On why I will never spend my own money to buy an Apple laptop again.

Byrichard

There is a known issue with the Nvidia 8600 video card. That issue is that the card fails faster than average. There are two common problems with this video card. The first is that the screen is just messed up. That’s not the issue I have. The issue I am having with the macbook pro is that the screen just goes dead.

The failure rate is around once per year. It failed a year ago. It’s failed again just 6 days ago and it’s going to fail again in a year’s time around this time. At that point it will no longer be under guarantee.

I know that hardware fails I’ve had twenty or more electronic devices fail over the years. I don’t mind because most of the time the devices are cheap and replacing is not an issue.

With the macbook pro it’s different. This is a professional machine. It costs 2000CHF and more per machine. When this machine fails you have a serious investment to think about. Are you going to spend another 2-4000 CHF on another machine?

Yes, if the after sale service is good. No if it’s not. When the first video card failed it took over a month to get the machine fixed. No replacement machine was provided. As a result for over a month I relied on other technology. Now imagine if I had needed my machine for video projects during that period.

Now we get to this year. My machine failed six days ago and I have still not had an opportunity to get it fixed. I went to the apple store this morning to see whether they could take it in and get it repaired and I was told that I have to go to the website. I know this but the website showed that option as grayed out. I was told that there was no possibility to see them until Monday. I don’t have time to go there on Monday because their bureaucracy does not adapt to my needs. The question is how many more weeks will I be without that laptop.

The result of this experience is a simple one. Whilst I love spending money on hardware nothing that I have seen encourages me to buy another piece of Apple hardware. Why should I spend 4000CHF for a professional machine that could take up to a month to replace. If my primary activity was as a freelance editor then I would have no choice. As things stand I am working full time for a good company and having an Apple computer is a luxury rather than a necessity. This means I will never again buy an apple laptop again. They need to learn something about customer care before I come back.

Quick N97 thoughts.

Byrichard

If I had a perfect laptop it would be shaped just like the N97 but larger. I’m saying this because of how much I love having a keyboard and a touchscreen in such a small package. Now imagine if laptops did away with all that wasted space at the bottom, where the trackpad goes.

Back to the matter at hand. The N97 is a great little device that can survive about a day with my use before needing a charge. What I like is the duality of control between a keyboard when you slide it from under the display, and the touch interface for those that like that. What makes this touch interface particularly interesting is that it’s designed for mobile phone users with a lot of experience with text messaging. It’s the standard number and key configuration that we’ve grown accustomed to over the past decade.

There were some issues with stability, crashes display not working all the time and memory issues but those have been patched.

I have become death, destroyer of macbook pros

Byrichard

For the second time in a little over a year the video card on my macbook pro has failed and I am left with the black screen of death. As a result of this I will have to send the machine off for repair for a second time. Luckily the machine is still under warranty so the only challenge is finding a day off and bringing it for maintenance.

It had to fail this weekend, on Saturday afternoon only once all the shops had closed. It means that getting the machine maintained will be a little more of a challenge. The second challenge of course is that I’m meant to do two days of editing on Tuesday and Wednesday and I may not have a computer.

You’ve got to love trade unionists for making sure shops are closed on a Sunday.

Now the question is what to do next. Do I buy a new macbook pro as the new version of finalcut pro came out or do I invest in a far cheaper computer running linux. In fact do I forget about PC and Apple and go Linux all the way.

It could be quite fun, once winter comes back to build a linux based video editing system where I understand the hardware. You know I’m not going to get far with that project.

On the positive end of the spectrum I’m in full time employment with three different types of work I’m asked to do so buying a new machine is no problem. It’s just a matter of whether I have the necessity right now.