MBP CD - "not so good" experience

deep · May 19, 2007

I'm sorry my first post here is a negative one, since I'm a huge Apple fan, but I had to share this.

I bought my MacBook Pro (2.0 Core Duo, 100 Gb, 2 Gb RAM, X1600 256 MB) in July last year and so far my experience has been:

- when closed, screen lid doesn't fit tight on both sides - on one side fits nice, but on the other has about 3-4 mm gap

- eject button isn’t aligned to other buttons (it’s left side is slightly off upwards)

- left speaker tends to produce a high pitch hissing sound - heared this was normal with this CD series - an interference issue or whatever - not so great "normality" for $3125 (the price in my country)

- ok now I have a laptop which is not ment to be held in the lap because it heats up quite a bit

- in the first 4 months programs crashed between 50 and 100 times - not exaggerating : Motion - (most of the times), Final Cut, Photoshop, Illustrator, DVD Studio Pro - many times the only choice was turning the computer off holding the on/off button

- had all sorts of issues and abnormalities with Motion and Final cut renderings - (had to format disc -so that's ok for now)

- battery fiasco (got swollen and died) - okay blame goes on Sony for this one (got fixed)

- after 5-6 months I noticed marks on the aluminium left from the screen edge when closed (located between touchpad and the edge) - deteriorating at this rate it's going to look really bad in 6 months

- and the last incident got me totally mad:

After usual notebook cleaning (special "safe" fluid and micro fibre cloth) some kind of foil scratched off the thin concaved area stretching along the spacebar. Now I have two holes showing pure aluminium under the silver foil. It looks awful now ! What is this ?! If I bought a cheap plastic notebook I wouldn't have this problem but on a MacBook Pro I now have a scene like this ? I knew aluminium was sensitive to acids, but foil that chips off to cleaning fluid ? Unacceptable.

That area wasn't prior damaged or anything - it was cleaned many times and now this thing happens. I even tried to scratch that surface completely so it would be a clean even surface but it won't come off except on those two places - under the ctrl and option button.

Imagine a client's impression
Client impression a) - this person is either very greasy or sloppy -affects me
Client impression b) - this notebook is no good and I’m going to stick to PC -affects Apple

After this I'm totally mad. I need MBP for my business, which is video production- for editing footage on the road and showing the previews to the clients. Windows OS is lousy IMHO and there's no alternative for Final Cut Studio, especially FCS2. I have a great opinion about Apple but this is.....just phenomenal.

- Now try to be creative, thinking on what's next....

deep · May 19, 2007

Oh yeah - I forgot :

- when burning data onto DVD's I got "disc error' message about 60-70 times with 5-6 different DVD packs and three different disc manufacturers

Village Idiot · May 19, 2007

did you contact apple?

D3v1L80Y · May 19, 2007

deep said:
Imagine a meeting with client seeing these two holes !!!
Client impression a) - this person is either very greasy or sloppy
Client impression b) - this notebook is crap and I’m going to stick to PC

A client isn't going to care what your notebook looks like, especially two miniscule "holes" in the finish.
If you show up at the meeting greasy and sloppy, then they will get that impression of you. If your notebook has two tiny flecks, they will not likely notice it at all. Besides, if you are clean and presentable and the material being shown is top-notch, then they could care less what your machine looks like (who really cares if they they are going to "stick to PC"? YOU are the one doing the work, not them, so what tools you use are irrelevant so long as the finished product meets their standards). What they will care about and what they will be focusing on is the work that you show to them.

As far as your issues with applications, the ones you have listed were not Universal at the time you purchased your notebook. You were using a brand new machine, with older software which wasn't optimized for the hardware you were using.

deep · May 19, 2007

D3v1L80Y said:
A client isn't going to care what your notebook looks like, especially two miniscule "holes" in the finish.
If you show up at the meeting greasy and sloppy, then they will get that impression of you. If your notebook has two tiny flecks, they will not likely notice it at all. Besides, if you are clean and presentable and the material being shown is top-notch, then they could care less what your machine looks like (who really cares if they they are going to "stick to PC"? YOU are the one doing the work, not them, so what tools you use are irrelevant so long as the finished product meets their standards). What they will care about and what they will be focusing on is the work that you show to them.

As far as your issues with applications, the ones you have listed were not Universal at the time you purchased your notebook. You were using a brand new machine, with older software which wasn't optimized for the hardware you were using.

I apologize if my post was inappropriate in any way - I got too emotional after experiencing all this.

