My five-month-old PowerBook G4 15-inch 1.5GHz is a total piece. The hinges is creaking worse than that old door sound effect from Hallowe’en and I am getting a little tired of it. Each time I open or close my PowerBook the right hinge releases an awful “snap” sound and I am certain that either it or the screen is broken. Each time I open and close my PowerBook I am reminded of the innumerable hinge problems that Apple has with almost every model.
In fact, hinge problems are so rampant with PowerBooks that an entire cottage industry has cropped up to fix it. Apple should bundle a tube of AIGlide from RadTech.us with every PowerBook that they sell.
My current PowerBook hinge situation is at the point of being embarrassing when I’m in a meeting or if someone else asks to use my PowerBook. “Ewwww, What’s That?” they ask when they open my PowerBook… I tell them that it’s a design flaw that manifests itself in most PowerBooks over time and that mine is less than six months old. They’re even more shocked when I tell them that I baby my PowerBooks and always have them in several layers of protection, etc.
Note to Apple: Please fix the hinges in the upcoming PowerBook G5 or WE WON’T BUY THEM. I won’t be buying the first generation PBG5 until I find out the deal with the hinges and recommend that you do the same. And since Apple doesn’t give review hardware to Web journalists they can continue to cosy up to WSJ, BusinessWeek and rumor-mongerer Forbes and hope that they’ll give it their stamp of approval.
If the PowerBook G5 turns out to be a US$3000 power-hungry, furnace with hinges that suck, Do us all a favor Apple and keep it in the labs. We won’t get fooled again.
How are your hinges? Any issues with the quality of Apple’s PowerBooks these days?
8 Responses to “Dear Apple: Fix Your Hinges!”
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January 7th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
My PBG4 1.5GHz is 9 months old and going strong. So muc hbetter built that the PB5300C that it replaced.
krogers126@mac.com
January 7th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
Our company has bought many PBs and never had a problem. We have had one with whitespots but apple fixed it…
February 1st, 2005 at 6:45 am
Same model as you, same problem: mine got so bad I had difficulty getting it to close - at least the pressure from the hinge kept screen away from keyboard. Got it fixed under warranty - what a relief, I know what you mean in meetings etc - embarressing. Suggest you get it looked at real soon.
February 19th, 2005 at 7:34 am
I just bought a “new” G4 Powerbook today. I really hope this problem dosen’t pop up on mine!!!
April 6th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
I still have the PowerBook G3/400 that I bought brand new in Sept 1999. Yeah, I’ve had a few problems with it (processor died early on & was replaced, first expansion hard drive lasted a month, power management cards singed by close lightning strike), but by and large, it’s been a trooper. The hinges have some slack in them, but they’re 5-1/2 years old and still work well. The ‘Book even runs Panther well, although I couldn’t possibly do any graphics work with it. I hope this post isn’t the kiss of death for the hinges, but if so, I’ve already obtained replacement parts, just to squeeze those extra last few months out of my ‘Book.
April 9th, 2005 at 8:49 pm
I’m on my fifth TiBook, all including this one have had hinges break. The first and second time I contacted AppleCare who refused to have anything to do with it - as it is not a widespread issue and cannot therefore be a design fault - and told me I would have to pay several hundreds of pounds to have it fixed.
I have also looked after my TiBooks, bubble wrap inside a sleve, inside a bag. In fact TiBook five broke despite having not left my desk in the previous three months as I’d been teleworking.
4 years’ and approx £12,500 later, I’m not sure I want another laptop from Apple.
April 10th, 2005 at 5:39 am
Just returned my brandnew PB 15″, 3 weeks after receiving it (various flaws, incl. a faulty Combo drive), and the hinges already behaved somewhat iffy - much different from my 2.5 year old iBook.
hope what comes back - almost 2 weeks out now! - is better shape than this original one…
Apple faces the quality issues a lot of manufactures using far east (European viewpoint) fabs. those guys are not low cost, they are cheap! (Hope you know the difference?)
later
Juergen
May 11th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
It is more a manufacturing defect than a design flaw. Just contact Apple and have them fix it. My 15″ Al PB had white spots and a creaky hinge. Both were fixed well over a year ago and neither problem has returned.