Home > Consumer Reviews > Apple MacBook MB881LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop

It is the new Updated White Macbook.

*Better Graphics card
*Firewire
*iLife 09 (i believe)

Upgrade the memory (4GB - $80) and hard drive (500GB -$100) yourself. This is very good machine for the price.

I write this as a warning to any business person or student who intends to use this product abroad for extended periods. I am a big fan of Apple, having purchased 8 Apple systems for myself or family members over the past 25 years. But now that loyalty has been seriously shaken because of warranty repair issues. I purchased a 13.3-Inch MacBook as a Christmas present for my son who was going to Greece for a semester study abroad program.

While in Athens in January, one month after purchasing the MacBook, the system failed to boot. My son called U.S. phone support from Greece and they initially diagnosed the problem as a faulty startup disk. However, they said they were unable or unwilling to ship replacement startup disks from the U.S. to Athens. Instead, they sent them to me and I was forced to pay $25 in shipping fees to Fed Ex them to Athens.

The new startup disks, however, did not solve the problem and Apple phone support in the U.S. said he needed to send the system in for warranty repairs. Again, Apple said they were unable or unwilling to pay shipping costs for products under warranty that were outside the country of purchase.

Apple has no authorized warranty repair services in Greece. U. S. phone support people said that the closest Apple authorized service facilities were in Italy. Again, however, they said they could not pay for shipping from Greece to Italy. What's more, the European service centers may charge for warranty repairs because the MacBook was purchase in the U. S., U.S.-based Apple support people said

In desperation, I had my son ship the faulty MacBook back to me in the U.S.at a cost of close to $275. I then forwarded the system to Apple for repairs (hard drive replacement) at the U.S. service center. Once again, Apple said it was unable or unwilling to ship the repaired system from the U.S. directly to my son in Athens. Instead they shipped it back to me. I then gave the system to a friend who was going to visit my son in Athens, saving me the return $275 shipping fee.

The upshot is that I spent $300 on shipping fees to repair a one-month old MacBook because Apple product warranties only work in the country where the product is purchased. Apple claims to have "world-class support." This is simply not true. If you have a problem with an Apple product outside the country of purchase the warranty is useless and you are on your own.

In retrospect, I should have purchased a laptop from a company with more extensive global operations and has more experience doing business globally, such as HP. If Apple wants to be a global player in the global economy, it needs to have a working global warranty policy.

Apple MacBook MB881LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop
Got my order yesterday, and I expected to be the great day since is my firts Laptop MAC. But Suprise!!! The one I got is Borken!!! The screen half left side is showing a multicolor vertical lines!! and the other half working some seconds and not.
And the second surprise is Amazon told me They dont have it anymore on stock.

Now what?? An amazon customer for more than 8 years and as an answer: We dont have for you. We dont care. Just sent us the broken pc back.

WOW great service and customer satisfaction.

Disadvantages:
* The lowest back light is too bright to be used with the light off at night
* Can't download PC only software
* Doesn't have the voice transcribing software that Vista does.
* The Mac version of Word doesn't preserve the formatting when copy paste with Web texts.
* MacBook keyboard is not very easy to type compared to Windows computers.
and it's expensive compared to NetBooks that has Vista installed on them.

I bought this macbook less then a year ago because I love Mac OS. And I still do. All the other reviews are absolutely right: Mac OS X is absolutely brilliant!

Yet, I have serious complaints about the machine itself. First, the part under the wrist is edgy and scratchy and plain unconfortable. And the result of your wrists rubbing the edge of the keyboard plate is the keyboard plate eventually crumbling away! Then the AC adaptor stopped charging and eventually, micro cracks appeared on the bottom chassis. All this in less then a year on a machine that hardly ever moves (I work from home)!!! The machine never fell nor received any shock...

I took the macbook to an apple authorized service center for repair. They agreed to change the keyboard and the adaptor, but say apple does not cover the chassis. The technician at the repair center felt sorry for me and suggested I call apple. I did and they said the cracks on the chassis are not supposed to happen, so they are not covered, so tough luck for me! I asked to be put through to a manager, but the apple support technician bluntly refused saying the procedures where not to be discussed.

In the last 15 years of working in the computer industry, I have used a lot of laptops. I used to carry my laptop around to customer sites and back all the time, yet I've never seen a laptop get micro cracks in the chassis in under a year! And my mac hardly ever moves! You can get a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo PC for half that price, so where is the quality we're supposed to be paying for?

If you want a mac, go for the one with the metal case, the plastic one is just too cheap!