Does anyone know if this latch problem gets any better with use? I'd really rather not send the thing back and then wait however many weeks it is to get another
1) I've tried the latch fix and that seemed to help
2) I've taped the latch open for several hours as to hopefully loosen the spring as I thought the problem was that the spring was just to strong that the magnet couldn't hold it down
3) Don't be afraid to baby it. Close it like you aren't afraid of it breaking
I have no problem now as long as I close it with a SLIGHT amount of speed.
Shipping time is at 5-7 days for the 15-inch SD. Either they are selling so well that they are having trouble keeping up, or they have stopped production ever so temporarily to make a fix in the production run that corrects some of the "glitches" new 15 owners have been experiencing.
Latch and display problems aside, it's the inexcusable battery life that will keep me away from the new AlBooks until Apple does something about it.
Only 2.5 hours of battery life (with real but reasonable usage) on a good day is completely ridiculous. If you want to just sit there and stare at a dim screen with WiFi turned off, then I guess the 3 hours will make you happy.
Then you'll have those that will say 'just buy two batteries and swap them on the fly'. Well, that's not good enough and I don't always have a quarter on me to release the battery from the bottom (another brilliant design). Furthermore, are the 15" AlBook's batteries hot swappable? The coin-release seems to indicate that it's not.
I for one use a notebook AS my portable computer always running off batteries using WiFi. They should have made the 15" a bit heavier and put a larger battery in there (or dare I say offer it as an option - a word Apple does not understand).
Defiantly would be awesome if battery life would be better. Has anyone done comparisons between 10.2.7 and 10.3? I haven't had enough balls to install a dev preview on my new PBook.
What I don't get is why Apple chose to use a 46 watt/hour battery in the new 15-inch. Technically, even the 12-inch has a better battery even though it has a much smaller screen.
What I don't get is why Apple chose to use a 46 watt/hour battery in the new 15-inch. Technically, even the 12-inch has a better battery even though it has a much smaller screen.
For whatever the reason, they needed the space. Capacity is directly proportional to volume, unless you want to re-engineer the battery pile itself (which someone --- OWC I think, right?) did, or found someone to do it.
I have also bought the super drive 15" and I must say I really really like this powerbook. It feels more solid then the Ti, the screen is as bright or even brighter than my 20" Apple Cinema Display (though I've noticed it DOES have a very slight reddish tint), and the backlit keyboard is fantastic. (Someone asked if the F keys were not as bright as the rest and this is true.)
The first thing I tested at the Apple store was latch problems and LCD. LCD looked okay and the latch problem seemed non-existant..... until I got home. It would just spring open every once in a while randomly. So, I did what any logical person would do given such a minor irritation: I fixed it. I believe the problem is that the hook just doesn't extend far enough to maintain its hold. All you have to do is grab the hook and bend it slightly (it's more of an adjustment then a bend) towards the screen and you're all set.
I have the stock 512 and I want more, but I'm gonna wait until the gig chips are less expensive. Doesn't make sense to buy 512 chips when there's only two slots available and prices will go down in a few months.
Oh, one more thing: I have owned (and still own for the most part) the Pismo lap top, the clamshell iBook, and the TiBook, and I've used every single Apple portable they have released since Wallstreet. Never have I heard laptop speakers sound as good as they do on this laptop. The sound is amazing.
Oh, and I was able to play Unreal Tournament 2k3 at its highest settings (the settings that make the game cry out "Holy shit!" .... I love that, by the way, very classy. lol) and for the first few levels, I was getting incredible framerates. It was only when I was playing full settings with about ten or more bots on a huge level did I start getting drops in framerates. Call me very impressed. Oh, and this was running on battery.
Quote:
Originally posted by Patchouli
Latch and display problems aside, it's the inexcusable battery life that will keep me away from the new AlBooks until Apple does something about it.
