Is anyone concerned about the build quality issues of the new macbooks?

There are a lot of reports of build quality issues of the new macbooks, ranging from bad quality screens (where have I heard this before? Dell), to slanted/bent function keys, to loose battery covers. It appears many are having these issues, sometimes all three, and it deeply concerns me. Those are the only reasons why I don't think I'll get a rev A aluminum macbook.
The reason I bring it up here, is I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it here yet, and I'd like to get other people's feelings on it.
I'll post links as soon as I can fetch them.

Loose battery cover.

Poor screen quality.

Slanted keys.

Youtube video showing battery cover problem.
Macbook pro loose battery cover.

 

My MacBook doesn't display those issues.

 

That's good to hear. But many people are reporting these problems, so I don't think it's just a few. That's what concerns me so much.

 

Not in my house. Just got my 2.4 MBP today and it's built rock solid. No battery cover was loose, no screws missing, no minor chips or scratches, it was mint.

 

Not saying these are or aren't problems, however I am curious why people are obsessed with taking their battery cover off? I mean, I know Apple has been known for non-replaceable batteries, but geesh...shouldn't need a new battery for a year or two at least...

 

Because that's also how you access the memory and hard drive.

 

I have no issues at all either. Nothing related to whats been posted in this thread and nothing otherwise either.

 

I don't think its a huge issue. Again, it is the first major redesign of the Mac notebook lineup in years, so what we haven't seen in a while are these "defects from first few production runs". Similarly, Dell had a lot of problems with its XPS M1530 line. So I don't think it'll be a huge deal.

 

I bought the 2.8 GHZ MBP with the 320gb 7200 RPM HD so it was basically straight from China. There is one build quality issue and I'm going to get it fixed because it's annoying, the sleep light on the laptop has like 1/3 of it not dead but some of the metal finish covering it, so basically I see the whole sleep light but 1/3 of it is a tad darker and seems like something is covering the pure white light. Otherwise great quality screen and solidly built. Just a bit pissed off I bought the best one and I have an issue like this. Then again I'm not an Apple snob-elitist (Holler at those guys that use their new MBP at starbucks with their iPhone, I know you guys exist) so I hope they and I can get thsi fixed.

 

I hope you're right Sam. But what are prospective buyers like myself supposed to do? Wait a few months for the issues to be ironed out? I may have to just get a white macbook to hold me over.

 

"huge build quality issues?" I think that's way overrated. It's just the way forums work.

The screen is mediocre though. Too bad NBR does not measure contrast or they would have noticed, I think. For a good review of the screen:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Apple-MacBook-Aluminium-Unibody-13-9400M.11984.0.html

 

I agree. I played with one today for a while, and that was the first thing I noticed. The screen seemed no better/worse than my current macbook.

 

You created this post to find out if people were concerned about the build quality. You've got quite a few positive responses including now mine (read below) that are telling we are not experiencing these issues. So the answer to your question is TRUST the positive responses or your thread is a waste of time if it doesn't help convince you that there are only a small amount of people experiencing these issues. Do you really honestly think that people on MR or NBR represent the entire amount of Apple's customers?

That said, I have the new 2.4 Ghz Alu Macbook, in fact I'm on my second one because my first had a dead pixel and Apple cheerfully exchanged it without prejudice. I went out of my way to remove the battery cover several times on first one and my current one and neither have a loose cover after putting it back in place.
The function keys being slightly slanted? Who cares? They WORK. There's nothing wrong with the computer and you would never know they were slightly slanted unless you read these forums of people blowing it out proportion. The slanted F keys are hardly prominent.

The screen has limited vertical viewing angles and it's not the best for black level but are you buying this computer as a primary movie machine or a whole computer? For me I bought it as a computer and the screen is excellent for that. The screen is better than the previous MacBooks but only now people are making it out to be the worst thing they've ever seen, only because Apple makes it. If it was any other company it would never be mentioned.