Mentioning client perception I was only trying to make a point. You have to admit this leaves a negative impression, whatever it is. When you see someone's equipment in lousy state you make an impression of that someone not caring for it. Offcourse the work itself and my appearance are the most important, that goes without saying. The holes are 2/3 of an inch and that to me isn't miniscule. The main problem is that I don't want to see this happening. Not for this price.

I'm planning to get 8 core Mac Pro once the graphics get updated. This situation makes me kind of nervous with my next purchase.

Software problems are not the main issue here. Software gets improved. I just mentioned them in a context of my negative experience.
I still love Apple and FCS. For me there's no alternative.
But, when your job is paying attention to details you get quite angry seing faults like this on your creativity tool.

kgeier82 · May 19, 2007

i have most of the hardware related problems that you do (screen doesnt close on both sides, eject button, and even a little paint coming off an arrow key)

to tell you the truth, it bothered me at first, but not as much as i think it does you. Ive also had the battery troubles, like you, again, nothing you can really do about it.

All in all, what im trying to say is, every machine has its flaws, try getting less (flaws) from a dell or HP, its not going to happen ya know

the mbp is a wonderful machine, and id buy it again, no questions asked

cwa107 · May 19, 2007

deep said:
- when closed, screen lid doesn't fit tight on both sides - on one side fits nice, but on the other has about 3-4 mm gap

3-4mm is a significant gap. Be aware that 1-2mm is normal for these machines.

- eject button isn’t aligned to other buttons (it’s left side is slightly off upwards)

This should be an easy fix, check with Apple.

- left speaker tends to produce a high pitch hissing sound - heared this was normal with this CD series - an interference issue or whatever - not so great "normality" for $3125 (the price in my country)

I haven't had this problem at all with my CD.

- ok now I have a laptop which is not ment to be held in the lap because it heats up quite a bit

You won't see the word "laptop" mentioned in the advertising for ANY modern notebook. Most manufacturers have moved away from this term because modern notebooks emit quite a bit of heat. It is the trade-off you'll need to accept for using a fast notebook.

- in the first 4 months programs crashed between 50 and 100 times - not exaggerating : Motion - (most of the times), Final Cut, Photoshop, Illustrator, DVD Studio Pro - many times the only choice was turning the computer off holding the on/off button

Have you called Apple for any of these things? What kinds of troubleshooting have you attempted? If you routinely cold reset the notebook when something appears to "crash", you could be a damaging the filesystem.

- had all sorts of issues and abnormalities with Motion and Final cut renderings - (had to format disc -so that's ok for now)

Sounds like you've reinstalled the operating system. Am I right on that?

- battery fiasco (got swollen and died) - okay blame goes on Sony for this one (got fixed)

Apple, to their credit, has extended the warranty on all MacBook batteries to 2 years. That's pretty much unheard of in the industry - even for those manufacturers that have suffered with these defective batteries.

- after 5-6 months I noticed marks on the aluminium left from the screen edge when closed (located between touchpad and the edge) - deteriorating at this rate it's going to look really bad in 6 months

Again, this sounds like defective case construction, something you should check with Apple on.

- and the last incident got me totally mad:

After usual notebook cleaning (special "safe" fluid and micro fibre cloth) some kind of foil scratched off the thin concaved area stretching along the spacebar. Now I have two holes showing pure aluminium under the silver foil. It looks awful now ! What is this ?! If I bought a cheap plastic notebook I wouldn't have this problem but on a MacBook Pro I now have a scene like this ? I knew aluminium was sensitive to acids, but foil that chips off to cleaning fluid ? Unacceptable.

That area wasn't prior damaged or anything - it was cleaned many times and now this thing happens. I even tried to scratch that surface completely so it would be a clean even surface but it won't come off except on those two places - under the ctrl and option button.

Imagine a client's impression
Client impression a) - this person is either very greasy or sloppy -affects me
Client impression b) - this notebook is no good and I’m going to stick to PC -affects Apple

After this I'm totally mad. I need MBP for my business, which is video production- for editing footage on the road and showing the previews to the clients. Windows OS is lousy IMHO and there's no alternative for Final Cut Studio, especially FCS2. I have a great opinion about Apple but this is.....just phenomenal.

- Now try to be creative, thinking on what's next....

You'll read about this sort of thing with every brand, make and model of laptop out there, particularly with manufacturers doing their best to make the case materials lightweight. I do agree with the other posters that you have a problem that needs to be addressed with Apple.