It was $270. The battery was dead. Would say Okay condition.
Thing was a heap of junk. Sent in three times. Have moved away from Apple because of it.
That's unfortunate as the current machines are quite fantastic and...all computer manufacturers have issues, Apple absolutely included. =\
While I've not tried all laptops out there, I have never found a non-Apple trackpad that feels like the Apple trackpad. In fact, 9 times out of 10, it's not even close.
Indeed, for that reason, if I were forced to do a hackintosh, the only one that would make the least bit of sense to me would NOT be a laptop.
As for desktops, the other issue that people have failed to mention is the fact that hackintoshes are not worth much on the used market. Sure, while the up front cost of hackintoshes can be cheaper (assuming your time is worth nothing), when it comes time to actually sell the thing, you can actually get decent money for a used Mac. For consumer Macs, that difference in used sales price will make up for the difference in up front cost. The going rate for my current i7 27" iMac is still over $1000 on the used market, and the thing is 3 years old.
Yeah, I know. I did get my wife an MBA. Beautiful and no probs so far.
But it showed me that not all is better with Apple. It's all the same, just the wrapper is nicer
My assumption was that the touchpad's secret sauce was in Mac OS X. But I think you're right there must some hardware involved.
I agree its all the same for the most part but the quality of service is key. With a laptop the odds of it needing service during its life is pretty high. Especially during the HDD era. Every single one needed some work at some point. Thankfully they were thinkpads and excellent IBM service (I believe IBM still handles US service for Lenovo for those machines - the call goes to Atlanta, GA). Turn around is 3-4 days max even with the lowest service level and including the prepaid padded mailer. They even replace any plastic parts and fix cosmetic damage free of charge.
I consider that level of service one rung above Apple. However Apple service is right there. You will have your problem addressed. But it is more of a hassle with going to store and dealing with smug "geniuses" and standing in line etc. I haven't tried their phone support so it might actually be as good as with Thinkpads but I somehow doubt it.
So with every other maker (Dell, HP, Toshiba, Sony etc) you HAVE to upgrade your warranty and service plan to get any reasonable service out of them. So you must add that cost to that of the product. I would never buy a Sony without the accidental damage plan for example. They are easily prone to damage and issues.
With Apple it's not that bad but it's not Thinkpad good either. All my Macs have not had additional protection or warranty on them and thankfully it's worked out for me. But I do have one that has a messed up keyboard issue and I have not yet been to the genius bar to deal with it. The bar for Mac appointments closes early as opposed to iOS bar which stays open until close. So I'd have to leave work early and deal with traffic and rush there.
Just a dumb question here - if you've never tried Apple's phone service, why and how can you rate it a rung below IBM's phone service?
How is IBM's carry-in service? Do you rate that ten rungs under Apple's carry-in service?
/boggle....
What brand of driver shows up for the touchpad in Device Manager when running Windows on a MacBook via Bootcamp? & how similar does the touchpad function under Windows, as compared to OSX?
Just a dumb question here - if you've never tried Apple's phone service, why and how can you rate it a rung below IBM's phone service?
How is IBM's carry-in service? Do you rate that ten rungs under Apple's carry-in service?
/boggle....
I've personally never run into a "smug" genius. They are always precise and often compassionate with issues and they frequently replace things that are in more of a grey area on whether they should be replaced at all.
I've personally never run into a "smug" genius. They are always precise and often compassionate with issues and they frequently replace things that are in more of a grey area on whether they should be replaced at all.
I've also never seen an Apple Store that stops taking Mac appointments before iOS appointments...
And for the first year you don't have to purchase AppleCare to get any different level of service re: replacements in store.
I rate both about the same in terms of mail-in repair. The major difference is that I have to use Thinkpad support much less.
The major difference in favour of Apple if you're me is that should your piece of junk crap out on the road (as it does with not a giant, but certainly noticeable degree) the places I work in I'm almost guaranteed to be able to just buy a replacement the same day. Obviously on the PC side I can buy a replacement in any major city, but it likely won't be the same machine.
Dell turned us off with our institutional purchases. They kept on getting the custom configurations wrong, but curiously it was always in their favour. After a while we dropped Dell completely. This kinda surprised me actually because I had always assumed Dell targeted the corporate market. Maybe it was just a local thing I dunno, but it was horrible.
With Sony our only experience was with personal consumer oriented computers, but that was also horrible. Weirdly enough, I've had good experiences with Asus (Nexus 7), and Acer (el cheapo nettop).
With Apple, the support has definitely been good for me. I'm a bit biased of late though, because my currrent iMac is a replacement from Apple. I had a 2009 iMac with 4x2 GB = 8 GB RAM. That thing was having problems so I brought it in. They tried to fix it. Didn't work. They tried again, didn't work. So, they offered to replace it with a 2010 model. They transferred the data to the new iMac, AND removed the old drive from the old iMac and handed it to me to keep. Unfortunately, the new computer only had 2x2 GB because that was my original purchase. The other 2x2 was an aftermarket addition. Nonetheless I had informed them of that when I brought in the computer so they took back the computer again and got me ANOTHER new 2010 iMac. In fact, the called me to ask if I wanted 4x2 GB or 2x4 GB and of course I took the latter, not only because the latter left me two memory slots open, but also because at the time 2x4 GB was much more expensive. This whole process did take a few weeks, but I came out of it very satisfied. Brand new and faster machine with 2 more open memory slots than I had before, for no cost to me.
