/300
iBook G3/800
The 520 broke after a friend stepped on it. The G3/300 is dead, finally - I sold it for $250 2 years ago, and it died a few months ago. The 540c still works, though the batteries died long ago. The G3/800 is still chugging away, though it needed a logic board swap last year. It also has developed a wierd smell that indicates that component death is only a few months away.
Overall, Apple's laptops are frustratingly robust. If they had broken or died earlier I could have replaced them more quickly. As it is, if you buy a new iBook or PowerBook, expect to be stuck with them for 3-4 years. They'll perform well enough that you won't be able to replace them.
It's by far the most reliable Mac I've ever owned/used. I think in the last year it's needed one reboot, and that was because I did a force-quit when if I'd been patient I could have quit from within the application, and the Finder freaked. The only issues I've had are that the battery life has dropped over time (inevitable), and the backlight on the screen isn't nearly as bright as it used to be (probably inevitable) - and the keyboard isn't as responsive either, with 'i' and 'e' of course being the letters that need a harder prod to be sure of registering. Apart from that it's been great - in fact, it works a hell of a lot better with my laser printer than my brand-new Tiger desktop. Kind of ironic (and annoying), as the desktop was meant in part to be a print station. Why the fuck can't I print more than 20 pages at a time on my Epson EPL-5900L through OS X without it just giving up and sitting there for no reason?
Anyway, my old 'toilet seat' iBook rules. Of course, now that I've said this I'll probably knock it off the table or spill coffee on it tomorrow!
You must think in Russian.
Instead of getting modded as flamebait I'll just link to PCWorld's 2006 Notebook Reliability and Service Survey where Apple actually remains at the top of the charts.
Hey if I just spent $5,000 on a new computer I'd have a hard time admitting it's a lemon too. ;)
My wife has had a PowerBook G4 now for about a year. I bought it for her in January. Since that time, my three dogs have stomped on it repeatedly as my wife has a habit of leaving the notebook opened up on the floor. The case is a bit dented and doesn't fold properly, and two or three of the keys are missing, and we've had to change the power cord twice, but... given that we are talking about 3 dogs weighing around 70lbs apiece, I'd say its doing pretty good.
Conversely, my wife's friend brought a toshiba satellite notebook to the house, and also made the mistake of leaving it opened on the floor. It took all of about 30 seconds for the dogs to knock all of the keys off of its wimpy keyboard. Consequently, we had to buy her a new one.
Thus, in my mind, Apple's dog resistant keyboard lasts one year, whereas, a PC notebook lasts 30 seconds. Now I'm not saying Steve Jobs has a kennel onsite at Apple to test things like this out, but I wouldn't put it past him either.
This is my sig.
Other experiences include Apple Genius Bar staff fixing laptops for free just the after warranty period ended, using their discretion to help customers whose problems had begun during the warranty period. (This is sheer luck and sometimes frowned upon, so we recommend that if you have any problems during your warranty period, contact Apple and document it as quickly as possible. Genuis Bar staff want to help, but their authority is limited, and like all support professionals, they are under some pressure to keep costs down.)
First of all, few vendors want to piss off their customers, and few vendors want to be screwed by an unreasonable (or even criminal) customer.
Also note that in many places you have legal rights above and beyond those stated in the warranty. When a logic board fails 7 days after the warranty expires while under normal use, you'd often have legal recourse to get your unit repaired for free.
Call your state's consumer protection office if you feel you're being screwed... they might be able to help. But don't expect any sympathy if your old HDD burns out, or if your misused laptop stops working.
-Wallstreet 250 Mhz- Display failed after 3 years, 6 months, However, powerbook still runs with an external display
-Pismo Powerbook (2000)- Hard drive problems with noise, DVD drive failed after 14 months ($100 fix), Soundcard Failed after 3 years ($300+ fix), ATA Interface failed after 5 years 6months
-Titanium Powerbook-500 Mhz (2001)- DVD failed after 18 months, Modem failed under warranty, Display has vertical lines after 3 years, Paint rubs off after 1 year and chassis crack after 2 years
- iBook (700 Mhz)- no problems at time, 3 Years old
- Aluminum Powerbook 1.5 Ghz- No problems at this time, 1 year 3months
- Aluminum Powerbook 1.67 Ghz- No Problems at this time except for a malfunctioning pixel, 8 months
Reliability has been improving over the years; however, experience dictates an extended warranty is a must when purchasing a new Apple laptop. Despite the issues that I have experience, I will still recommend Apple notebooks as they best support available through phone, retail outlets, and forums that will resolve any issues quickly and painlessly. Also, I haven't had a problem with an IBM thinkpad we have for 2.5 years or a Gateway that my sister has had for 4 years
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
We had at least 20+ iBooks come through our paper in the last 3 or so years and among those there were only two or three that failed for any "mechanical" reason. (Had several fail due to impact damage.) Those that died were related to the logic board recall and Apple fixed them extraordinarily fast.