Only 2.5 hours of battery life (with real but reasonable usage) on a good day is completely ridiculous. If you want to just sit there and stare at a dim screen with WiFi turned off, then I guess the 3 hours will make you happy.
Then you'll have those that will say 'just buy two batteries and swap them on the fly'. Well, that's not good enough and I don't always have a quarter on me to release the battery from the bottom (another brilliant design). Furthermore, are the 15" AlBook's batteries hot swappable? The coin-release seems to indicate that it's not.
I for one use a notebook AS my portable computer always running off batteries using WiFi. They should have made the 15" a bit heavier and put a larger battery in there (or dare I say offer it as an option - a word Apple does not understand).
* Latch hook only catches if you close it just right (bring lid through full range of motion and don't be shy), but stays closed once closed. In my visit to the Chestnut hill Apple store today, one of their ~5 display model 15" AlBooks had my latch problem. The others worked fine. So there's your seat of the pants stat: you have roughly a 1 in 5 chance of getting a bum latch
* Lid gap is uniform but big enough that there is about 1mm of play even when closed. All 15" AlBooks in the Apple store had this problem.
* One always-on red sub-pixel near the bottom of the screen: hard to see unless the screen is all black in that area. Par for LCDs.
* One ever-so-slightly crooked up-arrow key-cap (okay, now I'm being picky... ;-)
* 80GB 4,200 RPM drive is a Hitachi IC25N080ATMR04-0 which has an 8MB buffer according to the specs. Yay.
* Apple tells me that "repair" is my only option, but I think I'm going to just keep it for now since I don't see how any of the problems can actually be "repaired."
I don't mind being a later purchaser (another month or so). I don't think that this is "how it's going to be". I think these things will be addressed and the line with smooth into a really sharp, reliable thing. I believe it's just more an issue of "an early batch has some gremlins" than anything else.
By the time I get mine (Halloween, give or take), I'd expect these types of stories to have died down. I'm sure Apple is aware and are going to correct them. They have in the past, right?
I believe that Apple will jump on these problems. There won't be an announcement or obvious model change. Things will just get better. Basically good but makes it hard to know when it happens for an outsider.
My book was fine with the exception of the gap problem. My PowerBook had a slightly bigger gap on one side than the other.
While irksome, i can't do without the portable for now so i put it out of my mind.
Today, the problem seems to have corrected itself. maybe a few heat ups, and a few trips here and there evened things out? i don't know, but the gap is even on both sides now and seems smaller also.
Just taking a casual cruise through the AI, macnn, arstechnica and Macworld message boards...
Is it me or does there seem to be an inordinate amount of problems and issues with these new PowerBooks, particuarly the 15" model?
White spots on the display, lines on the display, dead pixels, squeaking, misbehaving latches, etc. (most complaints seem to be display-oriented).
Am I just reading more sites than I used to or does it seem that this new batch of 15" PowerBooks has some things that need to be ironed out?
I was just curious...
Also, the usual round of noise and "shit, it's HOT!" complaints, but those are more of a subjective thing and don't concern me as much as the stuff listed above.
Take a quick spin through the PowerBook forum at macnn.com, the Mac section at arstechnica.com and the Mac Portables forum at Macworld.com for examples.
Is this higher than usual OR, since I'm getting one, am I just noticing every little thing and all new products from Apple have these gremlins (for the record, I don't recall such talk about the iMac DV and the G4 iMacs...).
My 15" 1.25 PowerBook is fine. No visible defects, or at least none that I have found out to date. There is that gap between the screen and the chassis, but the latch works well. The screen is as close to perfect as it gets, I think.
Cool. That's good. I know there are THOUSANDS more good/glitch-free PowerBooks out there. I want to stress that I don't believe it's every one. That would be insane.
But just seems to be a batch, right off the bat, sharing some similar issues, that's all.
I'm quite certain 90% are totally fine and I'm sure Apple will deal with the others and fix what needs to be fixed.
I'm still getting one, and that hasn't changed. I'm drooling over them more now than I was before!
