Apple Hardware disappointing to this user....

I became a fanboy with a shiney new iMac (early 2006 Intel) (purchased in Jan 2006) and bragged on it to all my friends and read all the stuff on this forum about how great and reliable Apple hardware is - you know - APPLE IS A HARDWARE COMPANY!

Well, in a little over 4 1/2 years of owning my iMac (which software & OS I think IS great) I have replaced the following due to failure from ordinary wear:

1. Keyboard
2. Mouse
3. Optical Drive
4. Hard Drive

When I say ordinary wear - I mean it - no gaming or aggressive use - moving the desktop only after locking it down - treated it with kid gloves!
I'm a little disappointed - I'll never condone all the talk of Dell PC's being such cheap boxes ever again!

A Dell PC running OS10 would be indestructably better than any Made-in-China hardware Apple has to offer, believe me!

So you are complaining about a Hard Drive and Optical Drive that Apple didn't actually make but rather sourced and 2 VERY common wear items?

Regards

Yes, that's right

Maybe they shouldn't source them at all!

- and 4 1/2 years of what I would call very little use (at night when I'm home) compared to the beating I give my Dell PC all day long at work for the same 4 1/2 years - that's not a very long time for a Mac - a Mac should last you a lot longer.

That sucks - but you must not have a lot of experience with Dell. I've had plenty of Dell laptops - going back to 1997. The Inspirons are made of marshmallows. The Latitudes weren't as bad but they had their own problems. If it were just me then it is a bad data point. My entire office has Dell and the majority of users have had to replace parts - even the entire guts.

No laptop is bombproof. It is the only piece of electronics where I recommend everyone get some kind of warranty.

Excuse me. The Hard Drive in your iMac is either Made by Western Digital or Seagate (All iMacs I have worked on so far were). There are no Apple drives. No special drives. Same drive you can get at New Egg. Sorry, that is not apples fault. Their hard drives are just as good and the same manufacture as Dell or anyone else's are.

I do not like the thin laptop OPTICAL drives in the iMac but with it that thin there is not really much choice.

Keyboard and Mouse? I have had Logitech, Microsoft, ETC of KB and Mice fail on me. Sometimes at the worst time right in the middle of a project. I know the Mighty Mouse was problematic with it's Pea sized scroll ball, but other wise it's fine.

You can call me an Apple Fanboy, but drop by sometime, I will show you otherwise. I have a LOT more PC hardware than Apple running XP, Vista, W7 and Open Suse, Ubuntu, Fedora.

EDIT: You say apple should not source hard drives? You suggesting Apple make their own drives? Do you know how much that would cost? Does Dell make their own drives? No, they get them from the same places Apple does.

And my friend, I have had brand new WD, Seagate, ETC drives fail S.M.A.R.T right out of the box! Bought them from New Egg and CompUSA.

Also, what about the literally 1000s of Dell GX270 Optiplex's with bulging dying capacitors?

5 years of heavy use on a G3 and 7 years if heavy use on my G5 and I've replaced 1 hard drive. I support 300 macs at work and 12 PCs. Hard drive failure is all too common (apple doesn't make those) Apple KBs are bomb proof compared to the god awful dells. The mighty mice were a joke (that's what your iMac came with right?), I'll give you that. I've used a logitec since I got my G5, but at work I have a magic mouse and it's spectacular.

farmcock said:

a Mac should last you a lot longer.

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Yes and thats what a 'Fanboy' WOULD say. Im sorry mate but just pointing the facts out here.
Why should a Mac last longer ?? Because its the BirthChild of Steve? Or just because it has the  logo on it ??

Im sorry but it isnt made in Fairy land where everything is perfect and will never fault or breakdown ..... ITS STILL ONLY A PC. It has electronic parts. It has moving parts. It is used everyday. It is in essence the same as your Windows Box with a different OS. Wake up and smell the coffee. I bought a Mac because i love the OS i didnt buy it BC of its hardware .... A little thought before posting maybe ??

Cheers

Edit :

dtravis7- You can call me an Apple Fanboy,

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Maybe not all 'fanboys' ;P

So you are complaining about a Hard Drive and Optical Drive that Apple didn't actually make but rather sourced and 2 VERY common wear items?