Keep in mind that these were machines used by photojouranlists and subject to a lot of hard use -- wildfires, Iraq, the Olympics, daily beatings. (One of our guys was blown out of a Humvee by an IED and while he wound up with a mild concussion and broken hand, the iBook was undamaged. )
We've since rotated them out for 15-inch Powerbooks to provide enough CPU/GPU umpf vs large digital files. I only hope these PBs do as well as the the iBooks.
the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed - w. gibson
Aside from some very minor tweaks, the AppleCare pricing has remained consistent for something like 7 years straight now:
...and have ALL of the above covered for a full 3 years for the same $249 PowerMac AppleCare warranty...which breaks down to just 0.6% of the total system price per extra year!!
$149: Mac mini
$169: eMac, iMac (all models)
$249: iBook, PowerMac w/or w/out display
$349: PowerBook w/or w/out display
What's bizzare about this pricing scheme is that in some cases it's a complete rip-off, but in other cases it's an incredible bargain:
At the low end, if you buy a stock-model $499 Mac mini, you're paying 30% of the system price for an extra 2 years of protection (remember, it comes with 1 yr. standard already), or 15% of the system price per extra year.
At the high end, you could, theoretically, buy a Quad-Processor PowerMac G5 ($3,299) with 16 GB of RAM ($11,900), a terabyte of storage ($875), a Quadro FX 4500 video card ($1,650), a 30" Cinema Display ($2,499), and Airport Extreme/Bluetooth card ($99), for a whopping $20,382...
Of course, with the profit margins they're making on $12,000 worth of RAM, etc etc, they can certainly afford to toss the extended warranty in for free (essentially), but it's a strange marketing thing.
I bought a g3 800mhz iBook soley because it was the on the higher end of in my eyes the last great breed of the "bombshell" PPC based iBook series, the last great breed in that it used the Airport series card which when combined with orinoco drivers supported packet monitoring (which when apple came out with the g4 series, switched to broadcom for their wireless and subsequently in my eyes crippled its potential). Now that said, I have had numerous issues with this laptop and from reading others stories so has most others. Unbeknownst to me when I purchased this laptop from a mac resaler the 1 year warranty was already 3 months in. I have gone through 2 logic boards, 1 HD, 1 CD drive and after my warranty unexpectedly quit early, I had a mysterious power issue in which the battery led power meter read that it was mostly charged(2 out of 4 on the bar) no power was getting to my laptop and also plugging in the charger wouldn't charge the battery. I am a classic poor student with no money to back taking it in for repair AGAIN!. So its been collecting dust next to my other *nix boxes and hoping for a glorious return someday. I'm not a gamer and Im not a Mac Zealot, altho I treasure this girl and all her baggage because of her potential, they just don't make them like they used too. So in Jimbo fashion Im making a PERSONAL APPEAL to Mr. Steve Jobs.... HELP FIX MY SHIT!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!
That although the quality has gone down in recent years, their customer service is usually willing to replace a part(s). Granted, it can be frustrating to be without your computer for a few days, but at least they're overnighting stuff and being quick about it.
The minimum charge to fix a powerbook not under warranty is about 275 bucks. Now relate that one time you have to get something fixed to the total cost of your warranty for 3 years.
Its ok, not EVERYONE is as ignorant as you.
- Warped laptop case. No, seriously. The front right (above the cd-rom) of my Aluminium powerbook literally comes up off the base as if there was never any glue there at all. I need to buy some kind of strong glue because a) it's warped out of shape and b) doesn't stick down, as stated. I normally rest a couple of 3kg weights on it just so that it looks pretty while on my desk (I use an external keyboard so access to the keyboard is not a huge issue).
I picked up my Powerbook G4 550 in the first part of 2001. I cranked up the RAM to 512, added an old style airport card I found on ebay (after Apple quit making them), and picked up an extra power supply after the wires frayed. The only other problem I've had with it is the screen had a loose connector. I take it apart every 6 months or so and re-seat the connector and it works fine for a while. I added a firewire external hard drive (160Gb) to suppliment the internal 18Gb. I also hooked up a firewire M-audio input box for my musical recording into GarageBand. The only reason I'd want to upgrade is that I can't burn my movies to DVD (iDVD requires 733Mhz and it only has a cd-rw) and iMovie has a hard time even exporting back to tape.