Again, go look for yourself, even my review is not going to help you if you stay fixated on only the negative reviews. Notice how very few people talk about the best attributes of this notebook such as how cool it runs. It barely gets warm when taxing the processor. I've never once experience any notebook that stays as cool as this one. Even the new MacBook Pro gets hot.

 

I love how your whole profile is biased to macintosh. Mac isn't that great. It's build on BSD and that's its only grace. If I didn't need the mac side for OS updates I'd be running Fedora.

 

The screen isn't the greatest, but I don't have any of the other build problems mentioned here.

About the screen, it is pretty glossy and has some backlight bleed on mine, as well as limited vertical viewing angles. But colors are decent, it's bright, good horizontal angles, and there's no ghosting, so I'm pretty happy overall. It's certainly better than many of the XPS M1330 screens I've seen.

 

Congrats?? We're sorry you have to use a mac?

 

Fedora crashes like mad dude. I use it on my campus's computer labs. That OS couldn't even let me open up an attachment to print properly. Had to log out of one computer and go to another. Third part apps for fedora are totally unstable and you can't take a screen shot or save images without getting a corrupt file. I use Ubuntu for the time being and was planning on switching to Fedora but now after using the latest version of fedora just last week I am definitely not changing. $100 says OS X is more stable than Fedora overall.

 

Here are the list of "problems" that I have compiled from here and MR!-
1. dead pixels
2. loose battery cover
3. poor screen quality - 9c8c better?
4. slanted keys. (function)
5. trackpad misaligned
6. superdrive problems

 

You can add mine too to this.
I went to the mac store to have the memory upgraded to 4gb. When i went back to get the notebook, i found that they are giving me a brand new one
. WHY ?

Becoz when they opened the notebook, they found some screws missing and they could not put new ones in . ( they said that my laptop is only 4 days old and hence they are giving me a brand new one.)
Lucky that i decided to replace my RAM so fast !!!!!!

 

Picked mine up from FedEx last night and must have hit the jackpot since I didn't notice any of these (haven't tried the superdrive yet, by the time it was charged up, was hitting the hay). I'll play with it more tonight, however I doubt I'll disassemble it to see if screws are missing, etc. As for #5 above, seems to me that in order to enable the click of the trackpad, there has to be springs underneath...odds of getting all springs of exact equal height are slim, and under use is going to change anyway based on where you click more. This would likely account for "misaligned", which really isn't.

 

I hope the trackpad misaligned doesn't create and big problem to stop it from functioning, I don't think it is, but I'm a little paranoid >.<

edit: Just read The_Shirt post~ thanks for the insight, do you think things, like dirt or small stuff might get under the gap and create any problem later on?

 

I don't think there is any more problem than that stuff getting under the keys.

 

My new Macbook arrived in flawless condition. It is a CTO. I wonder if CTOs have a lower chance of being shipped with defects....perhaps due to a different standard of inspection before leaving the factory. Just speculating.

 

Sorry I'm late in responding.
It is good to know that some here are reporting theirs are okay, it gives me hope. Still, there are a lot of reports on the net about these issues, and I still don't think it's isolated to a small number of them.
When I bought my first laptop, a dell inspiron e1705, it was creaky, the screen was mediocre (very grainy), the hard drive, battery and dvd drive all failed within 3 months of getting it (it was new direct from dell). I payed just over $2300 for that system at the time, so needless to say, if there's a lot of issues with a new machine I'm very weary of spending a lot of money on it. I think the dell e6400 is a good example of first revision issues.
I know that being an early adopter on a first revision is risky. I'm leaving to go overseas in february and I want a system that I don't have to keep sending back for repairs or exchanges.
I started this thread so we could all discuss these issues with the new macbooks. Still, I'm glad that so many of you here are getting good systems. That's very encouraging.

 

I think it is the fact that these are the first production models, after a short stint the problems with fit and finish will be ironed out.

