[deep]

I'm sorry my first post here is a negative one, since I'm a huge Apple fan, but I had to share this.

I bought my MacBook Pro (2.0 Core Duo, 100 Gb, 2 Gb RAM, X1600 256 MB) in July last year and so far my experience has been:

- when closed, screen lid doesn't fit tight on both sides - on one side fits nice, but on the other has about 3-4 mm gap

- eject button isn’t aligned to other buttons (it’s left side is slightly off upwards)

- left speaker tends to produce a high pitch hissing sound - heared this was normal with this CD series - an interference issue or whatever - not so great "normality" for $3125 (the price in my country)

- ok now I have a laptop which is not ment to be held in the lap because it heats up quite a bit

- in the first 4 months programs crashed between 50 and 100 times - not exaggerating : Motion - (most of the times), Final Cut, Photoshop, Illustrator, DVD Studio Pro - many times the only choice was turning the computer off holding the on/off button

- had all sorts of issues and abnormalities with Motion and Final cut renderings -(had to format disc -so that's ok for now)

- battery fiasco (got swollen and died) - okay blame goes on Sony for this one (got fixed)

- after 5-6 months I noticed marks on the aluminium left from the screen edge when closed (located between touchpad and the edge) - deteriorating at this rate it's going to look really bad in 6 months

- and the last incident got me totally mad:

After usual notebook cleaning (special "safe" fluid and micro fibre cloth) some kind of foil scratched off the thin concaved area stretching along the spacebar. Now I have two holes showing pure aluminium under the silver foil. It looks awful now ! What is this ?! If I bought a cheap plastic notebook I wouldn't have this problem but on a MacBook Pro I now have a scene like this ? I knew aluminium was sensitive to acids, but foil that chips off to cleaning fluid ? Unacceptable.

That area wasn't prior damaged or anything - it was cleaned many times and now this thing happens. I even tried to scratch that surface completely so it would be a clean even surface but it won't come off except on those two places - under the ctrl and option button.

When you see someone's equipment in bad shape you presume that a person is not caring for his equipment.
Imagine a client's impression seing this.
Client impression a) - this person is either very greasy or sloppy -affects me
Client impression b) - this notebook is no good -affects Apple
I'm just trying to make a point. The main issue here is that I don't want to see this here. Not for this price.
When your job is paying attenton to details you get pretty angry seing faults like this on your creativity tool.

Software issues get solved. Not a big deal.
But...hissing sound? Paint chipping off ? After this I'm totally mad.
I need MBP for my business, which is video production- for editing footage on the road and showing the previews to the clients. Mac OS is great and there's no alternative for Final Cut Studio, especially FCS2. I have a great opinion about Apple but this is.....just "phenomenal".

- Now try to be creative, thinking on what's next...

[Tomchu]

Ditto on the lid not sitting flush with both sides of the bottom case when closed, and also on the paint or coating coming off the bar below the space bar. Also, my screen has a few scratches/scuffs caused by keys from the keyboard.

I suppose you can't ask for perfection -- it's still a manufactured product.

The program crashes and rendering artifacts are most likely due to bad RAM, however. My MBP never crashes.

[slpdLoad]

As I read that I kept thinking that all those issues sound like ghosts of the TiBooks coming back. Chipping paint, faulty hinges, etc..

As for the issues:

Lid and keys: These have been issues for 3-4 years starting with the Aluminum line.

Battery fiasco: A known issue. Apple replaced them.

Speaker problem: Get Apple to fix it.

Cleaning: Well, I wouldn't use anything but water as a cleaning product with my AluBook, but I agree it should be a little more resistant than that.

Crashes: As Tomchu said, you've either got bad RAM or your OS X install got corrupt. Get Apple to fix it.

You got a lemon. It happens. You're still under warranty even if you don't have Applecare, so call up Apple and get them to send you a new MBP. You'll only be without a computer for a few days.

[OreoCookie]

I have similar signs of wear on my ProBook. You can clearly see `palm impressions', i. e. discolorations that trace out the shape of my hand. I also have rubbed off parts of the aluminum during regular cleaning … I'll eventually have it fixed, but I need my ProBook at the moment ...