For a 5 year old machine, it runs like a dream and still runs 90% of the apps I need it to. As an added bonus, I can't remember the last time I re-booted it.
In the same time frame, I've re-built new machines for my daughter twice (probably due to just plain physical abuse and constant spyware downloading), my wife is on a PC laptop after her desktop couldn't cut it anymore (a virus that couldn't be eradicated), and I re-built my PIII 600 to be a dual P4 1Ghz that I run all non-mac stuff on it.
I could probably use a new G5 in the next year or so that will allow me to make DVDs from movies, but the P4 powerbook is still my main computer and probably will be for another year or so. I can't even imagine a 6+ year old PC running the same apps, without a virus checker.
The Dell desktop we bought at the same time as my powerbook is in the storage room in the basement as spare parts
I think that's the same logic that lets people who buy BMWs and Mercedes believe they bought reliable cars. Fun- yes, cool - sure (if you like things like iDrive), but reliable - far from it. However, if you spent $35000 on a 3-series (specs equal to a Pontiac G6 @ $25k), you have to convince yourself its 'great', otherwise you'd have to accept the fact that you paid a lot for a name....
I have a Powerbook 15" Ti 1GHz that is still running after 2.5 years of excessive, yet accidental abuse. This laptop has fallen off a kitchen table onto a tile floor resulting in only two cracks to the titanium case. No damage to anything else. The laptop has also fallen from the top of a 42U rack onto the SC|04 show floor. The damage this time was two broken hinges and a broken backlight. It was still running the demo!
The machine was under AppleCare warranty but even so, the repair cost was astronomical. So although the laptop will survive, when it doesn't, your wallet may not.
I have yet to see even my Toyota not need to have something fixed after 3-4 years.
I expect my Apple laptops to require the same after that length of time. I get my money out of them as they are heavily used and I'm not surprised when something bonks out. And yes I buy extended warranties just because of the screens and other fragile expensive parts, and they have saved me more than they cost over time.
My Dell laptops seem to require even more service, so on a subjective scale the Apple's have about half the repair frequency for me.
Insisting that a complex, somewhat fragile product should have no repairs in years is a bit unrealistic at the least.
My current PowerBook (12" G4 1GHz) blew its subwoofer speaker within the 1st month. I never bothered getting it replaced under warranty (didn't care that much). The 80GB drive failed catastrophically after 14 months and I didn't have AppleCare so I replaced it myself with a 40GB drive. The keys have "eroded"; that's the best description I've got for the pitting and cracked surfaces.
My previous iBook (12" G4) had the paint wear off both palmrests and the touchpad stopped working. That was under warranty so the whole top panel was replaced. My iBook luckily wasn't one of the iBooks where the lid hinge would damage the video cable.
My family uses Macs as well. My brother's PowerBook had the modem port stop working (looked like the connector had broken loose). His hard drive also stopped working (replaced with a 10GB). My father's power connector disintegrated; no better description for what happened to the connector and although it looks vaguely like a standard RCA plug it's actually an extremely difficult to find connector. All of these failures were outside of warranty, of course.
Where am I leading with all this anecdotal evidence? These have been the most reliable laptops I've ever seen. I have owned dozens of laptops and the problems with the Apple laptops have been minor compared to some of the grief I've put up with from IBM or Toshiba. My current PowerBook has also survived a trip down the stairs, had a brick (an actual paving brick) dropped on its lid, yet it still keeps on ticking. The last non-Apple laptop I owned was DOA and it took 3 months of back-and-forth with the vendor before it worked properly, during which time the vendor stuffed me around so many times that I swore I've never again buy a laptop from IBM^Wthe unmentioned laptop manufacturer.
Apple didn't used to be this good. I've owned quadras, powerpc macs, powerbook 100s, duos and many others. Apple's production quality was traditionally pretty poor. The latest range of equipment has been a dramatic and very welcome improvement.
Perhaps your iBook just needs a PMU reset to allow the battery charge properly. Google for "ibook battery pmu reset" or check out some of the iBook battery topics in the Apple iBook discussion forums
I still have a fully-functioning Tangerine iBook (G3 300). Ran everything from OS 9.1 through 10.2 on it. Finally, retired it and fidget with OpenBSD on it - which I am still trying to get to work.
:)
Only issues I ever had were, original 6GB HD was way too small - had to replace it with a 20GB and that was a PITA to do (outside warrantee, and you have to remove almost everything from the case to get to the HD) and the battery stopped taking a charge after 5 yrs. Not an uncommon problem, from what I've read, but not unique to Macs, either.
