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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

I’m in no way defending Apple’s keyboards and there are some real issues with tiny bits of dust completely ruining a keyboard, but normal laptops have always been susceptible to even a little liquid damage.

But if your coworker couldn’t just go to his manager, tell them what happened and the company paid for it, that says more about the company.

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At least for myself, I fully expected Apple to fix the laptop. I had read about these keyboards and their issues, I was really surprised when Genius refused to take it in for warranty repair.

I suspect that if we had purchased the extended warranty, there's a good chance it would have been covered. Reading through the text of on their website it seems like this kind of thing might even be somewhat expected (like people understand that phones will be dropped).

"Coverage for up to two incidents of accidental damage, each subject to a service fee of $99 for screen damage or external enclosure damage, or $299 for other damage, plus applicable tax."

https://www.apple.com/support/products/mac.html

Coverage for accidental damage is not available from Apple for Mac products. You would need third party coverage

Check out the link above from Apple's website, the quote is from their extended warranty page.

AppleCare Plus definitely would have covered this incident, no question.

Spilling liquid on the keyboard resulting in not being able to power on the machine is different than the sensitive keyboard issues due to debris.

I wouldn't expect Dell to give me a free repair on my XPS if I had "only accidentally spilled a little bit of water in it."

If the problem was really just eating a snack near the laptop resulting in some keys not working right due to crumbs then Apple most likely would have covered that.

A nice exception to that rule were (are?) the HP G series. Similar in class to latitude. A staple of corporate class laptops. Their keyboards are spill proof and have internal drainage channels for coffee not to puddle or get into the internals. I've seen it work a couple times, after a cleanup those Laptops were back at their (messy) user's desks.

HP (ProBook/Elitebook/Z Book), Lenovo (Thinkpad), Dell (Latitude and even a few Inspirons) - the classic trifecta of business devices has had spill-resistant keyboards since...dunno, basically forever.

And yes, it's my experience as well - they have prevented quite a lot of workplace drama. :)

I know somebody who spilled a whole slurpee into a cheap desktop keyboard once and had it continue working fine. I would pay extra. To have a laptop like that for sure.

A desktop keyboard is a completely different story than a laptop. It can be much thicker and therefore more mechanical than a laptop keyboard.

I don’t need my laptop to be slurpee-proof, and given the trade offs of laptop design I hope it isn’t. I’d think this would add significant heft to the device to be able to guarantee such performance.

Fair enough, but I'd just say that I don't mind an extra half inch if the device weighed the same. IMHO, 10 year old 13 inch laptops were plenty small, but I do appreciate the lower weights

Sure, I wouldn't mind a tiny bit thicker to get the old MBA/MBP style keyboard back. I also loved the "Blackbook" keyboard, and the 12" Aluminum PowerBook. Those were the days!

I wouldn't mind a bump in weight just because of how stupid the compromises have become. Maybe not back to 6 pound laptops but still.

Desktop keyboards have wider tolerances to work with even if they're cheap. Lenovo has managed to figure out how to make a spill-proof laptop keyboard though.

> normal laptop have always been susceptible to even a little liquid damage

Check out Thinkpads

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/landingpage/small-business/reso...

I came here to say this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U5n2WaMMHo

I was a real dumbass myself one day and spilled a glass of water on my Lenovo in a cafe. I took it apart just in case to dry out, but I'm not sure I even needed to. I put it together and it was just fine.

I have an Apple laptop for work and I work in cafes a lot. I assumed that Apple of all companies would consider this lifestyle issue, but now I'll be extra careful. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that times have changed for Apple.

Annecdata. I had someone accidentally knock a glass of water over a working T440s and it died.

They're water resistant not water proof. If you pour water right down the CPU vents you're gonna have a bad time.

OP suggested otherwise...

I deliberately poured water onto my thinkpad T430 a total of 3 times in 6 years. All three times, I did it while the laptop was running.

The second time I did it, the laptop turned off as I was pouring the water. The drains are only so big; water can only move so fast through them. I had poured the water so fast that it overflowed the drains and the keyboard, and run into the motherboard.

I pulled the battery, keyboard, and access panels, and let the laptop dry overnight. I turned it on the following morning, and it worked without any problems.

So yeah, spill-resistant laptops have their limits. Dumping a quart / liter of water on them all at once is beyond their limits. And you may get unlucky with spilling onto the laptop in just such a way that it gets into something. In general, however, they seem to be very effective at preventing damage from liquid spills.

Exactly. Here is Louis Rossmann dumping a pint of water on his Lenovo https://youtu.be/ig3xI8dUdm0?t=1702

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