I have a 2014 Retina display MacBook Pro that has a black screen. It’s my son’s PC and he took it to the shop they have at school. Long story short, it’s about $510 to repair. It needs:
defective motherboard I/O connectors and LCD display
I realize I haven’t had a personal laptop fail. Ever. I’m also sort of new to Macs in general. $500 seems like a lot of money. I am pretty sure I could get a new PC for that much.
It’s for my son and he wants a Surface. I had a low cost Surface once and it was built on some sort of hardware that didn’t allow you to easily install apps or do programming. He wants to do a CS degree, so that sort of thing might be a problem.
What do people do with Macbook Pros that have failed this way? Is it worth salvaging or does it make more sense to move on? If I move on, does it make sense to go low cost and Surface, or should I be looking at some other (less expensive) product?
OH, I actually have another Macbook Pro I bought (refurbished) to replace the one I gave my son for school (the one that just failed).
My replacement is a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013). Is there anything I can salvage off the one that has failed or should I pretty much just recycle it (assuming we’re moving on, and not repairing the old one)?
$500 to fix a 4-year-old laptop? I’d move on. And I don’t know if you can cannibalize the 2013 MBP to repair the 2014 MBP. Apple could have changed the internals just enough to make it impossible?
Surface can be pretty popular for CS folks, especially now that you can run Linux distros in Windows 10. With that said, they can be pricey. If he expects/wants to take a lot of handwritten notes, the Surface Pro is a lot easier to transition between laptop/tablet states. It’s effortless. If he wants more of a regular laptop, go for the Book.
With that said, it’s expensive. You can’t service a Surface at all, so you probably want to buy a decent spec machine to last 4 years of college. Also, get the Complete protection plan. As I mentioned, you cannot open them, so if something goes bad you cannot repair it.
Thank you Woolen. I’m looking at the Surface. I really liked my first gen Surface and now my wife has a third gen that I like a lot, but don’t use much. I agree that the tablet switching is a really compelling feature. Thanks for the tip about the extended warranty stuff.
I guess the Book is the new low end Surface, but it doesn’t sound like it has the same limitations as the earlier low end one did. I might have to go look at them. The specs make it look heavy. I think he’s really interested in using it as a tablet, which seems like an argument for Pro. I can get a reasonable spec pro for ~1k, it looks like.
Kid sounds spoiled and kids can be rough on their hardware. Having the MBP cost $2000-4000 doesn’t mean it automatically equates to toughness of a Panasonic Toughbook line as it’s not meant to rugged. $500 repair for a $2500 device sounds appropriate with the Apple hardware keeping most of its value compared to commodity PC hardware. Apple uses the same (albeit customized) hardware as other PC manufacturers and we all know the increased cost doesn’t make them tougher. It’s part of their brand cachet.
To be fair, I have owned a mix of PCs and Mac in my life time and they do last that long, easily (as did the PCs). That said, my 8 month old iMac is currently at the Apple store for a failed memory bus. My first Mac that had ever died.
The new logic board is $510 (but it’s under warranty).
Yep, passed down a MacBook Pro to my sister and teenage kids. Came over one day and one of them was playing a game on it with the computer sitting directly on shag carpet. It died within 6 months. They blamed Apple. Some people are just really rough on computers.
MacBook Pro resale values are often stupid high, though. I’d take a look at Craigslist/eBay/etc for the precise model you have and see what the resale is. If it’s one of the 2014 configurations still reselling for $950, it makes more sense to fix and sell it than to recycle it.
All of the Surfaces now run standard Windows on a stock Intel CPU. The Surface Laptop has Windows 10 S, which is set up to only run Store apps, but it’s a free upgrade (setting in Windows) to upgrade to the full version of Windows 10.
Note the Surface laptop is a traditional notebook. If he wants tablet functionality, you’ll want a Surface Pro or Surface Book. There’s a 3-day, $200 off sale on the Pros right now.
It probably does make financial sense to fix the Macbook Pro, even if you intend to resell it.
The Surface Pro is a great choice for education too, and if he wants one go for it. Fantastic hardware. I would buy a XPS13 over the Surface Laptop for basically the same price, and the Surface Book (IMO) doesn’t make a lot of sense for most applications.
The Book is full Win 10 Pro. The Laptop is 10 S, but 10 S (the OS) is going away, anyway. (Not to mention, it’s still a free upgrade to 10 Pro). In Redstone 4, S-Mode is available in all versions of Win 10.
Wtf? No. Either work bought it for you and can foot the bill, or you have more money than is reasonable and don’t give a shit. I see no other non-insane situation w/r/t a broken MacBook.
I know! We have an iMac that keeps chugging along. I have had PC laptops that have lasted way longer than that one, and friends have given us old Macbooks that are still running So I just wasn’t sure if there was any value in it.
Thanks for the tips Denny. I’m going to check into this.
Appreciate the info on the latest about the Surface products. I might look into those too.
I would move and and get a more powerful and cheaper pc laptop. I just did the same and like it a lot. Sadly Apple has been cutting corners on costs for years for me the catalyst was the new macbook pro removing ports to save money. I just decided I was sick of overpaying for a lower quality bit of hardware just because it has pretty stylings.
I would make the switch. The Surface is ok but I would go for a nice regular PC laptop. It will survive being tossed around in backpacks just fine.
I’m still using a 2008 aluminum MacBook as a Plex server. They do last if you take care of them. Of course Apple does make lemons. The spacebar on my MacBook Pro with Touchbar 2016 has a large dead spot. The keyboards are notoriously sucky on these models, so I shelled out for AppleCare rather than wait on the inevitable class action lawsuit that I’m sure someone is brewing up.