Bought the iBook in Spring, 1999. Ironically, when I retired it from active use, I moved to a $400 IBM Thinkpad 600SE running RH8 (then) / Fedora Core 3 (now) - the ThinkPad was actually two years older than the iBook, from what I can tell. The thing is two years older than the iBook, but the screen is a little larger and the keyboard is still great. iBook keyboard sucks and is impossible to replace (i.e., no third-party keyboard replacements that I can find, and with only one USB port, limited options for external solutions).
I would try to do a speed comparison, but I'm not that much of a masochist. They both work great, so I don't care.
My big lesson - that $400 TP did 90% of what the $1,200 iBook did. If I could have gotten the audio working, I would call it a 100% replacement, but TP Linux audio drivers have several issues, many of which were fixed by community geeks, but which were way beyond my n00b-ness to implement.
Oh, and I actually had women come up to me in the coffee shops to tell me the iBook was a 'cute computer'. Not kidding. The battery blew about that time, so I started toting the IBM 'black brick' and the embarrassment stopped.
I may have to upgrade to a PIII pretty soon - the PIII laptops are hitting the used market under $500 now, but my wife will kill me.
BTW - I was working in OpenOffice / MS Office for Mac, websurfing, ripping CDs, emailing, and trying to figure out how to use Emacs and gcc to write C code. Anyone who says a user at that level needs something cutting edge costing $2,400 is trying to sell you something... er, probably laptops costing $2,400. In my experience, business users are on an ego trip when they 'go big' on a laptop.
My 12" G3 iBook was a great up until four nights ago when it seemed I had the dreaded logic board error, now it's useless... and they want $350 to fix it since it's now out of warranty :'(
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
I am always surprised to hear people talk about apples great design, since from what i can see (my wifes g4 laptop) their design sucks, eg, rubber keys that leave imprints on the screen (and we won't even go to ipod battery land).
I have also read a lot of posts on poor wireless connections.
not to mention slot loading optical drives, which can't take a mini disc
I still got an old laptop a pentium 133 MMX that still run fine except the battery but that's the issue for every laptop battery. It still serve as a web server and run fine for its purpose. Of course it won't run the power hungry programs of today. And an old 386 'transportable' computer that not switched on anymore except of rare occasion ( too obsolete ). And my father got an old ultra portable libretto ( xt compatible / BW screen / custom dos ) today's computer are less reliable because of the power used, generated heat that put a lot of stress and of course are used by people that expect that their laptop would be as resistant as their portable CD player! I agree that apple laptop lasts more than their pc counterpart, but from my point of view when comparing with the same price range of laptop, apple computer are treated with more care than their x86 peer, from my point of view only sony vaio laptop were treated with the same care because the were bought by the same category of people ( still from my point of view ). Of course x86 laptop suffer more from ( *cough * ) windows unreliability/unsecurity than hardware failure ( of course every laptop owner than are supposed to be connected to a secured network are runned with administrator account with only a few exception ).
I've had a recent, immediate and total HDD failure with my 12" iBook after 1,5 years of daily professional usage. Luckly I started regular overturning Backups via external HDD a few weeks earlyer. It took me 3 days aprox. for a full recovery of my working enviroment (HDD replacement, migration from old Panther to new Tiger and all).
Aside from that I've had no trouble, despite the 12" iBook being the cheapest subnotebook abvailable. Two Thumbs up.
HDD replacement worked, but it was a real job. Something like 40 screws. You have to take the case apart entirely. I ended up breaking down the process in various stages and keeping the screws in noted envelopes. There is a very good foto walkthrough on the web (google's you friend).
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
It is always possible -- this is Slashdot, after all -- that you are completely full of it. But I believe you, and I am therefore flabbergasted. Why doesn't Apple advertise this fact?
After watching our Powerbooks at work develop bad logic boards, one by one, like clockwork, I reluctantly abandoned the Mac and started warning people about their bad build quality. Even so, I've been contemplating going back. Windows is clearly still crap (this "new" -- by which I mean "old, really old, older-than-Win95 old" -- WMF vulnerability has pissed me off) and Linux, amazing though it is, doesn't support all my hardware or run all my apps.
But the specter of spending over $1000 on a machine that will croak in 1.3 years has kept me away from the Mac.
I'm much more likely to take that chance now that I know I'm only gambling with $350 instead of $1350. Apple should be advertising these flat-rate repairs in giant full-page ads. They should be flying banners from blimps.
