MacPrices.net

The New MacBooks Are Super-cool, But Is Apple's Quality Control Slipping?

by Charles W. Moore

In their 17-year history, beginning with the Mac Portable in 1989, portable Macs have earned an enviable -- almost legendary -- reputation for toughness and reliability, albeit with the odd lapse -- notably the PowerBook 5300, which, ironically, was also the most expensive Apple portable ever in its ce version.

However, that reputation has taken a bit of a beating in recent years, with issues like an epidemic of logic board failures in the Dual-USB G3 iBook, and a constellation of issues afflicting the 15" aluminum PowerBook.

First there was the notorious "white spots" that appeared on the displays of some 15" AlBooks, usually after a week or so of use, with up to 25% of ”units shipped being effected according to some estimates.

Unfortunately, that's not the only problem with the 15" AlBooks. Other complaints have included extreme finickiness about memory upgrades, poor quality lid latches, unexplained kernel panics, and video oddities. According to Macworld magazine's Chris Breen in the December, 2003, issue, of six 1st-generaton 15" PowerBooks MacWorld received, three had to be returned because of defects.

More recently, there has been an epidemic of lower RAM slot failures in the 15" PowerBooks, to a degree that Apple has implemented an extended repair program (the second for this PowerBook model) for some, but not all versions. More info here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303173

Dave Wegener of Wegener Media, which offers a repair option for those whose machines are not covered by Apple's Repair Extension program, says the issue is pretty widespread and endemic:

"This has continued to be a serious issue. While my own G4 (1.67 SD) hasn't died, mine is the ONLY one in our shop which HASN'T! It's happening pretty rapidly.. One of our shipping guys had his die for the second time this week. Fortunately his is under AppleCare, so they're covering it for him."

I hasten to add that the other two aluminum PowerBook models, 12" and 17", largely escaped these problems, and have been reasonably free of major quality complaints. Dave Wegener tells me that the 17-inchers are not afflicted with the RAM slot issue, nor have there been reports of 12-inchers with bad RAM slots, but their engineering is entirely different, having much in common with the G4 iBook.

Now we have the MacIntel 'Books. With such a revolutionary change in engineering and architecture, it was to be expected that there would be some bumps and potholes in the road for the early going, and actually it hasn't been as bad as I worried that it might have been, but the litany of complaints on troubleshooting forums and the apparently plentiful supply of machines to be flogged on the online Apple Store's refurbished page indicates that there are plenty of issues, not to mention widely-reported aggravations like excessive heat generation, whining and "mooing" sounds and so forth.

There are also early reports of whining and mooing with the new MacBooks too, and almost every review and report I've seen remarks on the prodigious amount of heat these babies generate. A MacBook owner in Germany reported last week that he found the vent under the screen on his unit was covered with a piece of laminate that looked like it wasn't supposed to be there. After removing it, his MacBook ran a lot cooler.
http://gertstahl.blogspot.com/2006/05/macbooks-vent-blocked.html

It does beg the question as to whether Apple has been letting quality control slip. Of course there have been troubles in the past as well; not only with the somewhat infamous 5300, but also with a screen hinges on the 500 series, the WallStreet G3s, and the Titanium G4s; the dodgy video cable connector on the 13.3" WallStreet, Power Manager Unit problems with some early WallStreets, premature cache failures in the G3 Lombards, keycaps coming off the early clamshell iBooks, logic board and video failures with the white G3 and G4 iBooks.

The most comprehensive resource on PowerBook and iBook reliability I know of is a MacInTouch survey in which reports on about 10,000 laptops owned by MacInTouch readers, spanning every laptop capable of running Mac OS X, encompassing 41 models sold over seven and a half years, were logged, along with many thousands of comments.

In broad strokes, the machines with fewest repairs needed were:
The original (clamshell) iBooks
PowerBook G3
12" PowerBook G4 (2005)
12" iBook G4 (recent models)

Models incurring the most repairs were:
iBook G3 (esp. in 2003, motherboard defects)
15" titanium PowerBook G4 (esp. in 2003, optical drive, case/latch/hinge)
15" aluminum PowerBook G4 (first version, screen defects)

You can check it out here:
http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/laptops.html

However, the big picture has been generally positive over the years, with Apple laptops rated closet to or at the top of the heap in reliability surveys compared with PC notebooks.

In my family, including myself, my wife, my two kids, my brother-in-law, a niece, and a nephew, we've owned over the past ten years: a PowerBook 520, a 540, 5300, two 1400s, three WallStreets, a Lombard, a Pismo, a TiBook, two Dual-USB iBooks (G3 and G4), a 15" Aluminum PowerBook, and a 17" Aluminum PowerBook. Of these fifteen machines, twelve are still in the family, two have been sold, and one stolen. Except for the latter, all but two are still in working condition, and only two have required a major repair or component failure. One (the 5300) has a dodgy hard drive, and is no longer reliable, although it's otherwise in working condition. An unscientific sampling to be sure, but an impressive one.

