My experience with the Macbook Pro? (not great)

I have been in the market for a notebook for a couple of months, and have had my heart set on the Macbook Pro for quite some time. I read all the reports of Macbook Pro problems, and said to myself “that won’t happen to me.” To help ensure that I would not get a faulty Macbook Pro, I waited for the later revision Pros to come out.

Well the day finally came on June 3rd, and I purchased the Macbook Pro I have been waiting so long for… I went to the Apple Store at Lennox Square in Atlanta, and picked up the $1999 base Pro and got a $200 student discount. Went home, booted it up and every thing was great. It downloaded and installed the updates on first boot and then restarted. THE NOISE, that is all I can say. It put out a high-pitched sound that was unbearable. I thought it was just me, but had a friend listen and he thought it was really annoying also. I went to sleep with my ears ringing, nuff’ said about the noise. I installed a program that is floating around the net to silence the problem and it worked perfectly (other than the fact it uses battery). I then decided that I did not pay $1800 for a defective (at least that is how I see it) notebook.

I took it to another Apple Store and got a new Macbook Pro, I was very happy with the service. I took the Pro home, pressed the power button and then… nothing. I could hear the HD spinning, but nothing else. I had to hold down the power button and restart it, and it worked fine. All was well until I rebooted after startup and I had the same high-pitched noise. I talked myself into just living with it (with the silencing program). I loaded a DVD and got an error stating that the DVD was not the right region. I then threw in a Saving Private Ryan DVD and got the same thing. I tried to boot up the notebook the next day and got the same problem as I had when I first got the notebook.

I then packaged it up and went back to Lennox, took it to a Mac Genius and he told me and the sales person it was defective. As I was there, I could hear all of the 15” Pros put out a whine except for one. They tried to give me another, but two bad Pros was enough for me. Next was what made me mad, they tried to give me a 10% restocking fee after he already heard it was defective. With a little arguing they gave me a full refund. Yesterday I ordered a Dell e1705, I can only hope I have more luck this time.

As a little background I have had an iBook G3, Powerbook G4, and Powermac G4. I am not one of those people out there to bash Apple. I love OS X, but Windows XP is not so bad and as such a Dell is my next notebook.

 

well that's what you get for buying shiit.

mac is overpriced, unrealiable, and NOONE on the plant's got one on the plant using there minds has one

that dell will not give you that type of trouble
nor will sony
nor will acer
nor will HP
nor will just about any Windows based computer(with te excetion of Toshiba)

 

to be perfectly fair, i'm open to an apple computer that meets or exceeds what i can do with windows for the same price or better and with the same compatibility, and the same range of options, and...

 

but you will never get one the same price, with the same comatability, and out do a Windows based computer

so for my bias comment but, it's true

note i one concerd an apple, 4 minutes of use changed my mine

 

Everyone of those brands you listed I have either had first hand problems with or heard an overwhelming number of problems with them. Especially Acer and HP.

 

and so has Sony(though not so much) and Dell especially. Maybe Dells don't "whine" but the screens on the Inspirons suck, and the build quality on the Inspirons leaves something to be desired.

Sorry the MBP didnt work out for you.

 

i have had an my cheap 600 dollar acer for a year and it is problem free i also know alot of people who have HP's and they work great, i keep heard "the mac book pro is running hot", "the web cam won't work", "why would my mac load"...

the reason HP, acer, sony, ect have problems is there is many hundreds of millions of them out there so if there is a problem with one big deal,

there is less that 1 million mac's sold a year so if you have an entire shelf of them makeing a high pitched squealing noise they you know there is a big problem with the MAJORITY of the mac's. not just a MINORITY of computers

when one computer screws up, oh well, one more lemon
when a self of mac's screw up, call a Landfill

 

Macs do have some problems, thats for sure. But in a way, this is kind of their first computer(being Intel). So we should expect problems, no doubt. Macs b4 Intel, were A+ machines. Just give them some time to get all the bugs worked out, and they'll be fine.

 

You're an idiot. Reading your posts "concerd" me.

There is no reason to argue with this guy. He must know what he's talking about because its true that Windows based PC's are perfection and never have any problems...

Not Sony, not Acer, not HP... All are perfect and have no problems, just Mac's. You ever hear a person complain about their computer, it's probably someone with a Mac.

I love it. Keep posting by all means. Your ignorance is amusing.

Anyways, tough luck jmiles. I have yet to come across any major problems with my MacBook. Glad I decided not to buy the MBP.

edit - just because i want to be mean... haha $600 on a cheap ass laptop! i'm glad you're poor, would have been wiser to have spent that money on english classes

 

Come on, everyone play nice...

There is no question that there are some bad MBP's going around, way more than usual...but it is an entire platform shift and people should realize that the first of anything are going to be buggy.

That store probably got a bad shipment of MBP's. I think the MBP's are made in different factories, so if you get a batch that was made poorly in one you'll probably get a crappy computer no matter how many swaps you make. If you really wanted the laptop, it probably would have been smarter to have gone to another mac store or order offline.

