[Macpartners] Apple Powerbook Display Scam

[Matthew Walburn]

MacPartners,

I wanted you all to be aware of the following should you be considering 
purchasing a new Powerbook. I'd also like to know what other 
experiences people have had with Apple regarding similar matters.

My girlfriend and I purchased a new Powerbook G4 at the Apple Store at 
the CambridgeSide Galleria this weekend. We went for the 15" 1.25 GHz 
model. As you might imagine, we were pretty psyched. That is until we 
got home. That's when we noticed that the screen had a broken pixel in 
the middle of the screen, causing it to display green and only green.

We were bummed, but since the salesperson we bought it from told us we 
had 10 days to exchange a defective item, we weren't too worried. We 
went back the Apple store the very next day to do the exchange.

"We don't consider that to be defective," the manager told us.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The thing was screwed up before 
we even took it out of the box and we tried to return it within 24 
hours. We weren't given the option to examine the thing for problems 
before we bought it. We weren't told about that little "gotcha" in the 
return policy. The return policy didn't define defective as, "anything 
but 1 to 7 pixels out in your LCD monitor... if that happens you're 
screwed." Who would buy something with that kind of policy? Not us... 
so why are supposed to just accept a policy that was obscured from us?

"1 in 5 LCD screens manufactured today have minor pixel problems like 
that, it's normal," was another justification he gave us.

That's strange... I've placed countless orders for laptops for people 
at MIT and we have numerous LCD monitors in my department. None of them 
came to me with bad pixels. If it's that prevalent of a problem maybe 
they should let people know up front. They should probably say 
something like, "By the way, I should let you know that you've got a 1 
in 5 chance of getting a bum display when you drop $3000 on a 
Powerbook... we won't be able to help you if you're the unlucky one, 
care to roll the dice?"

These computers are too expensive for consumers to not get exactly what 
they are paying for. No one buys a computer thinking that it might be 
slightly defective. When you spend that kind of money you deserve 
perfection, nothing less.

Does MIT have a point of contact with Apple that I can discuss this 
with? I hate to think that we're stuck with this defective display that 
we spent all this time saving for.

Any advice you all might have would be much appreciated.

-Matthew

--
Matthew Walburn, RHCE
Network Assistant - x. 3-4995
MIT Department of Mathematics