My three year old Lenovo laptop is beginning to crumble before my eyes. In the past three months I replaced the battery (after the better part of a year constantly tethered to the AC adapter), then the keyboard (several keys stopped responding), and yesterday the hard drive failed in the middle of submitting my taxes online. So, today I replaced the hard drive. I’m still less than half way to the price of the cheapest netbook out there, so it’s probably all worthwhile. I just wonder what the future holds. On the bright side, each component was replaced in less than five minutes — formatting and installing the OS (and updates to the OS) to the hard drive took a good bit more than five minutes, but I do that for fun anyway.
Fortunately, Ma’s five year old Apple Powerbook continues to hum along. Apple does some things better.
Comment By: ma
February 25th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Honey, Apple does EVERYTHING better. Of course, to be fair, I haven’t subjected my Mac to all the abuses you’ve heaped on your laptop: install Linux, uninstall Windows, install Acme Operating System, uninstall Acme operating system, re-install Windows, crash the whole thing and start over, maybe Acme will work now, crash and uninstall Acme. Uninstall Windows, tweak Linux, crash. Reinstall everything. Find a new application that may work, scramble everything, install Windows….you get the picture.
Comment By: jeff
February 26th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
re: ma’s comment:
a) the lenovo was half the price of the apple (i would imagine)
b) when the apple does start failing (think of the clamshell) the replacement parts are not likely to be found too cheaply
c) actually, that’s all i have.
Comment By: Ma
February 27th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
All valid points that don’t diminish my love for the mac. But I know when this one dies, I’ll prob’ly get a cute little pc netbook. I just don’t think I’ll let Dad have free rein as to what “modifications” he performs on it!