Buying a MBP

Hello everyone, I've finally decided to take the plunge and try out a Mac. After using it for all my advertising projects at school I've decided to buy one for home use since I'll be starting Grad school soon. After doing more research I've heard about two issues that concern me. One is the heat and the other is the whining noise that many people are talking about. I want to purchase this on eBay, to try to save a little money. But if I do and the whine is there, would I be able to take it back to an Apple store and have them fix it or would I be out of luck since I bought it on eBay? What's the policy on getting a Macbook replaced? Thanks for your help!

 

i don't think you will find many on ebay, if you do, prolly not too much cheaper. I would recommend buying new one, then you for sure have full warranty, and a good chance of not having the whine and a cooler notebook as apple has been quietly fixing them.

 

When you bring in a product for them to fix at the store, do they ask for a receipt or something, or as long as it's registered it would be fine for them to fix? I've been following an auction on ebay that would save me about $200 and that's after I looked at the student discount on Apple's website.

 

Warranties are transferable on used Macs (I've done it before) but you only get whatever time was remaining on it from the date the product was first registered. If you buy something on eBay that is new in box, you should have a full warranty starting the day you register it with Apple. When you take it in or send it in for repair they do not ask for a receipt. They are able to look up your serial number and tell how much warranty time is left on your machine.

 

Am I able to also buy the Apple protection plan seperate on their website or would I have to buy it together?

 

You can buy the Apple Protection Plan seperately on their web site. You have up to a year to do so.

 

I dout you will find one on ebay

 

There's actually quite a few on ebay right now

 

Why don't you get a student discount? I think grad students can get a student dicount too.

 

Hi again, I actually received my MBP yesterday and it was a bit cheaper then one from the site with a student discount. I probably should have bought one directly from the website or store however because I think I need to take this in to get it looked at. I love OSX a lot and love how the Mac works but there are just a few things that I am not enjoying. I do have the infamous whine that people have been talking about, expecially at the apple discussion boards. Also, I knew about the heat issues but I think mine is one of the ones that is suffering from heating problems that makes it uncomfortable to touch. I can put my hand on the bottom of the laptop for only about 10 seconds before I have to take it off. And the last thing is that my screen is a bit warped when closed. It is curved upwards on the left side when it is closed. I wanted to know if I took this to my local Apple store, would they replace this unit for me even though I didn't buy it from a Apple store? Even though there are some issues with this machine I still have confidence that they will make things right.
Edit: I forgot to say that this machine was NIB and just registered yesterday.

 

I'm not sure what his warrenty is, but Jason D. O'Grady of both ZDnet blogs and O'Grady's Powerpage had his Macbook repaired and it seemed to fix at least the whine issue. The article is here. I just skimmed it but there might be info in the article that could be helpful.

 

I took my MBP in today to the Genius Bar and found out that they consider the warped lid normal. I haven't had a mac before and he told me that in the powerbooks it was normal also. I guess as long as it still latches then I'm fine with it. I won't be putting the laptop mixed in with loose change or anything like that. I noticed that the heat issue gets really bad when the laptop is plugged to the charger. When it is running off the battery it is bearable. When I told him about the whine he took the laptop into the back where it was quiet and when he came back out he said that he could definitely hear it but he told me that my version already had the latest logic board and he said that he wouldn't send it it now because I already have the newest revision. He gave me a case number and told me that if it gets worse to bring it back in and they'll have it shipped out to replace the logic board anyway. So I guess I'll just wait till I hear about newer MBP's coming out that are whine free and then just take it back and have them replace the board.

 

Whistles. Just dont leave it plugged in overnight

 

that true? a cat pissed on it? lol