Disappointed with the build quality of my rMBP

Phate

Phate

Phate

Caporegime
Joined
1 Nov 2003
Posts
35,691
Location
Lisbon, Portugal
So I've had my 13" rMBP for about 8 months now, and I'm backpacking with it.

Within a few months it developed a horrible knocking noise from the screen, I took it to an apple store in Sydney and they replaced the monitor so all good.

A few months later the noise is back, I've decided to live with it as it must the movement when inside a backpack that rattles something loose. I'll return it to an apple store when back in Portugal in 2 months.

Other things have started happening now.

One of the rubber feet has come unstuck. Yesterday the whole thing locked up and wouldn't respond, the track pad also locked up with it, I had to force a reboot via the power button. The machine now creaks when I pick it up from one of the corners.

Honestly I'm surprised. My previous MacBook I owned for almost 8 years and went through more abuse over that time and I never had these kinds of issues.

This is not what I expect from a premium product.

Reading online it seems a lot of people experiencing build quality issues with theirs...

Disappointing apple...disappointing.
 
Well they are not really meant for backpacking, you are supposed to carry it gently to a starbucks or costa and sit there working on your new novel.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Well they are not really meant for backpacking, you are supposed to carry it gently to a starbucks or costa and sit there working on your new novel.
Click to expand...

It's not like it gets thrown around in there or treated badly. If say it's only slightly harder on it than walking to work everyday with it.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Well they are not really meant for backpacking, you are supposed to carry it gently to a starbucks or costa and sit there working on your new novel.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:

At the scale these products are manufactured you're going to hear reports of issues regardless of whether they're widespread or not, and it's difficult to tell. Quite honestly, you might just have a lemon.

I'd personally take the machine for another repair, and any issues beyond that, take up with customer relations.
 
Last edited:
lamboman said:
:rolleyes:

At the scale these products are manufactured you're going to hear reports of issues regardless of whether they're widespread or not, and it's difficult to tell. Quite honestly, you might just have a lemon.

I'd personally take the machine for another repair, and any issues beyond that, take up with customer relations.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much the plan. It's got a full Applecare so I've no qualms taking it in. Just difficult when on the move a lot.
 
I don't know if this helps in any way, but I've had build quality issues with both retina Macbook Pros I've had. The 15" was particularly problematic, and eventually ended up being almost fully replaced (which admittedly solved most / all of the problems) before I sold it. The 13" I have now is rather slow and crashy; I quite often lose the wireless connection and get various lock-ups. I'm also not entirely sure that the trackpad is working correctly; it doesn't always 'click' properly (it's one of the new style ones).

By contrast, the older unibody 15" MBP I had was excellent, as is my current iMac. I also had no issues at all with my 11" Macbook Air (I've had a lot of Apple laptops :p). I wonder whether it's something to do with the tighter manufacturing tolerances required for the retina Macbook Pro range.
 
Bound to be a few duds out there, in contrast the 2 rMBP and an Air i've had have been completely solid, travelled with them extensively although they were never in a backpack.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Well they are not really meant for backpacking, you are supposed to carry it gently to a starbucks or costa and sit there working on your new novel.
Click to expand...

I laughed more at this comment than I probably should have :D

Perhaps with all the issues you've had,

you could perhaps argue with apple that it might be best if they replace the entire laptop? Say you've lost your faith with it or something.
 
Take it back... the repair will be logged against the serial number and if it happens another time then you'll get a new laptop.

The newest ones are some (if not the) best built laptops on the market at the moment and they hold up well against office abuse which is likely to be worse stress than your backpacking while taking care of your personal equipment usage scenario would be...

Sounds like you've just got a troublesome unit which is bound to happen once in a while.

Their support is decent though... so if they can't stop it from re-occurring... you will get a new unit for sure.
 
That's the current plan. It was bought in the UK, repaired in Australia and I'll take it in in Portugal to see what can be done. If they replace the whole unit that'll be awesome.

I have faith in apples support, seen it pull through for many people when it's needed.
 
my rMBP 13" 2015 is as solid as they come and has been thrown around a fair but and has nothing missing or no knocks or anything on it and works just as well as the day I got it.

With the amount of these that are produced as said before there is ALWAYS going to be a small percentage of units that just dont quite cut the grade. I would strongly suggest you get that bad boy back to the shop and switched out .
 
bQxQbow.jpg
 
Funny this should pop up the day I got a replacement MBP. I bought the top end late 2013 model as soon as they were release, had a lot of issues with it.

Two months after buying, the graphics chip died, got a full logic board replacement. In replacing that, they damaged the trackpad, which required a whole new top case.

Everything was going fine until 6 weeks ago when I started getting kernel panics, the logic board died again. A new one of those sorted me out until last week when the thunderbolt ports stopped working. I think this was a defective board combined with a bad install as there wasn't a "click" when i inserted any devices, which i would expect with a new board.

In any case, the "Genius" said that in order to correctly sort the issue, they would have to order a new top case and logic board incase there were any other related issues due to the defective board. He didn't see the point of taking my MBP for another 10 days and ordered me a new one, 2015 top spec retail box one, which was nice of them.

What is crazy is that had i not had Apple care, the repair would have cost £400, plus they probably wouldn't have given me a new one, so if there is a lesson here, buy the Apple care.
 
Tweaker said:
Funny this should pop up the day I got a replacement MBP. I bought the top end late 2013 model as soon as they were release, had a lot of issues with it.

Two months after buying, the graphics chip died, got a full logic board replacement. In replacing that, they damaged the trackpad, which required a whole new top case.

Everything was going fine until 6 weeks ago when I started getting kernel panics, the logic board died again. A new one of those sorted me out until last week when the thunderbolt ports stopped working. I think this was a defective board combined with a bad install as there wasn't a "click" when i inserted any devices, which i would expect with a new board.

In any case, the "Genius" said that in order to correctly sort the issue, they would have to order a new top case and logic board incase there were any other related issues due to the defective board. He didn't see the point of taking my MBP for another 10 days and ordered me a new one, 2015 top spec retail box one, which was nice of them.

What is crazy is that had i not had Apple care, the repair would have cost £400, plus they probably wouldn't have given me a new one, so if there is a lesson here, buy the Apple care.
Click to expand...

xD I've had issues with mine. A constellation of dead pixels, battery basically dead with too few a cycle count, and feet that got lost. Took it in when my Applecare was almost running because I hadn't had time before. I was wishing they'd give me a new one but no such luck. They just repaired it. Replaced the screen, top and bottom case. Which means new keyboard, battery, and trackpad too. Only the logic board (motherboard, CPU, SSD and GPU I guess) wasn't replaced. Lesson learned is to take it in as soon as possible and hope for more problems so that you'll get a new laptop 3 years down the line. :P

I'm pretty sure some of Apple's things are built to look nice but deteriorate with normal usage. I dunno. Their cables in particular always seem shoddy to me. I've never had problems with anything other than my macbook and iphone's charger fraying at the connector. Seems like it's a design "flaw" to me. But I can't help but feel as though it's intentional.
 
I've not been disappointed with the build quality of my 15" rMBP (June 2015) but I do have one gripe with it. Even under the smallest amount of load, the fans go absolutely mental.

I'm a graphic designer, so basically live on the Adobe Creative Suite. Just opening Photoshop / InDesign / Illustrator is enough to make the fans kick off, never mind actually doing any work on it.

I've tried all sorts of things to fix it but so far not found a solution.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom