Becoming unhappy...

Yes, this is a rant. Please take it as such.

So three weeks ago, I got a Powerbook. I live in Alaska. There are no - absolutely no - Apple service areas anywhere near me.

Immediately, I had to return it, because the ALS/backlit keyboard/video assembly went out.

A week later, I got my Powerbook back. It had two large gouges above the ESC and EJECT keys.

Immediately therafter, I spent two weeks in rural Alaska, where telephone service is either nonexistant, or so expensive (via sattelite) that I didn't want to make a call. Because of this, I was unable to place a call to Apple in order to say "Hey! This sucks! What gives?"

So I'm back in Juneau now, with easy access to Mr. Bell's invention. I call Apple. I explain that I am not pleased that my Powerbook went in with damage, and came out with a different kind of damage.

Apple's response was "Gee whiz, if you'd called earlier we could have done something more expedient about it, but it's been two weeks, so we need to do the box-ship-return thing."

I explain I have been places with virtually no telephone service for those two weeks.

"Tough beans," says Apple.

So, after forking over the better part or 2300 dollars, by the time I have my computer BACK from its second repair, I will have owned my laptop for one month. I will have actually USED it for about two weeks due to the number of times I will have had to send it back to Apple for service.

I also note that there are rumours circulating about new Powerbooks in the immediate future. I am quite seriously considering merely returning my Powerbook, and either [when my temper comes down some] waiting until these mythical new Powerbooks come out, or just switching back to my PC-based world.

I switched to Apple's platform for ease of use, reliability, and all the various reasons most people do. My experience thus far has been that 50% of the time, my computer has been out of my hands, requiring repair. Furthermore, if rumour is to be believed, there is a revision right around the corner - I care not about the 30MHz bump, but care I do about the possibility of DDR2 RAM capability.

I spent the money on my Powerbook because I thought that it would be The Last Powerbook Until The Intels, which was fine with me. I'm not really that enthusiastic about Apple's intense secrecy about when new things come out. I've been bitten by iPod revisions twice, but being bitten by a Powerbook revision would really, as Mr. Teutel says, "gripe my ***."

I have enjoyed using my Powerbook, don't get me wrong. I am simply intensely unimpressed at its current impression of "Lasting Machine."

Oh, man. Well just keep trying. Hopefully they will fix or it you can get a new one. But even if you return it, Don't give up on macs. You're correct: they're reliability and ease of use are one if the best things about them. Good luck,

Sorry to hear your story hope things work out!

Laptops in general can be a major headache. There are many fragile and hot parts in a very tiny space.

It was only a week after I bought my brand new Compaq that the screen stopped working completely.

Thems the breaks.

Bad luck. Stick with it. It'll be worth it in the end. It's a shame Apple's service people weren't a bit more with it, but it's about par for the industry, by the sound of it. The only service organisation I've ever had exceptional service from is Sun's, in Belgium, and that was a few years back.

At least when you call apple support you dont get some guy from India telling you his name if frank or something. I have family that still use PC and they get that all the time.

Yeah, don't give up using a Mac.. I've had my PB almost 2 years, never had a problem. I would never use anything but a PB. Sometimes you just have bad luck, my buddy has a iMac, it's so noisy it scares him.

Acill said:

At least when you call apple support you dont get some guy from India telling you his name if frank or something. I have family that still use PC and they get that all the time.

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I wouldn't say it's fair to compare your $699 Dell laptop to a $2300 Powerbook. With the outragous prices they charge for apple care you should have a technician arrive at your house next day to fix the problem.

Avid6eek said:

I wouldn't say it's fair to compare your $699 Dell laptop to a $2300 Powerbook. With the outragous prices they charge for apple care you should have a technician arrive at your house next day to fix the problem.

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The thing is, you get the same service with your $2999 Dell as with a $699 Dell. The tech guys are on the other side of the globe. Local service is contracted out. Unless you're a business that places orders for 20+ units at a time, several times a year.

