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Comment by tomcam | Hacker News Reader

No. I bought the $3,500 version on the advice of my partner and feel cruelly ripped off. The keyboard, which I dislike, has already been replaced. The Apple Store guy tried to accuse me of getting water on the keyboard, but that is incorrect. My partner’s identical machine also needed the keyboard and motherboard replaced. He got a loaner (I didn’t) and they tried to accuse him of the same thing.

I would much rather have purchased 2 MacBook Airs for the price. (I do web development and the MacBook Airs are surprisingly fast for my purposes.)

But more likely I’ll go with something like a Lenovo next time. With Apple much less willing to honor its warranties I don’t feel anchored to its computers, which I used to love, anymore.

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Lenovo Thinkpad T series laptops are built like tanks, have proper keyboards, some have water-resistance, most have easily-removable batteries. The T480 has a 30 hour runtime with dual batteries, and starts at about $800 USD. I'd try to turn that into a hackintosh or find an A1278 because it has 2x drives (optical turns into second drive bay), works with 16 GiB of RAM and the battery isn't glued in. On the latter, I'd send it to Rossmann in NYC just to have the JTAG header removed and exposed traces sealed (Apple BOOO, poor craftsmanship)... yes, Apple sells computers with logic boards that are prone to corrosion, shorting and other damage due to substandard engineering and manufacturing.

But the Lenovo is coming from a company who has repeatedly shown that it doesn't give a shit about user privacy. Remember superfish? Or Lenovo Service Engine?

That doesn't happen on business machines like Thinkpads.

Unfortunately, it also looks like a tank.

Can recommend the s series however (have the 420s and am still happy).

> The Apple Store guy tried to accuse me of getting water on the keyboard,

They pulled the exact same bullshit with the first iPhone I ever bought (3s at the time) and refused to fix it for free even though it was under warranty as the screen stoped working, asking the equivalent of more than $200 for something I paid like $300 new, claiming water caused damages. I ended up buying a spare screen $10 online and change it myself.

It was the last time I ever bought something from Apple.

amen to that its always easier to fix it yourself when the part is the only problem.

apple is a full service shop that will quote you a price and then get it done. they wont ask any questions and just let it all happen.

It's just a shame —with all brands— that original parts aren't the more readily available.

I don't want a knock-off batteries or screens. They're cheap because they're not top-flight materials and invariably break much quicker than what they're replacing. And those that claim to be genuine are often even shittier.

there isn't a universal standard for this, but some companies do provide raw parts officialy for instance Samsung allows you to get any replacement parts for any of their phones or electronics on their website.

So I guess the new membrane they put into the 2018 MacBook Pros didn’t solve the problem? I had keyboard issues on my 2015 MacBook which I think is the first time they introduced the butterfly switches. I got a 2016 MacBook Pro 15 and the keyboard has worked flawlessly. I’ve gotten 2 2017 MacBook Pro 15s for work. The first one had keyboard issues and the second hasn’t but I’ve only had it for like 4 months.

I’ve been lucky support-wise, but maybe you would get better service from your local Apple Business team if thats an option?

> So I guess the new membrane they put into the 2018 MacBook Pros didn’t solve the problem?

My money is that OP’s laptop isn’t the new edition.

Did you get a 2018 version?

you "should have" gotten the macbook air but apple isn't planning on updating them so its a stale buy. really the lineup of apple is quite confusing. What you're getting other than a mainstream Unix OS is a few hw bells and whistles.

I know it’s stale! But I still prefer it to my state of the art MBP.

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