The two 500 series models both proved to be dependable machines with no serious problems recorded.

Even the 5300, which I purchased new in 1996, turned out to be a tough, reliable computer. The only problems over more than seven years use have been a broken trackpad button (a known weak point on the 5300, 190, 3400, and 3500) and a loose AC adapter socket. The trackpad button was replaced under Apple's RMA extended service program for the 5300/190, along with the entire case plastics, even though the broken button was the only failure. The AC socket was re-soldered to the motherboard while the 'Book was apart. The original 500 MB hard drive finally croaked, but the old machine has a gazillion hours on it, and it finally just got set aside.

Both PowerBook 1400's came into our possession when they were 5-6 years old, and both are in fine fettle. One of them is somewhat battered, but everything works. Both 1 GB hard drives are admirably quiet, and these tough old ‘Books have been completely reliable, other than for their batteries, which are shot and give only a few minutes running time. They don't get used much any more.

The three WallStreets -- all 233 MHz units with 512k of L2 cache, and purchased within two months of each other, were/are wonderful computers. One was stolen when it was 14 months old, but the other two are still in service, although mine had a 15 month hiatus after the processor suddenly failed at the 3 1/2 year mark. The other one, now owned by my niece, but originally purchased by her brother, has had a lot of road warrioring use, and some problems with sound and AC adapter ports coming loose, a dead modem, and a battery failure (the original battery in our WallStreet is still working fine going on eight years old), but it's still in daily use. So is mine, now in service my wife's email, word processing, and Web surfing machine.

I should add here that one of the really cool things about the G3 Series PowerBooks is that they are so easy to work on. Replacing the processor daughtercard in my WallStreet was a leisurely, 20 minute operation. None of the iBooks or G4 PowerBooks come even close, although hard-drive replacement in the new MacBook is the easiest yet in any Apple laptop ever. Unfortunately, a processor failure in a post G3 Series PowerBook, any iBook MacBook Pro or MacBook means a motherboard replacement.

The 333 MHz Lombard that replaced the stolen WallStreet has been an extremely tough computer that received a lot of hard use and never missed a beat. There were no quality issues at all through four owners until I lost track of it, and the only repair required up to that point was re-soldering the Ethernet port after the Lombard accidently got kicked off a chair and across the room.

The Pismo, which I obtained used when it was a year old, has been flawlessly reliable. The original battery failed and has had to be replaced twice but other than that it's been a brick, for the past 2 1/2 years with a Daystar 550 MHz G4 processor upgrade installed, which did not diminish its anvil-like reliability in the slightest.

My brother-n-law's TiBook, an early 400 MHz unit, was perhaps the worst of the bunch, finally succumbing to a likely motherboard failure, but also afflicted with a failed hard drive and RAM slot when it was working.

Even my own 700 MHz G3 iBook, the Apple 'Book model that has the worst reputation for reliability (74% requiring repair in the MacInTouch survey) after the legendarily flawed PowerBook 5300, has been a totally reliable workhorse with zero problems for 3 1/2 years.

The newbie in my fleet, an Apple Certified Refurbished 1.33 GHz 17" PowerBook, has only been in use by me for a little over three months, but so far it has been a flawless performer, except that the cooling fan cuts in too often for my liking. However, it runs at a relatively moderate 54° - 59° C. as opposed to the mid-°70s to mid-°80s C. being reported with the MacBooks.

I've never purchased AppleCare for any of my Macs, and I'm strongly resistant to coughing up the CAN$300 Apple Canada demands for extending warranty coverage for an extra two years on a MacBook. I've always reasoned that I would rather hold on to the $300 an apply it (with interest) to my next system upgrade purchase. Apple laptops are still relatively pricey compared with many PC notebooks, but in a historical context with their Apple predecessors, they are rip-roaring bargains.

My WallStreet sold new for Canadian $3,599.00. The iBook listed at $1,589.00 when I bought it (and included a free inkjet printer from MacWarehouse). The base, 1.83 GHz MacBook sells for Canadian $1,249.00 (plus an extra Can$60 for a modem - US$1,099.00/US$50.00 respectively), and is vastly more powerful than the WallStreet or the G3 iBook in every area other than the WallStreet's connectivity expandability, and upgradability. One could argue that the value is there even if the service life turns out to be shorter. At these prices, I suppose an element of " disposability" obtains. However, that doesn't bode well for perpetuation of the Apple 'Book mystique.

CM