Actually, because it was a new machine, they couldn't transfer the Apple Care warranty, so they refunded me the remaining amount of the Apple Care. I could then choose to buy Apple Care or not again for the new machine.
Dell turned us off with our institutional purchases. They kept on getting the custom configurations wrong, but curiously it was always in their favour. After a while we dropped Dell completely. This kinda surprised me actually because I had always assumed Dell targeted the corporate market. Maybe it was just a local thing I dunno, but it was horrible.
With Sony our only experience was with personal consumer oriented computers, but that was also horrible. Weirdly enough, I've had good experiences with Asus (Nexus 7), and Acer (el cheapo nettop).
With Apple, the support has definitely been good for me. I'm a bit biased of late though, because my currrent iMac is a replacement from Apple. I had a 2009 iMac with 4x2 GB = 8 GB RAM. That thing was having problems so I brought it in. They tried to fix it. Didn't work. They tried again, didn't work. So, they offered to replace it with a 2010 model. They transferred the data to the new iMac, AND removed the old drive from the old iMac and handed it to me to keep. Unfortunately, the new computer only had 2x2 GB because that was my original purchase. The other 2x2 was an aftermarket addition. Nonetheless I had informed them of that when I brought in the computer so they took back the computer again and got me ANOTHER new 2010 iMac. In fact, the called me to ask if I wanted 4x2 GB or 2x4 GB and of course I took the latter, not only because the latter left me two memory slots open, but also because at the time 2x4 GB was much more expensive. This whole process did take a few weeks, but I came out of it very satisfied. Brand new and faster machine with 2 more open memory slots than I had before, for no cost to me.
Actually, because it was a new machine, they couldn't transfer the Apple Care warranty, so they refunded me the remaining amount of the Apple Care. I could then choose to buy Apple Care or not again for the new machine.
The resale value point is misleading.
DIY PC/Hackintosh builders aren't generally interested in reselling a PC as a whole- that's Apple thinking. Having to get rid of everything (including perfectly fine monitors) in order to buy everything over again is an unnecessary hassle if all one wants to do is upgrade.
To upgrade to the latest Haswell, all I have to do to my sig system is switch out the motherboard and CPU. Why would I want to give up perfectly good RAM, SSDs, video cards, case, PSU, monitors, etc. if I didn't want or need to?
Meanwhile, an i7 2600K can still fetch $250-$300 and my motherboard another $100. Considering the price of the upgrade is much less than replacing a full system for no real reason, the margin is probably similar.
And of course downside of Apple's inflated resale market comes into play when you're on the other side of the equation and want to buy a used Mac. For every seller getting a high price, there's a buyer getting outdated technology for way too much. You'll witness the spectacle of people paying ridiculous rip-off prices for old Core2 hardware that's now 6 to 7 years out of date. Macs really only make sense new, as older ones often cost 1/2 as much for 1/4 the level of hardware.
And notice the "it takes too much time to build a PC" argument. Then in the next breath outlining a ludicrous process of an entire machine out of commission in order to take it somewhere to be fixed multiple times for something that shouldn't take more than a few minutes to fix yourself. That is, with a system that hasn't been purposefully designed with the belief the user is too dumb to service it themselves.
In the old days that was the case, but not so much anymore. Sites like Tonymacx86 and kakewalk have long made the process pretty simple. If I were to upgrade to IvyBridge, there are dozens of boards that work to choose from, all the research has been done already, and it'd be a simple matter of preparing a USB installer for the new board- or simply reapplying the right settings to my current install of OSX. Also, once installed, OSX is amazingly resilient. When I upgraded from a Core2 to my current Sandybridge system, my then-current install of Lion booted right up. The only thing I had to add was a boot flag to enable my newer graphic card. (Heck, even my old install of Snow Leopard booted fine on the same hardware- which I discovered by accident on selecting the wrong boot drive at one point.)You have to also pretty much re-hackintosh the hackintosh right? Research out the upgrades find kexts or determine compatibility?
How is RAM being soldered to the motherboard, non-replaceable batteries, non-upgradable/non-standard flash drives, needing to lug around a clunky adapter for a simple ethernet connection 'working for me'? (All issues I have with the current MacBook "Pro" that stretches the credibility of its label.) There's lots I love about actual Macs (mainly laptops) but they come with their own set of limitations and issues that are deal killers for many.The Apple experience is about the computer working for you.
Dell turned us off with our institutional purchases. They kept on getting the custom configurations wrong, but curiously it was always in their favour. After a while we dropped Dell completely. This kinda surprised me actually because I had always assumed Dell targeted the corporate market. Maybe it was just a local thing I dunno, but it was horrible.