But Apple's reliability sucks

To equalise yesterday's outburst, a word of warning to all who are thinking of buying Apple products, specifically laptops. I've bought 5 Apple laptops, an eMac and Mac Mini in work, a G5 dual PowerMac desktop and recently a 24" iMac for home, all over the last 4 years. While my desktop machines at home have been 99.9% reliable the laptops have all had their issues, as did the eMac. Serious enough that I wouldn't even think of buying an Apple laptop without their Applecare insurance. I've learnt the hard way.

My first notebook was a 12" iBook. This great little machine was small to carry around and was the first Apple device to get me to convert. However it started to develop some serious issues soon after purchase - regularly kernel panicing and rebooting. I guessed it was the third party memory I had fitted so bought some more. This seemed to work for a few months, then the hard disk started playing up, so I reformatted and upgraded it. It worked Ok for a while and then it would reboot no more. This was one month after the warranty had worn out. I bought a new motherboard for $400 and took it all apart but never got around to putting it back together.

I bought another iBook for my niece before mine had shuffled off its mortal coil. I've just been told the motherboard in that has died, which is rather annoying. It was one of the latter iBooks and hoped that Apple had sorted the design issues but alas no it seems.

My eMac in work is a CRT screen and computer all in one. Great for email and writing. 2 years no problems, then, two months ago, it would boot up but crash or freeze on running any applications. I reformatted the hard drive did tens of system tests but could not fix it. The eMac was well out of warranty but I checked in the forums to see if anyone else had similar experience. Turns out there were hundreds of machines and Apple had extended the warranty to three years for certain serial numbers - which mine was luckily in. Dodgy capacitors on the motherboard meant over time death was inevitable. I've just had the machine back. We bought a Mac Mini in the meantime - that's still running.

I bought a fantastic 17" PowerBook for home which worked faultlessly for 18 months and then the LCD inverter decided to pack it it. Obviously out of warranty, I bought a replacement part ($200) and took the screen apart (not easy). It worked fine for a coupe of months and then coloured lines stated to appear all over the screen, and its $1,000 for a repair so I got rid of it on ebay.

Can anyone see a pattern emerging?

Last year I bought a MacBook, the Intel Apple laptop, in fact I am writing on it now. I took out Applecare. It's worked well so far but the build quality isn't great. On the front right-hand edge where i rest my palm, acid has weakened the plastic and the plastic has split - this will get replaced under warranty, i just need some downtime to take it in.
2 months ago I bought my girlfriend a MacBook and yesterday the battery refused to charge and wasn't recognised. I rang support and they are sending over a new one. I didn't take out Applecare, I think I had better do so this year.

So both iBooks died (excessive heat I think killed the flawed design), the eMac died, the PowerBook's screen went into colourful decay after 18 months and both MacBooks have issues, neither luckily all that serious, and they are both under warranty. Yet I still love these machines, despite being at the sharp end of some serious design issues. Would I buy another Apple notebook? Hell yes, I think they still rock! I have my eyes on a 17" MacBook Pro next (or this rumoured ultra thin notebook).

But i would take out Applecare and if anything went wrong out of warranty, check the online forums to see if anyone else has had the same experience, sometimes Apple extends the warranty if there's enough pain in the community.

Apple needs to up its efforts in analysis of its innovative designs and there are certainly issues with quality of components in manufacturing. Applecare gives me piece of mind that if I am purchasing a new Mac, at least if it goes seriously wrong (and the chances in my experience are quite high), I'm not left with a useless lump of Apple branded metal. In fact, the very odd thing is even broken Mac laptops sell at a premium on eBay - it's more expensive to buy a broken Apple notebook on eBay than it is to purchase an entry level, brand new (working) Windows laptop. My bag of bits (formerly known as an ibook 12") sold for $600 to a chap in Hungary and my 17" screen challenged PowerBook sold for $1,000. There's money in Mac scrap!