 

I went to the Apple store today and noticed that a lot of the MBP's had loose bottom plates. That certainly sucks, but I imagine there's an easy fix for it (probably something is just bent out of shape).

 

i was considering getting one of these from a best buy because the apple store is 1 hour from me but im reading alot of people in the mac forums are having to swap thier macbooks because of dead pixels.

it would really bother me to have a dead pixel so im at a standstill right now. I dont know if apple has relaxed thier pixel policy to keep up with the demand of the new macbooks or what.

I will probrobly wait until after christmas. chances are best buy would not exchange it for me for 1 dead pixel so I dont want to risk it.

 

Word of advice:

Don't. Buy. From. Best Buy.

Just my USD $0.02

 

Nice assumption!! My MBP was a CTO and it arrived in mint condition too!!

 

I bought the 2.4ghz aluminum macbook yesterday from Futureshop. I did a thourough check of everything, and this thing is in mint condition. Nothing is loose or missing, no dead pixels, no issues.

 

Rogue, what panel do you have and how do you like it?

 

Mine is the 9C89.

The screen is an improvement over the 'old' macbook screen. It is brighter, and has better color and contrast. My blacks are very black, and my colors are all bright. I have no light leakage at all (something my 'old' macbook had).

Last evening, when I was setting things up, I was super impressed with the screen--almost mesmorised. But today, in the light, there is a fair amount of glare. The black bordering of the screen is nice asthetically, but it only adds to the daytime glare.

Overall, I think the screen is an improvement.

 

That's more than 'one' word

 

I never actually noticed the battery cover issue until I have read the first post on this thread....it is solid but able to slightly move horizontally in its place.

 

Mine is completely solid. It does not move, at all.

 

Oh boy. I noticed the keys right away. I actually went back to Apple Store and looked at the display models. All the the function keys looked slanted like mine. I guess I should have just asked.

How much hassle would it be to exchange? Do they transfer all your files and setting over?

 

care to give reasons?

 

Well, I returned my Aluminum MacBook.

I really gave it fair chance, defended it, and initially it was fine. However, the inferior screen started to grate on me and I finally couldn't take it anymore, considering what I paid for it. Couple that with a loose battery cover and I decided to bring it back to Apple. They were really cool about it, waived the restocking fee, and the genius I spoke with acknowledged unhappiness with the screen.

So I bought my old model again - the Penryn 2.4Ghz version I should have never sold in the first place. I loved that laptop and only sold it because I got sucked into the glitz of something new and shiny. Lesson learned.

It was kind of a pain to go through, but I can't wait to get my new MBP, and I think I've curbed my incessant upgrading for awhile.

Good luck to everyone else.

 

When I made the decision to dump my PC and enter the apple kingdom, I was on the fence between the MacBook and the MBP. I had (have) a 14" HP and didn't know if I wanted to go an inch smaller or and inch larger. The dollars (and the wife) told me to go with the MB. That was till I saw them both at the Apple store. Once I put them side by side there was no quandary any longer. The MBP screen won hands down so I hear you on the MB return. Good luck.

 

My big quandary was size. The "classic" MBP didn't bother me. I felt like it was a good sized screen in a nice, compact package. I'm the type that brings her laptop everywhere. I'm not sure if using a smaller one, the blackbook, for a couple of months had an effect or not. What I do know is I noticed the size increase over my MBP and I didn't like it. In the end, despite what people say, you really have to buy what you like. Macs are quite an investment, so you should be happy with it.

I couldn't have been any happier with my old MBP.

 

My Dad and I just bought one for him and it really did feel solid. I'm going to get one as soon as I sell my new HP.

 

That's not unreasonable in my opinion. I don't know what's happened with the first few batches, but many are getting these problems.
I can now say from first hand experience, the prev gen macbook is a good model, there should be no reason to upgrade for awhile.
I'm just curious on how well snow leapord will run, but I had read I think on macrumors, that apple said snow leopard should be able to run fine on all intel macs.