Funnily enough the exact same thing happened to my work Macbook. Display just stopped working one day. Work sent it back to Apple to repair which took them a few weeks.
I once owned a iBook (back in the PowerPC days) that had to go back to Apple on no less than four different occasions to fix faults. All repaired under AppleCare as I fortunately had the foresight to pay for it at the time of purchase.
I've also owned other brands of laptops and I've not had any with the amount nor the severity of faults I've observed on Apple laptops.
I write this on my own ex-lease Lenovo X1 Carbon which has survived a 1m drop with a corner hitting a hard surface. Thankfully the only issue is the occasional black/darkening of an area of pixels on the lower-right corner of the LCD. I can 100% guarantee if it was a Macbook it would have been the end of it, no question whatsoever (given I've seen Macbook die from much less impact).
Actually for further anecdata I’ve dropped several of my MacBook Pros (unibody) from a meter or more, one open from a ladder bumping pretty hard to a few of the bottom steps. And I’ve never gotten more then scratches and bumps in the casing. Additionally I’ve never had Apple Care and the times I’ve had problems Apple have always repaired it free of charge under warranty, including a full battery replacement on my Retina MacBook Pro when it was 3 years old and got the battery service warning.
I’ve had the hinge of my old ThinkPad crack after about a year of normal use and been told it’s my fault. I’ve also had multiple screens go bad on my old HP Entreprise laptop/mobile workstation. Both of these laptops were more expensive then all the MacBooks I owned prior to them.
The engineering of the X1 Carbon is amazing. Durability is a design goal, it even has channels for directing liquid ingress away from the most vulnerable parts. Whilst not a guarantee against failures, it certainly doesn't hurt!
My own OG X1 Carbon (i7/8/256) still works today, and, amazingly, receives firmware updates. It is 9 years old.
Lenovo have massive presence in the corporate market. My experience of their ThinkPad range is that they are built to withstand the type of abuse that comes from being used by people who have no emotional attachment to them whatsoever.
My shop has started refurbing and recycling machines between staff, as a cost cutting measure. My last device came complete with someone else's Coca-Cola residue all over the internal case and fan vents. Clearly a Friday afternoon job at the refurb outfit. Liberally doused with IPA, dried off and reassembled by my own hands, and it’s still running fine. Good design channeled the liquid away from anything valuable.
Thanks! That's an interesting perspective, and helps explain how it's lasted as long as it has when bought with own money and cared for as a personal laptop.
Great to hear you managed to salvage yours from liquid sugar! Most laptops would struggle with just water alone.
Hah just cracked an X1 extreme gen1. And because it's "custom" (64gb ram), Lenovo is struggling to fix the screen. Guess there's an anecdote for anything :)
during a delivery once, i caught a curb, flipped upside down on a bicycle, landed laptop down, bent the frame of my 2014 macbook pro, and the screen survived undamaged. still using the same laptop today, no issue. anecdotal evidence… is anecdotal.
Hah, I did also the same thing, except I was cycling home in the rain. Just got to my house and clipped the curb. Landed on my back, and all I had in my flimsy backpack was my 2015 MBP. The base had a large dent in it - but when I opened the lid, it just prompted me for my password. Had that machine for years afterwards.
I’ve caught a tram track (Melbourne) which caused me to go sideways. Only later did I notice that the corner of my MacBook Air … probably c. 2010? … was noticeably bent. Didn’t affect anything at all.
I did the exact same thing with the same MacBook Air in Adelaide trying to catch the last train home after work.
That was about a decade ago thought.
More recently I saw this:
The law firm Bursor and Fisher filed a class action lawsuit against Apple this week over unusually common screen cracks on M1 MacBooks, reports 9to5Mac. The firm is accusing Apple of knowingly selling laptops with fragile displays that tend to crack under normal use in some cases and then refusing to repair them without charge. Bursor and Fisher is now seeking compensation for all expenses associated with repairs.
I still make good use of my 15" 2012 macbook pro retina. Bummed that macos 10.15 is the end of the road for OS upgrades, bc the hardware has held up amazingly well for almost a decade. Including weeks at a time at sea, countless motorcycle trips and flights...
I have a 2012 going strong too. Battery has been charged and recharged less than my work 2016 but is in much better health. Upgraded it to 16GB RAM and put a 1TB SSD in it. It has worked flawlessly (it's the i7).
Do you know if there are any issues reported running a 2012 with OpenCore Legacy Patcher? Looks an interesting project I may make use of.
Are there any actual reasons the 2012 hardware cannot run Big Sur?
More anecdotes. My previous Macbook (2014 model? maybe 2016?) had a screen delamination issue; didn't get to the visible area of the screen, but I stopped using it because I got a new one from work at that point.
Current one had an issue with one speaker not working properly, that (and the whole top <_<) was replaced under extended warranty. More recently, the screen has borked, faulty ribbon connector I think, but that's another very expensive and fiddly fix, I probably won't bother since I work on an external screen all the time anyway.
I once owned a iBook (back in the PowerPC days) that had to go back to Apple on no less than four different occasions to fix faults. All repaired under AppleCare as I fortunately had the foresight to pay for it at the time of purchase.
I've also owned other brands of laptops and I've not had any with the amount nor the severity of faults I've observed on Apple laptops.
I write this on my own ex-lease Lenovo X1 Carbon which has survived a 1m drop with a corner hitting a hard surface. Thankfully the only issue is the occasional black/darkening of an area of pixels on the lower-right corner of the LCD. I can 100% guarantee if it was a Macbook it would have been the end of it, no question whatsoever (given I've seen Macbook die from much less impact).