Cool. That's good. I know there are THOUSANDS more good/glitch-free PowerBooks out there. I want to stress that I don't believe it's every one. That would be insane.
But just seems to be a batch, right off the bat, sharing some similar issues, that's all.
I'm quite certain 90% are totally fine and I'm sure Apple will deal with the others and fix what needs to be fixed.
I'm still getting one, and that hasn't changed. I'm drooling over them more now than I was before!
You might be right.
It seems to me that the most widespread issue is the latch not working properly. I think the latch on the PowerBook is so delicate that some of the mechanisms get damaged in shipping. There are just too many of them exhibiting the problem.
As far as screen anomalies, I think this is a very common phenomenon with TFT displays. I have a fleet of IBM ThinkPad notebooks at work. So, after hearing all the noise about white spots or as some refer to them, "anomalies", I scrutinized the IBM displays. Well all of them had white point inconsistencies.
I think all this talk about the anomalies have people looking for anything abnormal with their PowerBook screens to the point where they are beginning to "see" things, be they real or not. Uniform whiteness of the white background of a TFT screen is virtually impossible.
Now, bad pixels, whether stuck on or off are a real problem. Fortunately my PowerBook does not have them.
Finally, the battery. I have conditioned my battery and am getting full 3 hours from it, using automatic settings. I think it?s not bad. That said, I hope that Panther will improve on this, and we will probably be getting 4 hours or so out of our batteries.
By the way, the best feature of the PowerBook is not the screen; it is indubitably the keyboard. Simply put, it is better than any laptop or desktop keyboard I have ever used.
I have a 15" 1.25Ghz PB that I received last week. I haven't had any problems with it. There is a gap, and it's slightly (very slightly) larger on one side than the other, but it doesn't impact performance at all and you can barely tell. It doesn't appear to be warped in any way.
As far as heat and battery life go, it does heat up quite a bit when I'm doing certain things (like converting CD tracks to AAC), but it tends to cool down pretty quickly when just word processing or surfing the internet. As for the battery life, I haven't exceeded 2 hours, but I have been operating it with Airport on for the most part and haven't really decreased the screen brightness or turned off the keyboard lighting. I would be happier with more battery life, but I'm hoping it will improve a bit with regular usage (calibration, etc.).
Comments
Do I just get a refund, then buy another?
Does anyone know if this latch problem gets any better with use? I'd really rather not send the thing back and then wait however many weeks it is to get another
1) I've tried the latch fix and that seemed to help
2) I've taped the latch open for several hours as to hopefully loosen the spring as I thought the problem was that the spring was just to strong that the magnet couldn't hold it down
3) Don't be afraid to baby it. Close it like you aren't afraid of it breaking
I have no problem now as long as I close it with a SLIGHT amount of speed.
How about APPLE fix it, and fix it right and me not run the risk of poking and prodding and otherwise further ****ing up my hard-earned purchase.
Only 2.5 hours of battery life (with real but reasonable usage) on a good day is completely ridiculous. If you want to just sit there and stare at a dim screen with WiFi turned off, then I guess the 3 hours will make you happy.
Then you'll have those that will say 'just buy two batteries and swap them on the fly'. Well, that's not good enough and I don't always have a quarter on me to release the battery from the bottom (another brilliant design). Furthermore, are the 15" AlBook's batteries hot swappable? The coin-release seems to indicate that it's not.
I for one use a notebook AS my portable computer always running off batteries using WiFi. They should have made the 15" a bit heavier and put a larger battery in there (or dare I say offer it as an option - a word Apple does not understand).
According to Apple's Powerbook specs page:
12-inch battery: 47 watt hour li-ion battery
15-inch battery: 46 watt hour li-ion battery
17-inch battery: 58 watt hour li-ion battery
Originally posted by DHagan4755
What I don't get is why Apple chose to use a 46 watt/hour battery in the new 15-inch. Technically, even the 12-inch has a better battery even though it has a much smaller screen.
According to Apple's Powerbook specs page:
12-inch battery: 47 watt hour li-ion battery
15-inch battery: 46 watt hour li-ion battery
17-inch battery: 58 watt hour li-ion battery
For whatever the reason, they needed the space. Capacity is directly proportional to volume, unless you want to re-engineer the battery pile itself (which someone --- OWC I think, right?) did, or found someone to do it.
The first thing I tested at the Apple store was latch problems and LCD. LCD looked okay and the latch problem seemed non-existant..... until I got home. It would just spring open every once in a while randomly. So, I did what any logical person would do given such a minor irritation: I fixed it. I believe the problem is that the hook just doesn't extend far enough to maintain its hold. All you have to do is grab the hook and bend it slightly (it's more of an adjustment then a bend) towards the screen and you're all set.
I have the stock 512 and I want more, but I'm gonna wait until the gig chips are less expensive. Doesn't make sense to buy 512 chips when there's only two slots available and prices will go down in a few months.
Oh, one more thing: I have owned (and still own for the most part) the Pismo lap top, the clamshell iBook, and the TiBook, and I've used every single Apple portable they have released since Wallstreet. Never have I heard laptop speakers sound as good as they do on this laptop. The sound is amazing.
Oh, and I was able to play Unreal Tournament 2k3 at its highest settings (the settings that make the game cry out "Holy shit!" .... I love that, by the way, very classy. lol) and for the first few levels, I was getting incredible framerates. It was only when I was playing full settings with about ten or more bots on a huge level did I start getting drops in framerates. Call me very impressed. Oh, and this was running on battery.
Originally posted by Patchouli
Latch and display problems aside, it's the inexcusable battery life that will keep me away from the new AlBooks until Apple does something about it.
Only 2.5 hours of battery life (with real but reasonable usage) on a good day is completely ridiculous. If you want to just sit there and stare at a dim screen with WiFi turned off, then I guess the 3 hours will make you happy.
Then you'll have those that will say 'just buy two batteries and swap them on the fly'. Well, that's not good enough and I don't always have a quarter on me to release the battery from the bottom (another brilliant design). Furthermore, are the 15" AlBook's batteries hot swappable? The coin-release seems to indicate that it's not.
I for one use a notebook AS my portable computer always running off batteries using WiFi. They should have made the 15" a bit heavier and put a larger battery in there (or dare I say offer it as an option - a word Apple does not understand).
* Latch hook only catches if you close it just right (bring lid through full range of motion and don't be shy), but stays closed once closed. In my visit to the Chestnut hill Apple store today, one of their ~5 display model 15" AlBooks had my latch problem. The others worked fine. So there's your seat of the pants stat: you have roughly a 1 in 5 chance of getting a bum latch
* Lid gap is uniform but big enough that there is about 1mm of play even when closed. All 15" AlBooks in the Apple store had this problem.
* One always-on red sub-pixel near the bottom of the screen: hard to see unless the screen is all black in that area. Par for LCDs.
* One ever-so-slightly crooked up-arrow key-cap (okay, now I'm being picky... ;-)
* 80GB 4,200 RPM drive is a Hitachi IC25N080ATMR04-0 which has an 8MB buffer according to the specs. Yay.
* Apple tells me that "repair" is my only option, but I think I'm going to just keep it for now since I don't see how any of the problems can actually be "repaired."
Originally posted by pscates
I don't mind being a later purchaser (another month or so). I don't think that this is "how it's going to be". I think these things will be addressed and the line with smooth into a really sharp, reliable thing. I believe it's just more an issue of "an early batch has some gremlins" than anything else.
By the time I get mine (Halloween, give or take), I'd expect these types of stories to have died down. I'm sure Apple is aware and are going to correct them. They have in the past, right?
