My brand new 5 Year Old MacBook
Back in July 2012 I got my hands on one of the extremely very first new 15″ Retina MacBook Pros. When I examined it back then I was damn impressed, it was a significant advance from my previous machine. five years on, did it truly online as much as the hype or has it been a bit of a let-down? Here’s the long term Report.
History
This maker has been round the block. Here’s a breakdown of its sees to the Apple store over the years.
Just timid of its very first anniversary I had a new replacement screen fitted because of the picture retention problem that impacted a few of the early machines. When Apple replaces a screen you get an entire new top situation / lid, as well as this had a value of £438 on the paperwork.
Apple Care
I had the prolonged 3 year guarantee that the addition of Apple care brought and just before it expired I took it in with one more problem. The anti-reflective retina coating on the screen was coming off leaving a bit of a mess, similar to this photo…
Image source: macrumors.com
The Apple ‘Genius’ took one look at it as well as agreed with me as well as sorted it extremely quickly. It had a whole new top situation fitted once again at the exact same value of £438.
While I was there I explained that 2 of the 4 feet had come off. So I also got a brand new bottom situation as a great will gesture (the only method Apple would replace the missing feet). Not sure what the value would have been right here however lets conservatively assumption £50
Heart Transplant
Then around the autumn of 2015 the maker started to suffer random crashes. I observed some odd graphics on the screen before the lockups as well as after some browsing discovered my machine’s serial number was in the range for a recall for graphics chip issue.
So now it needed a complete mainboard replacement as well as the Apple store sent me to their authorised service supplier just outside Belfast. The excellent people at mac-sys.com turned it round extremely swiftly as well as effectively with a repair valued at around £500 – when a lot more complimentary of fee to me even though the maker was now outside its 3 year Apple care prolonged warranty.
Screen 4
That brings us to this year (2017) when I observed the retina finish was once again starting to find off the screen, not as poor as the very first time however still annoying, particularly at a point ideal in the middle of the display. even with the laptop being almost 5 years old now I believed it was worth a try to get the screen replaced once again so I took it in to the Belfast Apple store when more. They agreed!
The paper work below was signed (now £558 for the top half) making it the 4th screen in total.
Bad news – great News
On the exact same see I asked the person about the ‘service battery’ alerting that had appeared a few months previously. The maker still serviced battery however only for around 3 hours instead of the advertised “up to 7”.
Fair enough, batteries are consumed over time, however at introduce Apple stated it was meant to decrease to 80% after 1,000 cycles. Mine had dropped to 66% of its original capability after only around 660 cycles (checkout the exceptional Coconut Battery Mac app). The battery replacement expense has gone up from £159 when I originally examined the maker to £199 today.
After a chat with his manager the brilliant returned to tell me the parts for the battery switch were ‘constrained’ as well as wouldn’t be offered for 4 months. however due to this inconvenience they would replace the battery free as well!
So that a person visit, with an nearly 5 year old laptop, 2 years outside of its prolonged warranty, I got over £750 worth of repair services authorized with no charge.
24/7
While in one method all this isn’t a good advert for Apple’s (early model) retina MacBook Pros, it definitely is a great advert for their support. What other brand would have done this?
The maker has been fantastic. powerful as well as practical, a happiness to own as well as use. It has been on nearly actually 24/7 everyday for the last 5 years. It’s utilized so much that the palm rests either side of the track pad have been worn shiny.
As the battery is glued to the top situation that will be replaced as well when the parts are offered in September. That means that there won’t be a single original part left of the machine I bought back in July 2012.
What’s Next
It would be excellent to upgrade to the new Kaby Lake CPUs and take advantage of even a lot more power, a quicker SSD, much better battery life as well as Touch ID. five years back this MacBook cost £1,960. contributing to that the 1TB Transcend JetDrive 725 upgrade that I fitted in year two brings it to a overall investment of £2,390.
The equivalent new 15″ MacBook pro with the 4GB Radeon pro 560 as well as a 1TB SSD (you can have as much as 2TB now) is currently £3,059.00.
To put that into perspective, a friend just recently gotten this BMW for less than that. I’ve always championed the long-lasting value of Macs, as well as this story bears that out, however I feel Apple are in risk of crossing a line on what’s justifiable. Admittedly the post-Brexit vote exchange rates haven’t assisted things.
So am I going to upgrade? Not yet. even if I was inclined to decrease £3K on a new laptop I’m waiting (probably in vain) to see if Apple will add the SD slot back in at some stage.
And anyway, my 5 year old laptop is brand new
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Preview
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June 2013 – LCD screen Clamshell Retina £0.00 (£438.00 value)
March 2015 – LCD screen Clamshell Retina £0.00 (£438.00 value)
March 2015 – bottom Case £0.00 (£50.00? value)
November 2015 – primary Board £0.00 (£500.00 value)
May 2017 – LCD screen Clamshell Retina £0.00 (£558.00 value)
September 2017 – Replacement Battery & top Case £0.00 (£199.00)
TOTAL value of complimentary repair services – £2,183.00
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Last update on 2021-10-04 / affiliate links / pictures from Amazon product marketing API