That is exactly my thought -- Apple likely has lost a pretty lucrative customer, considering the number of people who switched after I did (including a possibility my parents may still...) because of these problems.
To the grandparents question, I didn't bring the system to the Apple store because it was quite a bit out of my way, but I called and asked them about it and they did not mention anything like that.
Annoying... but I'll have to stop in next weekend and see. That may sway my opinion on them if thats in fact the case.
Not for long... they'll index this page before long. Of course, this would be a great time to plant a seed for googlewhacking. You could use words like Succotash, conflate, and maybe even quean.
- passion
These things are such garbage (and I have been reading Macintouch for a very long time). What is the p-value of your data? Is n sufficient? How did you handle selection bias? If you don't know what these things are, you have no business doing this sort of thing.
They don't advertise it because the GP is full of shit, or at least highly misinformed. Yes, Apple does have a flat rate repair system, however, it's not so simple. It's about 3 tiers of flat rate repair with the lowest being $350, and the highest being about $800. Depending on the necessary repair, you will fall into one of these tiers and that's the flat rate Apple will charge you.
The trick to Apple is simple. If you get a machine with a defect, get it repaired, and then keep on it. Make sure you're watching for things to go bad and do it fast. It is unbelieveable the number of times you will hear from someone "X failed 3 months ago and when I took it into repair this week, they told me it was out of waranty last month and they wouldn't fix it." If it breaks, get it fixed now. As long as you follow the procedures, it's real easy to get Apple to fix anything for you and almost always cheap or free. Start being and ass hole or being stupid about it, and they aren't going to help you.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Probably because they'd rather you buy a new $3k machine than repair your existing one.
In the very beginning of December I ran into an amazing deal on an open-box return of a 12" PowerBook G4 to Amazon. It was only a Combo drive but it was the 1.5Ghz 2005 model and it was $1000. They had a 30 day moneyback return guarantee via their warehouse_deals store that sells their returned/refurbished merchandise. After I placed the order I went through the week of waiting worried about the dead pixels or blemishes or problems I was going to encounter from a non-new machine but, when it arrived, it was absolutely perfect. It was as if somebody bought it, opened the box, turned it on, and decided that it was too small or something after a day or so and sent it back. And, thanks to them, I just saved myself $500 :) I used a little of the savings to buy a 512MB DIMM to bring me up to 768 and a few accessories.
This is my first Mac as a long-time Linux user (SUSE/Novell mostly these days) and a long-time Microsoft IT Support guy. I could not be more impressed with the hardware, sortware or size - the keyboard and case quality more than make the 12" PowerBook justified over the iBook and the size is perfect for my road-warrior needs. I was worried about feeling some regret for getting this a month and a half before MacWorld San Francisco and the Intel Macs but, after reading this article, I would rather have the last and best and most reliable of the G4 PowerBooks ever built than a first generation Intel machine, both in hardware and software, that will run many apps I need like Office through Rosetta emulation. I never thought I'd say this but I am a head-over-heels Mac convert and I have not even turned on my Linux desktop in a week. I have not been this excited about computing in a long time exloring the GUI, keyboard combonations and, most importantly, the way they implement their Unix layer and filesystem.
I am still trying to decide if I should pony up for the AppleCare though - I had a friend with one of the G3 iBooks with the logic board problems and he is really pushing me to do it. What do you all think about AppleCare? I am glad I have the option of waiting a few months and mulling it over - I was told I could get it as long as the 1 year warranty has not expired yet. Are there any other slashdotters that have experience on the 12" PowerBook that want to let me know their stories or have insight into whether they needed AppleCare on it? Any tips or suggestions for a Linux/Windows guy new to OSX that I might not have run across?
I was in a Laptop class in school many years ago. We all had student owned PowerBook 190's. At any given time a quarter of the laptops would be in the ship being repaired.
