There is a phenomenon that occurs when electronics go out of warranty. It used to never happen with Apple products, but now…
My Powerbook is one year and a couple weeks old. The latch is now beginning to fail.
Last week, I noted that the power plug is starting to fail.
For about 6 months, the right wrist rest has been pitted and discolored. And the lid doesn’t sit flush, one side bends up.
I think that Jonathan Ive designs great desktop computers, but the look of the laptops isn’t all that terrific, and they survive best when you never touch them.
My last Powerbook, the titanium model, had paint that flaked off with regularity. I decided to switch to the new aluminum model, figuring that an aluminum computer with no paint wouldn’t have this problem. Surprise! The aluminum Powerbook has the same problem in the same place, only in a more permanent way. It’s not paint, it’s the aluminum itself that is becoming blackened and pitted, I assume from the oils in my hand, in the spot that is in fact designed to rest your wrist on.
I think my next laptop will be an all-plastic iBook. Why go through the heartbreak?
No one is a bigger Mac evangelist than me, but I have heard some horror stories over the last couple years.
I have the plastic iBook for almost 2 years now and (crossing fingers) no problems. But I had a friend with the same model and the latch broke just past the year. At the Apple store they said it would cost $300 to fix. With the latch broken, it wouldn’t stay closed (or asleep). Their suggestion? “Put a rubber band around it.”