The MBP's really shouldn't be sucking as much as they do right now, but I'd give Apple a little break to let them get things sorted out. That said, be hesitant buying a new and untested (well, for an apple) technology.

A $600 laptop definitely cannot outshine any average Apple is speed or design/build quality.

 

Since this is a public forum, it is fine to voice your own opinion. Just please try not to flame other people with whom you may disagree on.

 

Sorry to hear you had problems with the MacBoook Pro. I am on my 3rd. The first one I can't blame Apple, the second is debatable. They are deffinitely having problems with these, but overall I would say most are good. For every one person you hear complain there are 5 or 10 who are happy. I wouldn't expect a huge difference with others though. The first Dell laptop I bought for my wife had an overheating problem right out of the box. I spent literally 20 or so hours on the phone. No joke. 20. After all that I had to argue to get a NEW replacement instead of refurb. On a product that was bad out of the box.

As for Windows or Mac? Windows comps have to be faster in order to handle all the extra software you gotta run(anti-spyware, anti-virus, etc.)

 

Oh and for the DVD region problem. You have to set the DVD region on your SuperDrive. If you just put a DVD in without using Front Row, it will ask you what DVD region you want to set. From there its taken care of.

 

I don't understand why you even bother posting in the Apple section of this forum.

Your post is clearly nothing else than flamebait.

If you want to debate whether or not your plastic $600 Acer is better than the MacBook Pro, go ahead but atleast get some experience with both instead of rambling on and on about 'issues' the MacBook Pro may or may not have.

Yes, I have the so called "whine" but I rarely sit in a near-quiet environment. If I want to get rid of it, I pair it up with my bluetooth mouse and gone it is.

To the original poster, sorry you ran into some lemons but there are better units out there.

Good luck with your Dell, hope it brings peace in your heart.

 

ROFL! If you say so man.

 

Just because it whines, doesnt mean its not reliable.. I'm pretty sure its more reliable than those mentioned. IMO.

 

So far my experiences with Compaq and IBM have been superb. Dell, iffy. I have yet to try a Mac, but knowing I have 18 years in Windows based PC's, it probably will be ackward to say the least. Everyone screams of productivity and simplicity, but for me there can be a level where I want "more" control and less "friendliness" if that makes sense. Not a Mac basher, just a skeptic

 

All I can say is, CONGRATS ON THE DELL INSPIRON E1705. I ordered mine 2 days ago and should be recieveing it this coming week. I can't wait. You made a very wise decision in buy the Dell. It has been confirmed that the Dell Inspiron E1705 can be upgraded to Core 2 Duo (Merom) when it comes out. Furthermore, it has an excellent graphics card. You will truly enjoy this beastly machine.

 

If you want more control then OS X is actually the way to go. You can't be given more control than what the command line offers. Remember it is UNIX under the hood. As for 18 years with Windows, I too have been a lifelong Windows user, love it to death. Switching to Mac was the easiest and best thing I have done. Not trying to convert at all. Windows is great and for some a better way to go.

 

Ya know, yeah the Mac didnt work out, but there are other computers. the Dell isnt somethin i would go for. I personaly have an issue with microsoft. But that is just somethin I deal with. The apples are great, sorry about your MacBook. Sometimes when you live in an area the shipment goes bad. sounds wierd but that happened with my PS2. I had to take it back twice. turns out all ps2's from the shipment mine came form werent working. WEIRD stuff. Well hope you get better luck with your notebook!

 

I'm dabbling with Ubuntu right now for fun. If it actually clicks with me eventually than it might steer me more towards Mac too. But I'd never give up my PC hardware/building. If I'm gonna run a Mac OS it'll have to be ported over, or something. From waht I know MacOSX won't run on a home built AMD machine.

 

OSX "CAN" run on intel/amd if cracked

 

sorry about that. mine works great, no whine, no lockups, nothing wrong with it.

 

I've heard OS X can run on AMD machines now, though I'm not sure how well.

 

Well, when I ordered the Dell they estimated a shipping date of the 15th. Just checked and it shipped today, and will be here on the 13th. Hopefully it won't have any problems, because there is no Dell store to get exchanges like the Apple...

 

I opened Front Row, didn't help. The Macbook wouldn't even show that a DVD was in the drive . On the first Macbook Pro, it worked first time with no problem. I really think it was a defective drive.

 

you can't customize a mac like you can with a pc, that's my reason for being pro-pc. I was considering the mac book pro 15 or 17 inch but I think I will be much happier with this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834220031

 

Of course you will man! That's the sexiest notebook out!

I've used a MBP and have not noticed this high-pitched sound... but I guess it's pretty common. Noise was definitely a big deciding factor in my purchase decision.

 

Wow, 17" screen with WXGA resolution. Wow. Nice work Asus.

 

Yeah that notebook has a lower-resolution screen, but ASUS is handing out $200 rebates on that particular model (I guess to try to make up for the low res).

The nice thing about running windows, though, is that you have a wide variety of notebooks from which to choose the notebook that best fits your budget and the qualities that you value. The cheapest 17" Apple notebook goes for something like $2799+tax (maybe $800 more than the newegg w2jb depending on your state) and has basically the same specs (except for the screen resolution).