Consumer Reports also rates Apple laptops at the top of the heap in reliability (also a user survey) my nearly six year old G3 400 MHz Pismo is doing fine with 10.4.3--upgraded to 20 GB and 576 MB--but it is going to be supplanted by a duo core powerbook if they are announced next week, the thing is fine for email/web and occasional Photoshop but it can only play Dr. Who videos at 4.5 fps, don't even ask about HD Quicktime fps, also had a 5300 that was problem free but sold that to get the airport and other features of the Pismo
Despite the limitations on the accuracy of the data, this is interesting and seems to describe well behavior I've seen. I have about 12 Apple laptops for student use (they develop code to run on our clusters and having their own laptops works great for that) and have had several for my own use since 2000 and have been very happy with the machines overall. AppleCare has worked very well- it's quick and effective. I used to use Sony Vaio subnotebooks, which were nice laptops and ran Linux nicely, but they were quite flimsy and Sony's repair process was ridiculous. They seemed to think it was reasonable to have the laptop sent to them for a month- being without a machine for a month is a huge hit, especially if it is your only/main machine. So for the Sonys I would wait until there were three or four problems before sending them in, since the process was a huge, slow hassle. For the Apples, they express mailed a box and you expressed it back at their expense, and they were never gone for long, and the process was very smooth, especially compared to Sony's nightmare repair process. I gave up on Sony and don't know if they have improved things, but a company that things that it's no big deal to keep your computer for a month and keep you in the dark about when its coming back isn't selling anything to me anymore. I did more repairs on the Apples than the Sonys, since I got a batch of iBooks which were vulnerable to the motherboard video weirdness, but the repairs were so smooth that it was no big deal so I wasn't waiting until there were a bunch of things wrong to send them back.
I found Apple very generous with the motherboard replacement on our iBooks, doing several for free even after the period and AppleCare expired. They did refuse to do the replacement until it actually failed, so there were a couple that we were just waiting to flake out, but overall that process was quick and painless, so all those high replacement motherboard failures in the 2001-2003 G3 iBook range really aren't as bad as they might look.
A few quibbles with the analysis on the table:
1) They don't normalize "dropping" for age of the computer, so that column is essentially meaningless. The fact that only 2% of the 17" PB G4 HRs have been dropped has a lot more to do with the fact that the machine has only been available since October 2005 than anything else, so highlighting that as "better than one standard deviation below the mean" is meaniningless.
2) There are different populations for the iBook and PB crowd, so it's a bit unfair to compare their reliability. That is, the iBooks are more likely to be used by students and the PB are more likely to be used by grownups. I think the iBooks are significantly sturdier machines (given how well they've held up to my students use) but given that on average they are subjected to less careful treatment (on average- I know some very careful students and some reckless faculty, but those are exceptions), their sturdiness doesn't show up as much in the table as a true apples v. apples (sorry) comparison would show, I suspect.
3) As in point #1, it appears that they didn't normalize for age of computer in any of the "component failure" columns, so the machines that are worse than 1 std. dev. are all older machines which have had more time to fail, so that should have been explained or corrected for.
4) The power brick/dropped correlation is described but not explained well. Those little white bricks have failed fairly often and I think are a significant problem. I think they don't hold up well under rough treatment (frayed cord where it joins the brick and frayed cord at the computer end were the most common problems) and "rough treatment" correlates well with dropping the computer, presumably. Certainly I have seen many bricks fall to the floor as they are dragged by their cords and repeated dropping takes it toll. I got several extra bricks to keep in our campus lab since students would often want to borrow mine after they left theirs at home.
Those are quibbles- I think the data there is interesting. Even though it has shortcomings, you can only work with the data you have...
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
We have a Pismo, an g3 graphite Ibook, and a Titanium.
The Pixmo (6 years old?) and the Titanium (4.5 years) are going great, no repairs, not even any major cosmetic issues.
More impressive, the Titanium has NEVER CRASHED. That despite the fact that I develop on it. Its up for weeks
(occasionally months) at a time, put it to sleep when not in use.
The Ibook was the bad one, it had the common logic board problem, and it happened before we know about the
free apple repair program for those models.
Contrary to one of the other posts, I do think Apple's hardware quality is going down in recent years, as they move
production to China. The best that can be said is that they're as good as the better PC manufacturers.
But I lament the "cheap is all that matters" consumer philosophy that is now universal. I'd rather have the choice
of paying more and being able to buy a reliable computer (in particular a reliable hard drive). A few more
years of relentless cheap-ism and all components will by guaranteed to fail within months.
I bought my first Apple, a 12" G4 iBook a little over a year ago. It is on its 3rd hard drive. I thought it might be related to never turning it off. But, I was so buzzed to have a laptop that sleeps well (breathing light was cool). I loved the hardware design, but didn't like OSX, so I gave it to one of my kids and bought another Thinkpad (X31). I prefer KDE and Linux (Ubuntu). Before you go off on how an iBook can run Linux, I would say two things. Dumb one button touch pad and no sorryass wireless drivers.
call me switched, but not to Apple.
I've recovered quite a few thirsty laptop keyboards by soaking them in a small bath of metholated spirits for a few minutes, adgitating them a little, and then sufficient drying/gentle shaking to allow all the metho to evaporate. Works particularly good for removing sticky softdrink residue.
:-)
Metho & cotton buds on circuit boards is worth a try.. I've found the quicker one gets to them the better.
