About a year and a half ago I asked my brother-in-law, who is in the US, to buy a macbook for my daughter. She was at that time working on graphics and elearning based content development for a company and I felt she could be more productive with a Macbook. It cost me the princely sum of Rs. 54, 000 inclusive of tax, a nice cover and a wireless Apple mouse. It was a white Macbook 2.00 GHz, 1 MB Ram, 80 GB HDD, core 2 duo Intel Processor. The rest was all Apple standard as in all Macbooks.
It came with the standard apple software fare which is adequte for graphic work but barely okay for Spreadsheet, WP and Presentation software. This had to be bought separately. I managed to get iwork2998 which was quite comprehensive and provided much greater ease of working that with MS Office.
It was simple enough to get this machine out of the box, read a few instructions and get it going. It was very exciting for my daughter as I had also got her a 3rd Generation Apple iPod Nano which was soon connected using iTunes and operational after transferring songs etc from the windows PC.
It did however become uncomfortably hot on the bottom side as either the cooling was insufficient or the cooling settings were haywire. I downloaded from the internet a small fan utility for the macboook with enabled one to set the temperature of the CPU which was comfortable and the fan speed was adjusted automaticallly to maintain this temperature. This was definitely better.
Since she was using mostly Microsoft based software in the office it became essential to install MS Windows and relevant software. This was done quite easily and a dual boot was setup using bootcamp. This became a problem as I found that now the whole purpose of buying a Macbook was lost as she was not getting the productivity advantage.
Soon enough she decided to stop working and study for GMAT. No more MS Windows work was required and as luck would have it there was a problem with the bootcamp setup which did not allow windows to run.
In about 3-4 days necessity became the mother of invention and she was fully at home with the Macbook and in fact announced that she wished she had stopped using windows earlier. Now she was really in low with the machine.
As luck would have it just when she really appreciated the higher productivity and ease of use of the Macbook all hell broke loose. The machine went into the black screen of death. The machine just would not start. Tried all sorts of mumbo jumbo from the internet and finally realised that I should have read more about the Macbook before buying it. We have been fed so much trash about the superior quality of Apple products that one would believe that hardly anything goes wrong as we are spending more, the hardware is optimised for the macs and so on.
I found that there were a number of problems endemic with the late 2006 to mid 2007 macbook which Apple had been ’vigorously’ ignoring. When someone had a problem they would take in the machine and do whatever upgrade and give it back. Most people were none the wiser if this was within warranty as they didn’t care so long as it worked. In my case it was 3 months out of warranty. Moreover, being in India meant that getting the same level of service was difficult as the number of Apple repair centres is quite limited. Most of them masquerade as upmarket shops for Apple products and when you visit you are convinced that you will be ripped off even without a word being said.
Net result of a visit to an Apple Dealer in Ansal Plaza was that I shelled out Rs 2500 for the honour of being told in 2 days time that the Logic Board (Motherboard for Windows PC users) was kaput. Replacement was possible at the cost of Rs. 42000. After talking to some Apple Managers I was able to get a discount of Rs. 5000. However, I took my machine back and have obtained a logic board from the US for Rs 20, 000 which I will replace myself. Am right now looking to pick up some antistatic mats and wrist band, tweezers etc.
I am sure that the original Logic Board had defects. This was a problem documented by many people on the internet and Apple and other forums.
I JUST FELT BADLY CHEATED.
So all those who have a fascination for Apple laptops (not compulsion to use for work etc.) please take a total view of all facts before buying a Macbook or Macbook Pro. I am not sure about the desktops but repair costs in India will be prohibitive.