Well Monday afternoon was the day i finally got my macbook after months of deliberation. The recent upgrade lured me in at last.
I went to the Birmingham bull ring with my girlfriend and after a while checking it out I took a break for a coffee (to assess my finances!) and then went to make the purchase. Within seconds a guy was asking if he could help and with no persuasion needed I went for the mid range macbook for £879. He asked me if I was a student and I informed i wasnt but my girlfriend was and he told us it was our lucky day and he would give us educational discount at 14% (despite only having an out of date NUS as ID)! This knocked about £130 something off the price to my delight and then I decided to go for the Apple Care at only £58 with educational discount. With the savings on the discount I also managed to buy a neoprene case and a mini DVI adapter (something i had planned to buy in the future because of funds).
The whole process took no longer than 15 minutes from talking to the guy and him getting all the bits and pieces together and completing the transactions, the guy even shook my hand and said If i needed any advice to come back and speak to him,
After leaving the shop I felt like something of a waking target with my nearly transparent apple bag so we dashed into the clothes shop next door and got an extra big bag to hide it in. I also tied the strap of the apple bag to my hand (of some yardy was going to try and rob it he would have to take my hand off first lol.......though actually that us probably they would do in Birmingham but anyways..). This caused great amusement to my girl who found me a big 6"2 inch stocky guy being security concious hilarious!
We got back home and immediatley called my mac fanatic Dad to tell him about my purchase and then I was ready for the grand unveiling. I booted up the fantastic piece of kit and to my horror I found a red pixel staring back at me, so noticeable that my eyes where drawn to it constantly! I felt like a kid who had been forgotten by santa! I was gutted and it was too late to go back to the shop.
I spent the evening using a vast array of pixel checkers / fixes, movies and widgets all to no avail. At 10pm I gave up and decided I would catch the train back in the morning and demand a exchange and after reading some of the posts on the web I thought I would be in for a fight!
The next day I got up early and got back to Birmingham 20 minutes after the store had opened. I went straight to the desk and told the guy of my woes and without a single bit of hesitation or awkwardness he picked up the phone and got another lad to bring a new one down. I didnt even have to show him the problem and he never even booted up the faulty macbook. I said I knew it was only a single dead pixel but he related and said he would do the same if has spent a lot of money on one.
I was given a seat and desk where I could test out the new one which looked fine so after a good inspection I left and it was handshakes all round,
I've since been glued to the great bit of hardware and wish I had made the switch from my old G5 powermac sooner. After a very very close inspection I have noticed there is a green pixel but this is hardly noticeable at all and is almost at the edge of the screen and during normal use you cannot see it at all so I have stuck with this one as it seems fine.
Sorry to bore some of you but I thought I would share my experience with anyone who is remotely interested!
You're very lucky to get such amazing customer service. The nearest Apple store for me is across the border, 900 miles away, so I have to order everything online. If my MacBook has some dead pixels like the one you described I don't know what I'll do. It almost doesn't seem worth it to ship it back to Apple.
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