I believe that Apple will jump on these problems. There won't be an announcement or obvious model change. Things will just get better. Basically good but makes it hard to know when it happens for an outsider.
My book was fine with the exception of the gap problem. My PowerBook had a slightly bigger gap on one side than the other.
While irksome, i can't do without the portable for now so i put it out of my mind.
Today, the problem seems to have corrected itself. maybe a few heat ups, and a few trips here and there evened things out? i don't know, but the gap is even on both sides now and seems smaller also.
Shrug.
MSKR
Originally posted by pscates
Just taking a casual cruise through the AI, macnn, arstechnica and Macworld message boards...
Is it me or does there seem to be an inordinate amount of problems and issues with these new PowerBooks, particuarly the 15" model?
White spots on the display, lines on the display, dead pixels, squeaking, misbehaving latches, etc. (most complaints seem to be display-oriented).
Am I just reading more sites than I used to or does it seem that this new batch of 15" PowerBooks has some things that need to be ironed out?
I was just curious...
Also, the usual round of noise and "shit, it's HOT!" complaints, but those are more of a subjective thing and don't concern me as much as the stuff listed above.
Take a quick spin through the PowerBook forum at macnn.com, the Mac section at arstechnica.com and the Mac Portables forum at Macworld.com for examples.
Is this higher than usual OR, since I'm getting one, am I just noticing every little thing and all new products from Apple have these gremlins (for the record, I don't recall such talk about the iMac DV and the G4 iMacs...).
My 15" 1.25 PowerBook is fine. No visible defects, or at least none that I have found out to date. There is that gap between the screen and the chassis, but the latch works well. The screen is as close to perfect as it gets, I think.
But just seems to be a batch, right off the bat, sharing some similar issues, that's all.
I'm quite certain 90% are totally fine and I'm sure Apple will deal with the others and fix what needs to be fixed.
I'm still getting one, and that hasn't changed. I'm drooling over them more now than I was before!
Originally posted by pscates
Cool. That's good. I know there are THOUSANDS more good/glitch-free PowerBooks out there. I want to stress that I don't believe it's every one. That would be insane.
But just seems to be a batch, right off the bat, sharing some similar issues, that's all.
I'm quite certain 90% are totally fine and I'm sure Apple will deal with the others and fix what needs to be fixed.
I'm still getting one, and that hasn't changed. I'm drooling over them more now than I was before!
You might be right.
It seems to me that the most widespread issue is the latch not working properly. I think the latch on the PowerBook is so delicate that some of the mechanisms get damaged in shipping. There are just too many of them exhibiting the problem.
As far as screen anomalies, I think this is a very common phenomenon with TFT displays. I have a fleet of IBM ThinkPad notebooks at work. So, after hearing all the noise about white spots or as some refer to them, "anomalies", I scrutinized the IBM displays. Well all of them had white point inconsistencies.
I think all this talk about the anomalies have people looking for anything abnormal with their PowerBook screens to the point where they are beginning to "see" things, be they real or not. Uniform whiteness of the white background of a TFT screen is virtually impossible.
Now, bad pixels, whether stuck on or off are a real problem. Fortunately my PowerBook does not have them.
Finally, the battery. I have conditioned my battery and am getting full 3 hours from it, using automatic settings. I think it?s not bad. That said, I hope that Panther will improve on this, and we will probably be getting 4 hours or so out of our batteries.
By the way, the best feature of the PowerBook is not the screen; it is indubitably the keyboard. Simply put, it is better than any laptop or desktop keyboard I have ever used.
.
As far as heat and battery life go, it does heat up quite a bit when I'm doing certain things (like converting CD tracks to AAC), but it tends to cool down pretty quickly when just word processing or surfing the internet. As for the battery life, I haven't exceeded 2 hours, but I have been operating it with Airport on for the most part and haven't really decreased the screen brightness or turned off the keyboard lighting. I would be happier with more battery life, but I'm hoping it will improve a bit with regular usage (calibration, etc.).