I used to pull the membrains out of my old PC keyboards and wash them in dishwater or under the garden hose, although that don't work to well no more. (I dont recommend it - Plastic membranes tracks and contacts are getting to darn small these days..) But maybe distilled or heavily filtered water and a hairdryer might do the trick?
(attempt at your own risk.
They're at it again. Look. Face it. Apple computers just plain suck cock like a gay hustler works his way through the Whitehouse during the Bush administration. Sure, the Apple laptop might LOOK nice sitting there on your coffee table, but what can it actually do? Which would you rather have as your gay lover? Carson from Queer Eye or a real man like Sly Stallone? Now Sly might not look like much but he's gonna save your fucking gay ass much better than that poofter Carson. I know where my money would be. Well, that's IF I was gay. Which I'm MOST DEFINITELY NOT. Without a doubt. I'm more straight than a 90 degree line. You won't find me thinking about cock ever because I'm totally straight. Unlike all you Apple faggorts. You're all gay as hell. And so are your little poodle computers too.
The 45-watt adapter that came with my 12" Aluminum PB caught on fire after about 20 months. The problem is the thin cord going to the unit tears where it attaches to the connector, if it is bent very often. I guess this causes the wires to lose contact with whatever is in the connector and you have to jiggle it around to keep the current flowing. Anyway, one day, this loose connection shorted and it went up in flames pretty spectacularly.
I replaced it with a 65-watt adapter, which is what comes standard now with the 15" and 17" models (I don't know about yours, specifically). The connector to the unit on this one is much sturdier it seems, and I haven't had any problems with it tearing. But then, I haven't used it as often or for as long.
I purchased at 15" G4 PowerBook in April, 2004. It was replacing at Titanium G4 that I'd had for a couple of years.
About three months after I bought it one of the USB ports (located on the left side of the machine) died. I didn't get it fixed at the time due to work and University crap. And besides, the machine's got two so I was good to go.
June 2005 the strap on my carrying bag broke and the right corner of the PowerBook took the brunt of the force. The case was bent up and the cover wouldn't close. The machine ran fine, but would not sleep.
So I took it to the Apple Store in London, mentioning the problem with the USB port and telling them I didn't need that fixed (figuring I was paying).
They charged me 317 pounds for a new case, which was fair enought: I'd dropped the computer. They also said they'd need two weeks to get it fixed.
Three days later it was ready. I was amazed when I looked at the repair order: Apple not only replaced the case (as we'd agreed), but the screen, logic board and hard drive as well!!
In fact the only things left from the original machine was the keyboard and battery. Never figured out that logic but I wasn't going to complain.
So out of warranty, I got what for all intents and purposes is a new Mac, for about three hundred pounds.
Damn!
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My GF's parrots love to tear things apart, and that includes our iBook G3, PowerBook G4 867, and the assorted powercords that come with them. They chewed through a number of keys (which could fortunately be glued back together), and broke the LCD display on the Powerbook by biting the top... which came about right since I was contemplating buying a new one, and the insurance paid for most of its price. And the older one serves happily as Airport router and fileserver.
:)
Long live Wireless networking, less things that protrude from the laptop or hamper movement around the room nor give attractive targets for parrot attacks
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Look at this PowerBook.
Everything besides the screen works OK after a car accident. Even the optical drive. The owner still uses it with an external monitor.
This IS an RELIABLE LAPTOP !
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My iBook G3 600 (purchased april 2002) broke down twice, first the hard drive (february 2004, repaired off warranty) and then the backlight (related to the logic board as it turned out - december 2004) For various reasons I didn't turn it in for repairs (off warranty) until may 2005. The backlight problem turned out to be caused by a faulty logic board, but since this was just past the iBook repair extension deadline I'd have to pay for that replacement myself which would be close to the price of a new iBook.
Around the same time I had purchased an iMac G5 with had a case of the infamous fan problem and a few months later a faulty screen. They were both fixed rather snappily, but I had gotten rather disappointed.
I wrote a letter to Apple describing my experiences with their products asking for a warranty exception on the logic board and...voilá. Semi-happy ending, my iBook gets fixed and breaks down again (exactly same backlight problem) in less than a week. This falls under meta-warranty, the logic board is replaced once more and the iBook is currently alive and well.
The lesson: generous warranty is a bad substitute for product quality, but at least Apple got that right.
There's no 'on' position on the Slacker switch!
dude, it's not a troll. It is running WebSTAR on MacOS 9. The last time I checked, the latest hardware to boot OS 9 were G4s which haven't been around new in at least a year and a half.
