I was one of the first adopters of the 13″ Intel MacBook, getting mine in the first round back in 2006. For the most part it’s been a capable and enjoyable experience, except when it hasn’t.
The first round was plagued with a heat sink problem that resulted in random shutdowns. Actually over a short period it wasn’t so much random downtime as it was random uptime. Unfortunately my local Apple Store didn’t have the parts and had to ship it off for repairs. When it came back in ten days it was fine, problem fixed.
Fast forward to August 2007. I was at a quarterly meeting over the weekend for the group whose website I now manage. I had been asked to turn in my qualifications to be webmaster (which, to be honest, was not a job I wanted, I’d volunteered because no one else had stepped up to the plate) and had subsequently been confirmed. I immediately did a demo of the direction I wanted to head in when
This time there was a replacement at the Apple Store and I was up and running a few minutes after htting the Genius Bar. Of course I’d lost all the data I had on the drive from the meeting. That is all I lost though as I do back up regularly. I did have to reinstall all my programs, but for the most part that was a good thing as I cleared out a lot stuff I simply didn’t use.
All was good until a few days ago. I’d installed Leopard shortly after it came out and had no major complaints with it. I headed off to the quarterly meeting for the very same organization as last time (we’d canceled our Fall meeting so this was the first since August and my hard drive problem). While at the meeting my MacBook started randomly shutting off, taking forever to boot, and sometimes simply locking up. On the way to the meeting I’d idly amused myself by remembering that at the last meeting my laptop and died, little suspecting it would do the same thing at this.
Back to the Apple Store. This time they wouldn’t even do a diagnosis. Because it has been repaired so much already, they simply sent it off for repair. Back in seven to ten days they tell me.
I’m a little miffed by all this. This is the third time I’ve had major problems in less than two years. Back around 1987 I had a Toshiba T1000 and never had a lick of trouble over the course of several years. Of course it didn’t have a hard drive, meaning the hard drive couldn’t fail, but it just ran and ran and ran, until the final battery wore out without a replacement being available anywhere. I loved that thing and wish I had it now. 🙂
So I’m sans laptop again which means I may not be updating things quite as often till it returns next week. I guess it’s time to start thinking about a replacement. The MacBook Air actually sort of reminds me of the T1000, at least if I spend far too much money and get it with the solid state drive instead of a mechanical drive. Of course if I get an Air I’ll officically become an horrible person!
Aloha!