MacBook, How Buggy Is It?

embraer170

Need a new smallish laptop (looking for something in the 12-14" range) and considering a MacBook but browsing forums, I'm finding nothing but problems:

- Heat issue
- Mooing problem
- Hinge clicking problem
- Dissapointing battery life
- Discolouration
- Superdrive scratching CDs
- and most recently, random shutdowns

Anyone here have any experiences?

Also does a MacBook (or any new Mac) come with a decent Word processor or does one have to go buy one?

Thanks.

Hugh_C

embraer170 wrote:

- Mooing problem

Mine moos whenever my boss passes by, but that's only coz she's a fat cow, and I think the lapper is attracted to her.

K.O.Kiki

I'm not sure "buggy" is the right word here.
Certainly, there have been plenty of reports of bad build quality and/or flawed design as regards heat dissipation, but I would only use "buggy" to describe software -- which OSX is NOT

Mizu_Ger

I've had my MacBook for a few months now and think its great. The only downside is the heat problem. The top left quarter of the keyboard becomes very hot when used for extended periods (wouldn't put it on my lap at all, but its made clear in the documentation that this sin't a "laptop"!!!). Anyway, I have had no problems with MOO'ing or discolouration or anything else you listed.

Its my first Mac and OSX is a million times better than Windows. I was genuinely surprised with how stable it is. No more stalling for no reason or having to manually "CTRL-ALT-DEL" programs to shut them down. I would recommend it, just remember it gets hot (although, my sister's VAIO and my Thinkpad at work do the same).

Redhairedguy

i had my Macbok Pro since March, and I haven't had so much as a peep of a problem from it.

Urban Weigl

I've a MacBook Pro as well, and it's great. To my surprise, it runs very cool. Cool enough that I can use it on my lap for hours without any discomfort. The "notebook" bit is just a disclaimer to stop them from being held liable should you fry your sperm, all the laptop, er I mean "notebook" manufacturers, do that now, including Dell, HP, Sony, etc.

Redhairedguy

Hahahahahaha...

tonyboy247

Ive noticed that dairy farmers are using them with great effect tooooo..:cool:

whitetrash

I've had mine since near when they first came out, it did used to get quite hot and moo a bit but since the latest firmware update it's been a lot cooler with no mooing at all.

Other than that it's been perfect, no shutdowns or fires or discoluration. The problem with news stories like that is they're picking up on, say 10 bloggers who've had the same problem but don't mention the other thousands who're fine

Urban Weigl

Well, I got mine today and have been using it for several hours. So far, I have not discovered any defects or "bugs" of any kind. Remember, as with any technology product, you could get a lemon. If you do, that's what warranty is for. Apple will replace or fix it for you free of charge.

K.O.Kiki

IMHO -- they need to stop putting fast dual-core CPUs into such thin cases -- focus on better battery life & cooler operation, not speed.
I mean, it's gonna be faster than a G4 anyway, right?

condra

Random shutdowns here... As I write I fear it could shut down at any time... imagine how that feels! Imagine having to save your work every minute for fear of losing it... Imagine being a digital DJ [like me] and your laptop shuts down in the middle of a gig.

DONT BUY A MACBOOK YET. Its not worth it. I wish I got the 17" imac I was so tempted by. The random shutdown thing is happening a great deal of people.

europhile

http://www.blather.net/globaleyes/archives/2006/10/the_truth_about_macbooks.html

tywy

I love my macbook, no random shutdowns here after a month. The battery life is excellent. Love the screen, so nice and bright. No problems with discolouration...

EDIT: It's not that hot either

xebec

tywy wrote:

I love my macbook, no random shutdowns here after a month. The battery life is excellent. Love the screen, so nice and bright. No problems with discolouration...

EDIT: It's not that hot either

The firmware has been updated on the macs recently to address some of the problems. My - new - macbook hasn't displayed any of the previously known problems, and as tywy says it is significantly cooler than other macbooks I've tried out in shops. Hopefully it will stay that way and the problems with macbooks are a thing of the past.

Urban Weigl

I have had my MacBook for one and a half months now, and either I have been lucky, or most MacBook's are fine, because it has been working great. No random shut down, mooing or any other issue. Unless the CPU is very heavily loaded (such as while ripping a DVD), it also runs surprisingly cool.

Just thought I'd update all of you as I said I would. If I ever have a problem, I will give out about it here.

And womoma, if you're having a problem, it's fully covered under warranty. Give Apple or the authorised reseller where you bought it a call to have it fixed for free. Or would you rather that Apple goes back to using custom components that cost more? Sure the hardware was more reliable, but it also cost more. I, for one, and glad Mac's cost generally about the same as equivalent PC's now. The price for that is that they use standard "off-the-shelf" PC components now.

uncle_sam_ie

Remember also that the Apple forums is were people go if there're having trouble, so your only going to hear of bad things. As for a word processor. None come with the Mac. You'll need to buy either Apple's own suite called iWork which has pages or you can buy Microsoft Office for OS X. If you don't want spend any money there is the open source Neo office. I have all three but use Pages most of the time.

Capt'n Midnight

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

Remember also that the Apple forums is were people go if there're having trouble, so your only going to hear of bad things. As for a word processor. None come with the Mac. You'll need to buy either Apple's own suite called iWork which has pages or you can buy Microsoft Office for OS X. If you don't want spend any money there is the open source Neo office. I have all three but use Pages most of the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_office_suites#Office_suites_for_Mac
plenty of choice if using word/excel/powerpoint docs look at openoffice

Urban Weigl

If you are not going to do anything advanced, TextEdit is a fast and actually quite capable word processor.

If you need Office compatibility but don't want to buy Microsoft Office, take a look at NeoOffice (search for it on MacUpdate.com). It's free and works well. Other word processors I can recommend are Pages (especially if you plan to do layouts, it's like Adobe InDesign in a lot of ways), or Nisus Writer Express, which I'm a big fan of.

tywy

I was thinking about buying Microsoft Office for Mac. Just cuz I know how to use it and as a student I can get it for €85. I've been using Neo Office recently and until I got my mac I used Open Office but never really liked them, the formatting was never exactly the same and when I transfered to another PC to print it would be all screwed up. Anyway, the question I have is, does Office for Mac tend to crash a lot?

xebec

Where can you get it for €85? The cheapest I've found for students is €99!

No experience of it crashing, but haven't really been pushing it yet. Takes feckin ages to open though!!!

tywy

em...got an email from UCD giving me the link I think it's software4students.com/ie unsure...sorry

macleod

my experience with office for mac has been fine and under rosetta it's running sweetly too

tywy

will it work on my new macbook is the question...

uncle_sam_ie

tywy wrote:

will it work on my new macbook is the question...

Yes! It's working fine on my MBP and has never crashed. I'm running Photoshop as well with no problems. In fact my MPB has never crashed in the three months since I've owned it. My imac has only crashed once, but that was because of a third party USB hardware issue and I've owned that for over a year.

uncle_sam_ie

xebec wrote:

Where can you get it for €85? The cheapest I've found for students is €99!

No experience of it crashing, but haven't really been pushing it yet. Takes feckin ages to open though!!!

There is a Swedish website were you can link to a place were you can get it a lot cheaper. I can't remember the name of the site though.

condra

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macbooksmcfirmwareupdate11.html



The macbook random shutdown has been fixed with a software update according to apple.

ive restarted my macbook 6 times so far since installing the update and have not had any problems. The fans are working better now too.

Strange!



FINGERS CROSSED.