Apple will (usually) give you good service, in person, at any of there stores, no matter who you are or what you buy. If you're not near a store, though, things are much more uncertain. Phone support is usually okay, but repair work involves shipping them in.

technologist said:

The thing is, you get the same service with your $2999 Dell as with a $699 Dell. The tech guys are on the other side of the globe. Local service is contracted out. Unless you're a business that places orders for 20+ units at a time, several times a year.

Apple will (usually) give you good service, in person, at any of there stores, no matter who you are or what you buy. If you're not near a store, though, things are much more uncertain. Phone support is usually okay, but repair work involves shipping them in.

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True, if you don't live near an Apple Store you can always call for phone support. And if you do have to ship it, the service is top-notch and the turnaround time is impeccable.
I sent in my iPod for repairs, and got a completely new replacement back within 3 days. When I got my iBook, I had to send in for repair after having it for only 3 weeks. I dropped it off with DHL to have it sent it to Apple on a Monday afternoon...it was repaired, good as new, and delivered to my door first thing Wednesday morning, less than 48 hours later.

technologist said:

The thing is, you get the same service with your $2999 Dell as with a $699 Dell. The tech guys are on the other side of the globe. Local service is contracted out.

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This is not necissarily true. If you order through the small business division, which any individual can do, you get 24 hour priority support that is based here in the United States. The systems there aren't much more expensive, and they come with this support included typically for 3 years. No need to pay for any type of extra "Dell Care" program just to get support after 90 days.

You can BS your way around the limited time on the warranty though. I've done it many a time. The support people don't wanna argue with you, they'll give you support if you push hard enough.

rs2sensen said:

You can BS your way around the limited time on the warranty though. I've done it many a time. The support people don't wanna argue with you, they'll give you support if you push hard enough.

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Yep... I got them to take back a machine over a month after I purchased it... even though it had no defects or anything. It took a little pursuasive speaking... but they did it and were really cool about it.

Darth, sorry to hear about your misfortune. I got my first powerbook in early July. About a week later, I noticed the space bar did not work consistently, as the right side was totally unresponsive. In additon, the clicker on track pad was stuck. While in my possession, I used it to type one article which took about 3 hours and a few emails that could not have amounted to more than an hour's worth of use. I'll add in another 2 hours for exploring this beautiful OS X. So in total approximately 6 hours of use. During this timeframe, I treated the PB like it was royalty, so I knew I was not at fault here. The next day I ventured to the Apple store and informed a Genius of my problems. It had not even been two weeks, and he knew that because he saw my receipt, but he still suggested that I leave the PB with him so that he could send it out to get fixed. I told him to follow me and walked to the nearest mac on display. Using google, I searched for: Powerbook g4 17" space bar/trackpad clicker problems. I didn't have to scan for long before I found many posts expressing similar space bar and clicker problems. It felt nice to have some back...Thank God for forums like this! He glanced at a few and told me he'd be right back with a new PB.

By the way, this is my first Mac computer (and my first post). I could not be more pleased. I haven't had my own computer in 5 years, which is when my PC decided to die. I really didn't care. I had lost so many papers in college due to that thing. I figured I could easily and cheaply replace it with an abacus, a feather, some ink, a napkin, and an industrial fan mounted to my desk to simulate the loud wind tunnel that became of my PC tower.

I enjoy and find the knowledge that I am learning to be rewarding, as OS X is new to me. Thanks to everyone for all the important information I have learned on this forum. It has made the transtion that much easier. I'm focused on learning Cocoa- I tried the tutorial and created a currency converter. Link is below, if you haven't given it a shot:

http://developer.apple.com/document...jCTutorial/chapter03/chapter_3_section_2.html

All the best....

D3v1L80Y said:

And if you do have to ship it, the service is top-notch and the turnaround time is impeccable.

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Speaking in absolutes is dangerous. My experience with Apple Service was most definitely not "top notch."