Click to expand...

Excuse me. The Hard Drive in your iMac is either Made by Western Digital or Seagate (All iMacs I have worked on so far were). There is no Apple drives. No special drives. Same drive you can get at New Egg. Sorry, that is not apples fault. Their hard drives are just as good and the same manufacture as Dell or anyone else's are.

I do not like the thin laptop OPTICAL drives in the iMac but with it that thin there is not really much choice.

Keyboard and Mouse? I have had Logitech, Microsoft, ETC of KB and Mice fail on me. Sometimes at the worst time right in the middle of a project. I know the Mighty Mouse was problematic with it's Pea sized scroll ball, but other wise it's fine.

You can call me an Apple Fanboy, but drop by sometime, I will show you otherwise. I have a LOT more PC hardware than Apple running XP, Vista, W7 and Open Suse, Ubuntu, Fedora.

EDIT: You say apple should not source hard drives? You suggesting Apple make their own drives? Do you know how much that would cost? Does Dell make their own drives? No, they get them from the same places Apple does.

And my friend, I have had brand new WD, Seagate, ETC drives fail S.M.A.R.T right out of the box! Bought them from New Egg and CompUSA.

Click to expand...

5 years of heavy use on a G3 and 7 years if heavy use on my G5 and I've replaced 1 hard drive. I support 300 macs at work and 12 PCs. Hard drive failure is all too common (apple doesn't make those) Apple KBs are bomb proof compared to the god awful dells. The mighty mice were a joke (that's what your iMac came with right?), I'll give you that. I've used a logitec since I got my G5, but at work I have a magic mouse and it's spectacular.

Click to expand...

Yes and thats what a 'Fanboy' WOULD say. Im sorry mate but just pointing the facts out here.
Why should a Mac last longer ?? Because its the BirthChild of Steve? Or just because it has the  logo on it ??

Im sorry but it isnt made in Fairy land where everything is perfect and will never fault or breakdown ..... ITS STILL ONLY A PC. It has electronic parts. It has moving parts. It is used everyday. It is in essence the same as your Windows Box with a different OS. Wake up and smell the coffee. I bought a Mac because i love the OS i didnt buy it BC of its hardware .... A little thought before posting maybe ??

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WOW! You must all be Apple employees or something...

You don't really think that Dell or any other manufacturer for that matter actually makes EVERY component of their computers do you?

These kinds of components fail..that's just the nature of things..to date I've never had a hard drive EVER fail on me..and I use my system extensively back from my earlier gaming days in Dos through all the versions of Windows, I also do a ton of development on Linux that causes a ton of hard drive churn..and now in the Mac world..

These components are NOT designed/built to last forever..and a LOT of things will cause damage..heat..humidity..and so on..

Regards

baggss said:

wow! You must all be apple employees or something...

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pmsl

Somehow I feel I'm being trolled. T_T"

CrimsonRequiem said:

Somehow I feel I'm being trolled. T_T"

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You could be right but it's a user who has been here quite a while. Otherwise I would have though that also.

Baggss, No, I would never work for Apple. I like their OS and iphone but....

Just stating the facts. I repair computers and know what is inside all the major brands, not just Apple.

Edit: A note to the OP, a Dell running OSX would be against the EULA, DCMA and the rules here at Mac Forums to discuss. Just a note.

farmcock said:

A Dell PC running OS10 would be indestructably better than any Made-in-China hardware Apple has to offer, believe me!

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I'm only going to comment on this one. I'm willing to bet that the four parts you listed above are all made in China for both your Dell and your Mac. Please feel free to prove me wrong.

CrimsonRequiem said:

Somehow I feel I'm being trolled. T_T"

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dtravis7 said:

You could be right but it's a user who has been here quite a while. Otherwise I would have though that also.

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Same, same, but the fact he has the -rep makes me think he was installed as a sleeper and pops in on a whim

vansmith said:

I'm only going to comment on this one. I'm willing to bet that the four parts you listed above are all made in China for both your Dell and your Mac. Please feel free to prove me wrong.

