What a Disappointment!
Written: Sep 18 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Eye catching design.
Cons: Worrying engineering and poor support.
The Bottom Line: Until Apple takes the engineering challenge as seriously as they take the design, I will not buy another expensive problematic laptop; however beautiful it may be.
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| realworlduser's Full Review: Apple PowerBook G4 15.2 in. (M8362LL/A) Mac Notebo... |
I have been a Mac user for many years. When I started a consultancy business recently I bought an Apple Ti Powerbook. It nearly cost me the business.
The packaging was delightful as was the design. Lots of curious and envious looks whenever it came out of its bag in meetings, presentations and cafes! Other pluses were the battery life, beautiful screen and thin profile.
Unfortunately I was forced to sell it due to on-going reliability and engineering issues. These became so bad the unit was no longer reliable. I could not trust it - even started to really really hate it.
The battery connection was very unreliable. I have had many embarassing unexpected shutdowns midway through important presentations. What made it worse was I work with predominantly Windows-based clients, and having to defend this non-Windows laptop was no enviable task.
The screen did not close properly from day one. The right edge floated above the bottom chassis when shut. There was no protection for the screen when shut - one day I found a wad of business cards had actually fallen in between the screen and the base, this was with the lid shut!
I hated the slot drive after about the 5th use. Imagine not being able to return a disc a client had asked me to look at because it was stuck inside this expensive "toy"! Bad news was I could not remove the useless drive, thus having to still carry it around despite not using it.
Heat was an issue, the very loud fan was a right embarassment in the boardroom (where there were other noticeably quieter Windows laptops around).
To top it all off Apple's service was slow and dogged by part shortages (good intentions only went so far). There were only so many weeks I could be without a computer. I believe my business (certainly my sanity) suffered because of the poor quality of this laptop.
I switched to an IBM thinkpad after this. It was cheaper, very solidly built, quiet, and came with 3 year return to base warranty (compared with Apple's 1). And Windows is not bad after you get used to it.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 2499
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Epinions.com ID:
realworlduser
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Reviews written: 1
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