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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 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!
We strike again!
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
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 wonder if they surveyed any of the people affected by this rather substaintial, but as yet unresolved issue on many powerbooks?
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
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
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.
The only thing I miss from G3 PowerBooks is the dual drive bays so I could have 2 batteries for long trips. I had some annoying problems with G3 PBs (Pismos and Lombards), including cracked cases and missing/broken keycaps.
Its replacement, a Ti 667/GigE was -seriously- abused. We logged about 300,000 miles of travel. The latch failed twice (but that didn't affect the usability of the PB itself), I replaced 2 bricks (probably due to picking them up by the power cord) and near the end of the 3 year period (and just before AppleCare ran out), it blew a motherboard. I was on travel to Huntington Beach. I drove down to the Newport Beach Apple Store, committed it to Apple about 7:00 PM Thursday, and it was back at my home Tysons Corner VA store by the following Tuesday afternoon. (Try that with a Dell or HP or IBM!). The latch replacements were while-I-wait at a local Apple dealer (he ordered the part and called me when it was in), and the power supplies were direct replacement at Apple Stores (one each in Newport Beach and Tysons Corner.)
Given how hard that machine was used, and comparing it to the varous PC laptops of my co-workers, the Mac was definitely a better choice from a hardware reliability perspective. PCs in particular tended to cluster, some brands/models had real problems. And its Mean Time to Repair was outstanding. My total down-time over 3 years was 2x 3 hours for the latch repair and 3 days for the motherboard. With some people's laptops, it was many trips back to tech support before the machine was fixed or, much more often, replaced.
Your mileage may vary; I'm tying this on an Al PB that replaced the Ti PB. After -27 years- of personal computer ownership, I rate my Ti PB as the all-around best machine I've ever owned, for convenience, utility, weight, fun-to-use, etc. I've had other Macs with less repairs (Mac ci were absolute rocks!), but the Ti PB hit my sweet spot for all around goodness.
dave
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.
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
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!
I ran into the famed bad logic board problem that the G3 iBooks had. I bought my 800 mhz iBook off eBay a year or so ago. Just a couple of months ago...had it on, and zap...video froze...rebooted, and no screen would come up at all. I have it dual booted with linux..tried to boot to it...but, no screen...it was blank.
I found out about the logic board problem on a Google search and looked around the apple.com site and found an article there.
It said that they had extended free fixes on this problem, so I called. Turns out my iBook was only about 2 weeks away from not being eligible...and it was out of warranty, no applecare either.
They were very nice to me...shipped me a free DHL box to ship it back in, postage paid. I sent it in, they fixed the logic board and shipped it back to me in like 2 days.
It is worked great since then, although, it appears the outside of the case got pretty scratched up in the repair...but, wasn't that big of a deal with me.
Anyway...this is my first mac, and I must say, I was very impressed that they fixed a used box for me AND paid for the shipping, packing...etc.
I'd definitely buy another one someday...sooner if they'd release the specs on the Airport Extreme cards, so I could dual boot it into Gentoo Linux.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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.
Lombard power bricks were recalled because there was a fire risk. Stick with the yoyo or buy a third party adapter.
I've had very good luck with my Pismo, with some exceptions. I had a strange logic board problem in April 2001 that caused the weirdest problems and was difficult for Apple to diagnose (minimizing any window in OS X would crash all apps, playing any mp3 in OS 9 would crash the player app) and they kept sending back my PowerBook still broken, with the hard drive downgraded to OS 9.0 (current at the time was 10.0 and 9.1). Both my DVD drive and battery died just over the 1 year mark, out of warrantee, but I was able to scrounge up replacements from a dead Lombard where I worked. Other than that the machine has been a trooper. I used it for over three years as my primary machine at school and then as a secondary "loft" computer for another year. It is currently running as my home server.
Copy the link into the browser's URL field. Looks like the website is bouncing slashdotters back to slashdot. If you copy the link, it behaves normally.
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. ;)
Truer words have not been spoken. I used a Pismo for in-the-field capture of huge digital images from Phaso One cameras. That thing went to the desert, in blistering heat and dust, and up Mt. Kilimanjaro without skipping a beat.
... and then they built the supercollider.
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.
-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
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 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.
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.