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Just in the last 2 months I have torn apart an iMac G5 iSight, and 2 newer Intel Macs. One a last gen 24". All 3 used Western Digital Caviar drives and I checked the model and it was sold on New Egg. Dell also uses WD or Seagate. My Intel Mini was a Seagate. A lot of the Dell Laptops I have worked with in the past used a Toshiba hard drive and Toshiba has a pretty bad reputation.

dtravis7 said:

A lot of the Dell Laptops I have worked with in the past used a Toshiba hard drive and Toshiba has a pretty bad reputation.

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You know my opinions of Toshiba but for those who don't, it sure isn't a positive one.

I read a while back that the average hard drive life was 3 - 5 years. The purpose of the article was to encourage the readers to back-up their computers. So far none of my 3 macs have had any problems except for the cracking plastic case on my MacBook. So far my PC's, which I have been using longer than Macs, have had HD, CPU, RAM, Video cards and DVD and CD drive failures. All brands develop problems. I wonder which Mac will have an issue first???

jetmech1 said:

I read a while back that the average hard drive life was 3 - 5 years. The purpose of the article was to encourage the readers to back-up their computers. So far none of my 3 macs have had any problems except for the cracking plastic case on my MacBook. So far my PC's, which I have been using longer than Macs, have had HD, CPU, RAM, Video cards and DVD and CD drive failures. All brands develop problems. I wonder which Mac will have an issue first???

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Wow that's pretty crazy then...I have a HDD that is 10 years old by Maxtor.

farmcock said:

I became a fanboy with a shiney new iMac (early 2006 Intel) (purchased in Jan 2006) and bragged on it to all my friends and read all the stuff on this forum about how great and reliable Apple hardware is - you know - APPLE IS A HARDWARE COMPANY!

Well, in a little over 4 1/2 years of owning my iMac (which software & OS I think IS great) I have replaced the following due to failure from ordinary wear:

1. Keyboard
2. Mouse
3. Optical Drive
4. Hard Drive

When I say ordinary wear - I mean it - no gaming or aggressive use - moving the desktop only after locking it down - treated it with kid gloves!
I'm a little disappointed - I'll never condone all the talk of Dell PC's being such cheap boxes ever again!

A Dell PC running OS10 would be indestructably better than any Made-in-China hardware Apple has to offer, believe me!

Click to expand...

According to this link they have factories there also. Dell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

farmcock said:

A Dell PC running OS10 would be indestructably better than any Made-in-China hardware Apple has to offer, believe me!

Click to expand...

I'm wondering what parallel universe you're hittin for that Dell machine?

Aside from the above mentioned that Dell components are manufactured elsewhere, and the fact that certain parts on ANY system are more prone to failure then others (ie: HDD, optical drive, keyboard and mouse (the first two because they contain moving parts, and the second two because of constant physical manipulation that causes wear on the equipment) - Dells break just as often as any other Machine.

The school I work for buys almost exclusively Dell machines - these machines have fairly large failure rates. We've had brand new machines with bad power supplies, bad motherboards, bad optical drives, bad HDDs, parts that fail within the first 3 months of use, and we had a full classroom of the dreaded GX270s with bulging capacitors on the motherboard (that of course all failed within a few months of each other). Heck, we're having to replace a grouping of 20" flat panel wide screens as several have failed from the same order batch and they're only 1.5-2 yrs old.

No computer company has perfect machines. And sometimes you will just get a lemon (including when you custom build, as an example - I built my wifes comp about 2 christmas' ago and one of her video cards died and the media card reader failed within the first year, and the video cards were a quality brand).

I'm just saying equipment failure is a fact of life. Moving part based devices tend to have a higher failure rate, and devices that have more human interaction tend to have a higher failure rate (ie: keyboards and mice). No computer can be guaranteed with a 0% failure - part of the quality of a companies products (in this case computers) is how issues are handled by the company while the product is under warranty. I'm sorry you're having trouble, but know that you can have just as many, if not more, troubles with Dell machines (I have a friend who's having serious problems with his AlienWare (AW is owned by Dell) and has had to jump thru hoops to get it fixed right, and I've had another friend that has a great Dell laptop that has never given them a day of trouble) - it's a luck of the draw.