/ /www.macintouch.com
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http:
...the macintosh one year warranty (extensible to three years by paying hard cash) is a scam.
EU regulations require two years warranty on any technological good, except rechargeable batteries and a couple more. Still the macintosh thie^Hsupport won't comply until you sue them, which usually isn't worth even the absurdly high prices of the original replacements (100 for a battery charger!!).
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
Maybe you can fix a PowerBook for time and $80 drive - great. Tha majority of people can't. And trying alone often causes more problems - like the costs of hinge clutches and small parts that are hard to get your hands on outside of a real Apple repair shop. DIY Apple repair posts are full of "...have a couple of these handy - you'll probably break one or two..." I kept my Duo and 1400 going long after AppleCare on my own, but they're tough to bring back to 100% unless you have other parts - at the time my lab was able to get repair parts from Apple, but no more. Now it's eBay, PowerBookGuy, etc...
AppleCare costs $240 ($180 if you can somehow be an academic) and covers everything that goes wrong. Buy it on day 364 of your purchase, and for $10 ($6) a month, you'll never have to worry. And from the looks of these numbers, you have to worry more than most people would want.
It's the first extended warrranty that I'd ever consider buying - given the complexity of these things and the tiers of costs for Apple laptop repairs.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
It deserves mention that busted LCD's are not showstoppers. Of course, there are other output methods, but LCD's can be replaced. Not by Apple of course - unless you're in warranty or something, they'll charge you an arm and a leg to replace the screen (they want you to buy a new laptop). But from 3rd-party vendors, a replacement LCD screen for an Apple isn't hard to find. Shoot, a quick Google query should get you on your way ...
I'm not sure how it got to be a secret. I've taken my 12" PowerBook into the local Apple store and had it sent off for out-of-warranty repair a couple of times, and I don't think it even cost me $350. In both instances the logic board needed to be replaced.
Maybe our local store folks just aren't motivated to hide it, or maybe they appreciate that I do thorough troubleshooting before contacting them. Who knows?
-Cybrex
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
My sister is a photo archiver, and makes extensive use of her 3 1/2 year old 667 MHz G4 Powerbook. She purchased Applecare with the Powerbook, and in 3 years it has come in handy a few times - twice, I think, for a bad DVD drive.
:)
A few months ago, the unthinkable happens - her Powerbook didn't chime upon powering up and smoke came bellowing up from the chassis. She dug around for her records, and holy shit - her 3 year Applecare term ran out 2 weeks earlier! She took the Powerbook to a local Apple shop, and upon post-mortem found a fried internal power supply. She was quoted $600+! The entire motherboard had to be replaced. Her latest project for her largest client was on it, and she couldn't afford to fix it (yes, I know, backups backups - it's not mine!). She was really just screwed!
I told her that maybe she should just call Apple, and plead her case to them. She took my advice and called. She told them what a loyal customer she was, and that she owned several other Macs (including a brand spanking new G5 iMac), and asked if they could help her out.
The rep put her on hold, made a few phone calls, then they actually agreed to FIX her Powerbook! They told her that they would be in touch with the repair shop, and that they would arrange to have the Powerbook repaired free of charge. They did just that. A week later, she's back in business! Her only charge was to the repair shop for backing up the data on the drive.
Now THAT is customer service! I am truly impressed with Apple on this one, and they've got my sister as a customer for life now!
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
Well, your language choice is poor, but I figure you could use more info. A "tiered repair" is separate from a flat rate repair. It's what you get when the problem with your portable was caused by accidental damage. Tier 1 should be under $500, but Tier 4 will be over $1200 for the larger-screen PowerBooks. The tiers generally correspond to the number of parts that are needed, though more expensive parts like a main logic board or display will automatically get you to tiers 3 or 4. So will a liquid spill.
I'm sorry if you don't believe me, but there's really no point in arguing. If you stop by a Genius Bar at an Apple store they probably won't be willing to give you quite this much detail, but they should generally confirm the difference between flat rate and tiered repairs. Like my original post said, it's not a secret; it's just that authorized service providers have a disincentive to tell you about it.
It's only the authorized service providers who have an incentive to repair portables in-house. When an Apple store repairs your computer, it's just one division of Apple paying another. Most Apple stores have such busy tech shops that they're thrilled they can just mail portables away to be fixed.
$350 is roughly the maximum you would pay, for a high-end PowerBook. Repairs for a 12" should indeed cost a bit less.
All Apple computers are (good | bad -- circle one) because this happened to me: ____________________________.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
Already done....The Spider has indexed this page now !