Hmm, yeah, paying $99 for a new laptop would be a pretty shady deal. I'd recommend trying something in the $600 range. Those will at the very least have computer chips in them
Panasonic Toughbook
Dell Vostro
Dell Latitude
Dell Adamo 13 and Adamo XPS
HP Elitebook
Some have Aluminum, Some Aluminum/ Magnesium Alloy.
I also had an HP Elitebook in my list of recommendations. Great price for what you get!
It's not an opinion if I've had I'd say 90% of my friends who own Macbooks have a problem or two, or more. I've also had many other machines that haven't had problems, and very few friends who paid a reasonable amount (over $500) for their windows laptop who have had problems... It's more of a fact at that point that Apple has quality control issues. I'm not someone who would let one problem sway me from a company. I've had 5 hardware failures on Apple products. My iPod first, then my HDD, then my Disk Drive, then my Time Capsule's HDD. It's too many incidents to be coincidence, especially since I've had so many friends who've had problems with them also. Actually, I find my advice fairly objective. I've had one or less failures from any other company. In fact, I've never had any electronic gadget break as fast as my Apple products. So maybe you are the one with the opinion, ehh? I have not said one thing that isn't true.
You are right, it isn't opinion, and it may be fact, but it is still anecdotal evidence. And that is all I have is well, but it is as follows;
List of Apple laptops at my apartment right now;
MacBook Air (brand new)
MacBook Pro Unibody w/ removable battery. This belongs to my roommate, he got it in Spring '09 and has since replaced the battery and the screen. The bezel was not fully sealed, and dust had gotten underneath, replaced for free under AppleCare
PowerBook G4 12": Used to belong to a friend, he somehow managed to break his power plug inside the port, I took it apart, fixed the problem, and has been working for 6 years.
PowerBook G4 12": Bought used about 1.5 years ago, the previous owner broke the heatsink retention screws, it overheats if you do more than 1 thing at a time, otherwise is still working
MacBook Pro: Suffered numerous soda spills at the hands of my roommate, anything but a ToughBook would have been killed. It still took 2.5 cans over 3 years to die though. It also was plagued by every first gen MBP problem there was. My roommate, clever guy that he is usually, thought that the warranty was only for 6 months, so never contacted Apple to get anything fixed, so he replaced the screen inverter, optical drive, and something else that I cannot recall right now out of pocket.
My sister has my old MacBook, the topcase was replaced (free), the battery (free due to recall you might remember, every Sony battery back in '06 or '07) and the magsafe (free). It is still chugging along, though i think the hard drive is probably finally going bad after 4.5 (5 in August) years of constant every day use/abuse.
My other sister spilled water on her MacBook, it died. My mother did the same on her MacBook (she also killed a Compaq laptop the same way, we are debating not letting her have any more laptops).
My friend (who used to own the PowerBook) got a MacBook in '06 or '07 as well, his is still running just fine, and this includes the numerous falls and spills (liquids, not another word for tumble) it has taken over the years. The screen had to be replaced after a fall, but he did that himself.
His sister's MacBook needed a hard drive replacement at some point, I believe it was one of the bad Seagate drives, her friend at school had a spare, higher capacity drive laying around, otherwise it would have been free.
My iPod Nano (2nd gen) has lasted years and is on its 3rd owner. My original iPod 30gb had the battery go out, but I replaced it myself. The hard drive then kicked after I think 3-4 years, so it was replaced too. My roommate's iPod 30gb died, was replaced under warranty, the replacement died within 24 hrs and it too was replaced under warranty. That one is still alive and kicking to this day (at least I assume so, he gave it to me, and then I stopped using it once I got my new phone).
I have an original iPhone, a little over 3 years old, aside from tons of abuse, it has suffered no problems. My roommate went through 4 3GSs all of them replaced under warranty, but is still on iPhone 4 number 1, the original iPhone was his as well.
So, some user failures, some tanks that keep on going, and some that have had continuous issues. As I said, no company's QC is perfect, and it is how their CS takes care of you that matters. My mom asked me to take in her laptop without telling me about the water damage, and they refused it due to water damage. My friend tried to get the battery on his MBP replaced for free, but they determined through diagnostics that it had died from lack of use (I can attest, he used it plugged in, on his bed, all the damn time).
I also know a couple of people with $500 laptops, their experiences are about what I laid out above... a mixture. I can say this much though, the one thing they have all had in common was how incredibly cheap and flimsy the systems felt.
Don't say I didn't warn you... you are on borrowed time with any Macbook you buy... and I would be willing to bet money something goes wrong with that MacBook in the next 2 years. Most likely around a month after the 1 year of AppleCare is done with. If not then they just use the $400 you gave them for AppleCare to buy replacement parts. They'll give you a nice sheet with a $600+ price tag you "would be paying" and you'll think you're smiling all the way to the bank with all the money you "saved" by buying the extended plan...
Parts I had break were as follows
- 200GB HDD -
-Apple-
+$80
-Newegg-
+$45
- 1TB Time Capsule -
(you can't open this one up)
-Apple-
+$350
-Custom Newegg Server-
+$320
- Disk Drive -
-Apple-
+$167
-Comparable LG drive-
+$80
- Logic Board -
-Apple (only)-
+$675
Replacing your own hard drive if you have the know how and skill makes perfect sense, but if you hadn't known how it isn't like Apple was charging more than a local shop or the Geek Squad, certainly not by much.
Buying the Time Capsule was a silly idea. Getting the Airport Extreme and a separate external drive for Time Machine is the way to go. Not just because the drive in the Time Capsule is unreplaceable, but also because of expandability and redundancy.
Disk Drive in what?
The logic boards are also available on this website called ebay. You may have heard about it, you can get to it through this thing, called The Internet.
Your experience is obviously terrible, hence the advice to stop buying Apple products. And I would tell you to do a google search to find the people that don't have issues, but generally people don't post long, interesting blog posts about how they woke up one day to find that their laptop was working normally. And even if they do, the other more popular blogs usually don't reprint them. I have had good luck with my Macs, and know plenty of people that have as well, as well as people that have had shit luck, like you apparently. I can also tell you about a guy I know who has had nothing but problems with his Lenovo T61, or about my friend who has had so many things replaced on his 6 year old Compaq that I am pretty sure it is no longer the same computer he received.
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