It’s this time of year that many clients ask what to buy and what minimums they should get when replacing their computer hardware.
Black Friday is in another three weeks and the sales will be advertised…many of the laptops on sale are bare minimums with 4GB of RAM and older hard drives that will be slow…The best bang for the buck? A good 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB or 1TB SSD are the minimums for a good Windows experience. Need to edit videos and pics? Get one with a good amount of Video Ram. See below for the Costco links to their warranty!
It’s also that time to call out Apple and let my clients know to NOT purchase their computers and why to avoid them.
They are a DO NOT BUY on my list at this time.
Why?
Last week a client brought over a MacBook Air from 2018. It would not boot up and would hang at the white bar for hours never completing the bootup cycle in ANY mode.
I tried everything I could think of to coerce it to boot. Nothing worked. After 33 years, there are a few tricks I can use.
I used to be able to take out the hard drives/SSDs and see if the machine would boot using an external drive. That would let me diagnose the hard drive/SSD or the motherboard as the cause.
After further examination, this model, and all since, have one common FLAW: the actual storage unit (we used to call them “hard drives” but they are now “Solid State Drives”) is SOLDERED to the mainboard.
So is the RAM.
The Battery is ONE unit with the KEYBOARD part of the case.
Anyone else see the FLAWS?
Nothing about this MacBook Air can be repaired by replacing failing parts such as the SSD or a RAM module or even getting a NEW battery and installing it yourself.
In years past, manufacturers might have made it tough to get to these parts with 15-20 screws having to be removed as well as the keyboard and tiny cables (Acer – that’s YOU!) to get to the hard drive bay, BUT they were serviceable and allowed the device to be upgraded to 16GB or 32GB of RAM and larger hard drives, or lately, larger Solid State Drives as the device allowed. RAM maximums are device dependent for most Windows-based devices.
Even in previous Macs, like my MacBook Pro from 2012, I am able to upgrade the 4GB of RAM to 16GB, and I can swap out the 1TB SSD for a larger one at pretty much anytime. AND I can use memory and SSDs from other companies!
My Windows laptop? No problem. I recently put in a larger SSD and more RAM for when I am working outside of the office and when I travel. It’s from 2016. I have another laptop just for meetings and it too is from 2016.
Why am I so fired up?
A two year old Macbook Air that cost $1,000-1,200.00 not including the cost of AppleCare (that starts at $249.00) is now a giant piece of e-waste and the annual cost of usage is ridiculously expensive for the two years of usage that my client was able to get out of it.
Apple states that it wants to reduce e-waste.
Really? How?
Apple designs computers that unless you pay Apple to do the repair, they have to be trashed as e-waste. The decision to design laptops without user serviceable parts ensures that if the SSD goes bad, and THEY DO go bad, you have to return to Apple to get the laptop repaired.
The estimate on this specific model directly from Apple? $847.95-$947.95 for the battery, and the SSD that requires the entire motherboard to be replaced.
Does anyone want to repair a $1,000.00-$1,200.00 laptop for 70-80% of it’s purchase price after only TWO years of ownership due to Apple’s design that only let’s Apple fix them?
The battery replacement on this one requires a BRAND NEW top case, the part that contains the keyboard according to “Terri”, the Apple rep I chatted with today.
In the models that Apple made two years immediately prior to this one, the SSDs are APPLE PROPRIETARY DESIGNS, meaning that you would have to find a manufacturer that makes a CUSTOM SSD for the model of MacBook (air/pro) so that you can upgrade it. The cost on those is anywhere from $95 for 240GB up to $429.00 for the 2TB version. At least ONE part is user serviceable and can be repaired or upgraded for those model years.
Let’s compare that to a 2.5” Crucial SSD. This is a pretty standard size for most laptops EXCEPT Apple.
500GB? $56 at Best Buy. $114.99 for 1TB, $221.99 for 2TB from Amazon.
Some laptops now only take certain types of SSDs that are similar in appearance to RAM modules. They are more expensive BUT you can buy them from any number of manufacturers and upgrade your Windows computer. A 2TB nvram SSD? $279.99 from Amazon. Apple’s CUSTOM designs are nearly TWICE the price!
In years past I had advised clients STRONGLY to avoid HP laptops as there was a range of DVxxx models that had major flaws in the soldering of the video chip to the mainboard. Once they were in use for a few months and even years, the heating and cooling of that solder would cause it to fail and the laptop was trashed. Some of you remember the piles I had in my office.
It’s been many years since that debacle and recent client purchases of Dell, Lenovo and HP have been pretty much uneventful after working on those machines.
Acer is still a challenge due to my experiences with making the device’s reliability beyond a year or two.
The bottom line: while the iPhone is a device that I do use and enjoy, and can recommend, I can no longer recommend Apple’s MacBook Air / MacBook Pro products.
If you use the COSTCO Citi card on your laptop purchase from Costco, it can have a total of FOUR years of warranty coverage for FREE! (https://www.costco.com/concierge-two-plus-two-warranty.html)
Compare that with an Apple price of $1,200.00 plus AppleCare of $249.00 for two years….