Let's say that Apple's service can be better than most; the best PC service I ever received still stands with IBM's (former) ThinkPad division.

sarahsboy18 said:

Yep... I got them to take back a machine over a month after I purchased it... even though it had no defects or anything. It took a little pursuasive speaking... but they did it and were really cool about it.

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Now that'd be a nice trick to learn

Well, I think I'm going to return this Powerbook. I'm very unhappy right now.

I, like others, apparently have fallen victim to the "Lower memory slot failure" issue - in other words, my lower memory slot has the appearance of ceasing function.

A call to Apple has, once again, denied what I would be happiest with: A direct replacement. Since my machine is apparently build-to-order (I have the 1.67GHz 15" with the 128MB VRAM), they can't or won't issue an exchange order.

As such, I think this little experiment is simply over. I have an iBook running Tiger that I'll use for work (G3 667) et al, but I think I'll just return this thing and let Mac Expo Paris come around. IF there is an update, I'll pick up another Powerbook. A higher-density screen, lower-power 7448 G4 and DDR2 compatibility are things that would make the Powerbook - if it stayed at its current price point - appealing.

I'm extremely unimpressed right now. If this mythical Revision E Powerbook fails to materialize, I may just go and pick up a ThinkPad. Those things seem to be built like tanks.

EDIT: Just as a further clarification, it takes minimum seven business days for an Apple service call from Juneau, Alaska to complete. We have no roads into or out of town, and DHL does not land here; they contract through several smaller companies. This is, at this point, an unacceptable solution for me.

Sorry man!!!!!! you know, i think buying computers is a question of luck!!!!! just like cars.
I believe someone on this planet has bought a mercedes and had some trouble and so on....keep the faith. Tiger is teh best Os in the planet!!!!

If you do decide to get a PC/Windows based laptop - the ThinkPads are the only ones I ever recommend; though you will find this hard to believe right now I am quite sure but the build quality is as good as Apple's.

Remember -- it may seem like there are lots and lots of people making (in many cases genuine) complaints, and understandably being disappointed. However, you have to put this in perspective:

You are more likely with *anything* to hear the complaints/bad things about *any* product from those people who have one that is defective in some way because they need to be vocal. You won't however hear the many hundreds of thousands of people who have a perfect working order product that is doing them a stellar service -- they have no reason to be vocal or at least as vocal.

If this is of any help; I used to work in an Apple Centre here in the UK -- one of only ten - we were the next tier down from Apple themselves and Apple always sent people over to us from their iPod Shuffles to their 2.7GHz Power Mac G5s if there was an issue that involved warranty.

I can say this with confidence - I saw very few iBooks coming in that had severe issues, and maybe two PowerBooks.

I know it is annoying, my PowerBook was giving me headaches when I first got it, it was fine for 2 weeks and then it just seemed to die; it just would not boot. Seemed like a hard disk failure. What I had done 2 days before was installed classic (OS 9 and earlier support). Since then I have not installed it, and I have not had any issues. Maybe a couple of kernel panics - but those were due to my crap USB ADSL modem. I can safely say that this PowerBook is constructed as good as if not better than some ThinkPads I have laid my hands on.

However the inconvinience of it being sent away is a frustration I can empathise with; I was without my PowerBook for a mere 2 days and it was not very nice; thankfully I own a few Macs (all older) so my frustration was not as intense.

Above all -- I hope you can get this sorted out for your sakes. If you want perspective, the best ThinkPad forum I know of is at:

http://forum.thinkpads.com

Have a look at the messages and compare the amount of 'this isn't right' 'this is dead' posts to those that are singing praises, you will find the vast majority of posts are people who can't do something or something isn't working right/at all. Yet you can tell that there are probably many many times more happy users with ThinkPads than it appears. It's the same for Apple and this forum in general.

Either way, here's to a speed resolution.

Vicky :flower: