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by nexensis 2798 days ago
I had a similar experience with a top spec late 2016 MBP, which I switched to from a PC for web development. It was my first and last Apple product.

After opening the lid one day there was a loud crackling noise and the speakers were both blown. To repair it, the Apple store had to replace the entire top case (top half of the chassis including keyboard, trackpad, speakers) and also replaced the battery, which would have cost ~£500.

I got it back two weeks later after dealing with a smug 'Genius' who treated me like an idiot. He also claimed that the software diagnostics were clean, so there was nothing wrong with the laptop. I had to drive 1 1/2 hours each way to the store for a second time during business hours just to argue in person with them, because the speakers were clearly broken.

The exact same problem happened twice more over the next year, taking two weeks to fix each time. The final time was outside of the 1yr AppleCare warranty, and they wanted to replace the top case, battery and logic board for ~£800.

Coupled with the useless touch bar, 16GM RAM cap, awful display scaling issues/confusion when external monitors were attached, sluggish performance for video editing and OS updates that broke the machine, it convinced me to avoid Apple products completely.

I got a full £3100 refund after 18 months under EU consumer law and build a powerful desktop PC (16 core ThreadRipper, 32GB RAM, 1080ti) with £1500 left over.

2 comments

Are the touchbar Macbook Pros still experiencing widespread screen delamination? I thought that was specific to the previous generation.
would love to see a parts list for the ThreadRipper build.
It's something like this: https://i.imgur.com/0cXRPGB.png

My CPU is actually the 12 core / 24 thread version, which I got for £340 on a flash deal during a meet-up event. My case is also better than listed, but was the same price as part of a weekly deal.

Note that it's pre-VAT price (£1499), because it's a business computer. The Macbook was ~£3100 pre-VAT, and this thing shreds through video exports maybe 4-6x faster than the laptop. I do miss the MacOS terminal for web development though.