Blackbook RIP... ?

InKursion · 3 May 2012 at 17:33

Hi guys,

I've had a Black Macbook (possibly my most favourite, most sexy gadget ever) for quite some time now but it is really reaching the end of its life methinks. For a while the screen has been quite dim compared to its lustrous youth, and this week the battery seems to have halved in its life. Whereas before it could last a good 4-5 hours on full charge and low brightness, now it has reached the 300+ cycles mark it will only give me 2 hours on the same brightness settings. Quite a dramatic change in a week! At this rate I can predict the thing will be dead very soon.

My question is: do you think it's worth replacing the screen and battery? Official Apple prices are, in this case, way too high for the parts. The Black Macbook battery retails for £110 or thereabouts, which is obviously probably a 1/4 of the value of the whole thing. The same with the screen.

Is it just time to wave goodbye to the sexy thing and get a current-gen MBP? I might have to frame the chassis and put it on a wall...

OhEsEcks · 3 May 2012 at 18:46

I would get a current gen for using out and about and keep the blackbook as a static machine next to a power source in the home.

InKursion · 3 May 2012 at 18:54

I have a gaming desktop PC for home-use so sadly it may just be relegated to a paperweight

. Guess it's time to start looking at the Mac release websites to see what the timing is like on the MBP refresh cycle...

Sash · 3 May 2012 at 19:22

InKursion said:
I have a gaming desktop PC for home-use so sadly it may just be relegated to a paperweight . Guess it's time to start looking at the Mac release websites to see what the timing is like on the MBP refresh cycle...

Could you use it as a media server? How big is the HDD?

InKursion · 3 May 2012 at 19:40

I upgraded it at the time with a 500Gb. I've got about 350Gb of music on there right now that I share over my Home iTunes music with my desktop 1Tb. It works quite nicely for that. But it's at the stage now where I can't take it to the library anymore to study with, let alone on day-trip lectures... oh how my heart weeps.

martink · 3 May 2012 at 21:41

You seem quite fond of it, think I'd get a repair quote before I made a decision.

I really like the black ones, does yours have a backlit keyboard?

bloodiedathame · 3 May 2012 at 21:50

You could do worse than get another silver battery that works and paint it. No one would see it.

InKursion · 4 May 2012 at 11:40

martink said:
You seem quite fond of it, think I'd get a repair quote before I made a decision.

I really like the black ones, does yours have a backlit keyboard?

I am, yeah, I purposefully bought one about a week before they phased them out for the generic unibody-grey ones, I felt like I was saving a puppy from a dogpound

. They didn't come with a backlit keyboard though, no, that was an introduction on the newer Macbooks. Its just matte black and sexy all over!

Good suggestion with the silver battery - I'll see if I can get one cheaper. I don't really even care about painting it, it's just painful only having 2 hours of non-powered charge now! I wasn't even aware that the newer/silver batteries fitted in the Blackbook - can anyone confirm/deny this? My gf has a new MBP so I might just ask to steal her battery for a day...

martink · 4 May 2012 at 15:11

That's intersting re the keyboard, I may see I can track a newer one down. I guessing yours has standard intel graphics chip.

sunny007 · 4 May 2012 at 15:19

What about the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 ?

lamboman · 4 May 2012 at 18:12

sunny007 said:
What about the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 ?

Wrong thread? :confused:

Honestly, if you love your MB so much, you might as well repair it. If you don't care about the latest OS X updates, and the system is fast enough for you, you might as well save the money and just fix it.

That said, the current generation of machines are lovely, so if you are even slightly feeling the need (not desire) to get a new machine, you might as well. It seems like your MB really has served you very well indeed!

horrorwood · 5 May 2012 at 11:04

I'd open it up and find the model of the screen. You may be able to get the screen or a compatible one for much cheaper.

tribz · 5 May 2012 at 13:57

You'd get a screen and battery (black!) for under a hundred pounds on a well known auction site. They're probably not Apple parts for that price but it doesnt seem like too much money to put into it if it gets some more life out of it.

InKursion · 5 May 2012 at 14:27

Thanks for the advice! I am torn between forking out a few hundred for replacements (or perhaps cheaper) and just getting a new one. I'm going to South Korea for a year next year so the laptop will be my main point-of-contact with the rest of the world. Just considering whether I want to take my Blackbook or not, which has basically become an objet d'art now

Oh and it's perfectly fast enough with the latest OSX upgrades, running on a 2.4Ghz Core2Duo and upgraded to 4Gb RAM and 500Gb hd space. The only things failing really are the screen and battery, through ordinary life-span issues I guess. It still holds up fine for everyday office/work tasks - I've never used it for gaming. To an earlier poster: yes, it does have onboard Intel graphics, the standard mobile chip, nothing fancy. And I don't think any of the Macbooks from this generation (where the Blackbook was basically the highest-spec Macbook before the top-end MBP) have backlit keyboards. That's from the unibody generation where they got rid of the Blackbook and made MBP's a wider and more affordable range (and kept the iconic white Macbook as the entry-level one). AFAIK the entry-level is now the Air? They keep changing it for the worse!

sunny007 · 5 May 2012 at 14:40

lamboman said:
Wrong thread?

Honestly, if you love your MB so much, you might as well repair it. If you don't care about the latest OS X updates, and the system is fast enough for you, you might as well save the money and just fix it.

That said, the current generation of machines are lovely, so if you are even slightly feeling the need (not desire) to get a new machine, you might as well. It seems like your MB really has served you very well indeed!

My bad !

"andy" · 7 May 2012 at 01:20

I'd try replacing the backlight invertor before replacing the screen

They do well to last 3 years , I've got a screen from a blackbook here but the invertor is in a mates whitebook after the backlight went haywire . A sad day when my blackbook died

3.5 years and 400+ cycles , loads of abuse

Edit - I'd never pay that much for a battery , id be tempted to just try a fake one but as for taking it to the library doesn't your library have plug sockets ?