Clutz
Tells us when we're offset.
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2002
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- 13
I've got a 2.5 year old Macbook Pro that I just recently upgraded from 2GB to 4GB of RAM. Recently, my wife and I took a trip to Vancouver, during which time said Macbook Pro fell a short distance and was banged on the display housing. Shortly after this, I opened up the screen and noticed a crack on the bezel on the lower left hand side. I'll attach a photo to this post. Additionally, I need to replace the battery, because I'm getting erratic battery life performance (i.e. I'll close it down at 65% charged, but the next morning, the battery will report as dead). If the battery was the only issue, I'd just replace the battery. Additionally, I would really like to buy a second charger, because I frequently forget my charger at work or at home, which is a big pain in the butt, particularly with a crappy battery. I had originally intended to keep this computer until I started my next job, because there is a pretty good chance I'll be moving to Oxford on a fellowship, and that fellowship includes an expense account for paying for things like computers. If I am successful in obtaining the fellowship, I possibly wouldn't start the job until March 2011.
So, the way I see it- I have three options: ignore, repair, or replace.
If I ignore it, I'm worried that the problem will get worse and will result in the screen being damaged. I don't know how much of a risk this actually is, but I've seen some discussions on some forums about that happening. But on the other hand, maybe it'll be fine. The reason that this is a concern, is because I'm currently a student, which means I can buy some highly specialized software at student prices. When I buy a new computer, I'll need to buy a new license for that software, because the licenses don't transfer between hardware. The student price for this software is expensive, but reasonable, but the non-student price is unreasonably and prohibitively expensive. So if I take my chances, and go with 'ignore', and the computer breaks in January, I'm screwed. It'll cost me a lot more to buy the software, and I'll still need to replace the computer. In addition, I'll have bought another Macbook Pro battery that won't be of any use to me any longer, which will suck.
I could repair the machine, but that's not inexpensive either. It costs about $400 to get the bezel and display housing replaced, not including shipping. Add to that the price of a new battery ($129) and another charger ($60), that's almost $600. I do have Applecare, but I'm willing to bet that if anything does go wrong with the computer at this point that they'll attribute anything that needs to be repaired with the damage from the fall, so I'll be fubared there too. I'm not sure it's worth putting $600 into a machine that is nearly out of warranty, when I can replace it for between $1300 to $1800. Which brings us to option #3.
Replacement
I could replace this machine, with a refurb from Apple. They've got machines between $1299 to $1699 that would suit me just fine. In fact, the only major different, from my perspective, between the $1299 and $1699 is that the $1699 has a memory limit of 8GB versus 4GB for the $1299. The $1299 also has a smaller hard drive (250 vs 320), comes with 2GB RAM (which I'd have to upgrade to 4GB anyway), and a slower processor. Upgrading the RAM to 4GB (which I would need to do) would cost me another $100 or so, meaning it'd cost me about $1400 on the low end, to get a replacement machine. I'm not particularly bothered by the smaller hard drive, or the slower processor, but I am bothered by the 4GB memory limitation on it versus the 8GB on the higher model. Right now I can get by pretty reasonably with 4GB of RAM, but thinking two years down the road, I can imagine being limited by 4GB of RAM- at which point I may be rather disappointed that I can't upgrade to the 8GB RAM option. I also like how the $1699 machine has the integrated longer life battery than the $1299 machine (the claim the battery is good for 1000 cycles versus 300, and 7 hours versus maybe 5). The flip side though is that $300 today probably buys less than $300 in two years from now- although in 2 years from now, I'll probably have an expense account that I can pay for computer hardware on anyway, so it'll be a different ball game. Although at the same time, that same argument says that if I think I may need more than 4GB of RAM in 2 years time, that I can just replace the computer on the expense account then too. Though I do think that an extra $300 for a 10% faster processor, 2GB more memory, and another 70GB HD, plus the new better battery isn't a bad deal- especially since I go through 300 charging cycles in less than a year, which would be another $129 since Apple won't replace batteries under warranty after 300 cycles on the user replaceable batteries.
Additionally, if I do choose to replace it, then I'll still have this machine that I can use in clamshell mode, as a light file and music server. I'll even have a computer that I can browse the web on for my big screen TV with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse- or offload long term statistical analyses onto when I'm out of town.
So, what do you guys think?
p.s. I'm not going to replace it with a non-Apple computer, that's a non-starter.
So, the way I see it- I have three options: ignore, repair, or replace.
If I ignore it, I'm worried that the problem will get worse and will result in the screen being damaged. I don't know how much of a risk this actually is, but I've seen some discussions on some forums about that happening. But on the other hand, maybe it'll be fine. The reason that this is a concern, is because I'm currently a student, which means I can buy some highly specialized software at student prices. When I buy a new computer, I'll need to buy a new license for that software, because the licenses don't transfer between hardware. The student price for this software is expensive, but reasonable, but the non-student price is unreasonably and prohibitively expensive. So if I take my chances, and go with 'ignore', and the computer breaks in January, I'm screwed. It'll cost me a lot more to buy the software, and I'll still need to replace the computer. In addition, I'll have bought another Macbook Pro battery that won't be of any use to me any longer, which will suck.
I could repair the machine, but that's not inexpensive either. It costs about $400 to get the bezel and display housing replaced, not including shipping. Add to that the price of a new battery ($129) and another charger ($60), that's almost $600. I do have Applecare, but I'm willing to bet that if anything does go wrong with the computer at this point that they'll attribute anything that needs to be repaired with the damage from the fall, so I'll be fubared there too. I'm not sure it's worth putting $600 into a machine that is nearly out of warranty, when I can replace it for between $1300 to $1800. Which brings us to option #3.
Replacement
I could replace this machine, with a refurb from Apple. They've got machines between $1299 to $1699 that would suit me just fine. In fact, the only major different, from my perspective, between the $1299 and $1699 is that the $1699 has a memory limit of 8GB versus 4GB for the $1299. The $1299 also has a smaller hard drive (250 vs 320), comes with 2GB RAM (which I'd have to upgrade to 4GB anyway), and a slower processor. Upgrading the RAM to 4GB (which I would need to do) would cost me another $100 or so, meaning it'd cost me about $1400 on the low end, to get a replacement machine. I'm not particularly bothered by the smaller hard drive, or the slower processor, but I am bothered by the 4GB memory limitation on it versus the 8GB on the higher model. Right now I can get by pretty reasonably with 4GB of RAM, but thinking two years down the road, I can imagine being limited by 4GB of RAM- at which point I may be rather disappointed that I can't upgrade to the 8GB RAM option. I also like how the $1699 machine has the integrated longer life battery than the $1299 machine (the claim the battery is good for 1000 cycles versus 300, and 7 hours versus maybe 5). The flip side though is that $300 today probably buys less than $300 in two years from now- although in 2 years from now, I'll probably have an expense account that I can pay for computer hardware on anyway, so it'll be a different ball game. Although at the same time, that same argument says that if I think I may need more than 4GB of RAM in 2 years time, that I can just replace the computer on the expense account then too. Though I do think that an extra $300 for a 10% faster processor, 2GB more memory, and another 70GB HD, plus the new better battery isn't a bad deal- especially since I go through 300 charging cycles in less than a year, which would be another $129 since Apple won't replace batteries under warranty after 300 cycles on the user replaceable batteries.
Additionally, if I do choose to replace it, then I'll still have this machine that I can use in clamshell mode, as a light file and music server. I'll even have a computer that I can browse the web on for my big screen TV with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse- or offload long term statistical analyses onto when I'm out of town.
So, what do you guys think?
p.s. I'm not going to replace it with a non-Apple computer, that's a non-starter.
