Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dijit 1730 days ago
I'm a bit conflicted about this, because on the one hand: yeah being unable to work for a week is obviously bad, but, devices are going to fail and it could sometimes be the difference between _you_ wasting a week debugging or not.

I like the idea of being able to fix my gear if I'm away on vacation or there's no apple store around. In fact, I'm overall a big fan of repairability because I'm a bit of a tinkerer.

But if it's a work machine? Then I'd rather have a replacement on standby- and Apples time capsule/time machine stuff works better than other backup/restore systems I've used.. replacing a machine is a 2hr process if you have something usable in stock.

Eitherway: I work in Europe, so these machines literally cost more than a monthly salary, it's cheaper for the company to have me sit on my hands for a week than to have a spare laptop for me.

4 comments

There are a lot of likely failures on a laptop/computer which shouldn't require any more than an hour of downtime, because they should be trivial to fix, but can take your Apple device out of business for weeks even. As much as love my Apple devices, this alone might drive me to the Framework laptop.

Things which should be fixable by the user/IT personal on site:

- the battery

- the fan

- the keyboard

- storage

Luckily I have discovered an independent certified service provider for Apple devices, which is as flexible as the Apple rules allows for repairs, but just my experiences of getting the fan of my Mac Mini fixed by Apple were horrible.

If you were to buy a proper business computer like a ThinkPad or a Dell Vostro/XPS, you would have a next business day or sometimes even 4 hour on-site warranty where a technician would come to wherever you are in the world and fix the part for you right there.

1 week is an unacceptable wait for a business computer.

Agreed. I had a tech come to my hotel room in Hong Kong and fix my Alien (Dell) computer. He replaced the screen and keyboard under warranty in 2016. I had a Dell that I dropped off for same-day service. I have a Thinkpad T430u I bought back in 2012, and it is running great. Very solid. I run Kali Linux on it, and I do a lot of coding or writing on it. I love the keyboard, and I am one of those fans of the thumbnub! I have owned all sorts of computers from 1978, and this is by far my most rock solid one. The original battery is still in it, and it is not holding the charge it did, but hey, 9 years is a long life for a battery in these things. I am now using a MSI Stealth G65, and it is great, but let's see how it holds up. I've dropped it twice in two years, but it seems fine. I use it for my 3D work, CAD, and UE4 fun. I may buy The Framework to see how it goes, although like some others, I worry the parts will not be available two years down the road, and if they are, at a normal price. It's a chick-or-the-egg scenario: people need to buy them to create a market for this to happen.
>I'm a bit conflicted about this, because on the one hand: yeah being unable to work for a week is obviously bad, but, devices are going to fail and it could sometimes be the difference between _you_ wasting a week debugging or not.

These devices are sold as "Pro" presumably meaning Professional. Not being able to work for a week is not professional. There are companies that give you a repair time in hours, not days.

>it's cheaper for the company to have me sit on my hands for a week than to have a spare laptop for me.

I'm self-employed so a week downtime cost me a week's salary. But even so, I wouldn't want to sit on my hands for a week, because I consider that unprofessional.

Resources can be shared so even for a company with 10 employees it quickly becomes viable to have one spare laptop/Mac mini/whatever at hand just in case.