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Repairability

psankar.blogspot.com

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Re: Repairability

#41

Post by fian »

Just ordered a second replacement battery in under 5 years for a Dell XPS laptop due to the battery swelling. The first was replaced under warranty (and the trackpad was also replaced as it had been slightly bent).

The laptop is now out of warranty, so I contacted Dell to see about a replacement battery. "Sorry, we don't support laptops more than 4 years old" was the response. The support person suggested I source a replacement battery on Ebay and find a local laptop repair place to do the swap.

I deliberately chose to purchase a high spec (for the time), expensive laptop so it would have good longevity and previously I have had good support from Dell. Seriously disappointed by Dell's response this time.

Will be giving careful consideration to repair-ability and long term support before making another laptop purchase.

Re: Repairability

#43

Post by analog31 »

Causality1 wrote: post #8
swiftcoder wrote: post #4

Not that it's a justification, per se, but a lot of modern laptops won't boot without a battery. The power adapter often can't provide sufficient power to spin everything up at boot, and needs the battery as a buffer (this is why, if you run your macbook battery completely flat, it needs to charge for a few minutes before it can boot back up).

Why are laptops being sold with insufficient power adapters then? That also sounds just flat wrong. Most non-gaming laptops have power supplies with significantly higher outputs than their maximum power draw, and the boot-up surge is incredibly tiny. I would be flatly amazed if a MacBook boot up power draw was even 10% higher than system power draw under maximum load.

Perhaps among other reasons, folks don't want to carry a giant adapter around with their laptop. I've seen adapters for "engineering" laptops, that seemed as big as my entire laptop.

Re: Repairability

#44

Post by CivBase »

thepostoffice wrote: post #37

Design for repair isn't trivial. It would force compromise on every other aspect of the product. In the real world = more time (at every stage of the R&D and manufacturing process) + extra material costs (more tooling, more PCBA's, more screws, etc.). I personally think that this issue will become a very big deal over the next decade or so, but at this point the market isn't applying enough pressure for the big compa…

> Design for repair isn't trivial.

No, but releasing basic board schematics - or even just allowing third-parties to freely redistribute their own custom-made schematics - is. Allowing your supplies to sell board components directly to consumers and third-party repair shops is. Allowing third parties to move used OEM parts across international bounds without fear of having their property seized for being "counterfeit" is.

There is a huge community of independent repair technicians out there who are constantly undermined by the likes of Apple and other major hardware manufacturers. The manufacturers don't even have to "design for repair". They just have to allow repair to be an option in the first place.

Maybe if repair becames a common alternative again, "design for repair" would actually be considered a competitive advantage.

Re: Repairability

#45

Post by auggierose »

eastern wrote: post #12
auggierose wrote: post #7

Never had a bulky battery in any Mac. Must be something about the climate ...

If that's the case then Apple should not sell its devices where they can't deal with the climate.

I don't know if that's the case. There are temperature ranges though, documented by Apple, in which you need to operate your devices. Can't really forbid selling devices in countries with the wrong climate, after all the buyer might be committed to only operate the devices within the documented ranges.

Re: Repairability

#46

Post by bajsejohannes »

swiftcoder wrote: post #4

Not that it's a justification, per se, but a lot of modern laptops won't boot without a battery. The power adapter often can't provide sufficient power to spin everything up at boot, and needs the battery as a buffer (this is why, if you run your macbook battery completely flat, it needs to charge for a few minutes before it can boot back up).

They can't boot without a battery, but for a different reason: The laptop only draws power from the battery, not from the power plug. There is no power connection other than through the battery.

Re: Repairability

#47

Post by auggierose »

tveyben wrote: post #9
auggierose wrote: post #7

Never had a bulky battery in any Mac. Must be something about the climate ...

I have - three times (if an iPad counts). This in cold non-polluted danish climate. You can’t blame it on the climate just because you have never experienced it. NB.: How many mac’s are your statistic based upon < 100? I think we need the big numbers...

Yeah, I am more of a logic guy :-) Also, maybe the Danish climate is too cold?

Re: Repairability

#48

Post by nicoburns »

m463 wrote: post #35
fareesh wrote: post #14

In countries like India we don't really have too many consumer protections. Apple tends to operate similar to a criminal enterprise - they sell defective products / products which become defective after barely any use. I bought the 2015 Macbook Pro which developed the "staingate" issue. In first world countries, I hear that Apple replaced the screens for customers for free (I'm not sure if this is true or whether it'…

That's a good reminder of the consumer protections in the US. The first couple times I ventured out of the US, I was struck by the differences in environment for some companies. For example in Mexico, I was struck by plentiful advertising for cigarettes and hard alcohol. Strangely, Coca Cola advertisements on the TV always had a legal disclaimer, something like "always with food" (I recall poorly).

The strangest one for me was billboard adverts for politicians. Those are banned here in the UK.

Re: Repairability

#49

Post by irab »

fareesh wrote: post #14

In countries like India we don't really have too many consumer protections. Apple tends to operate similar to a criminal enterprise - they sell defective products / products which become defective after barely any use. I bought the 2015 Macbook Pro which developed the "staingate" issue. In first world countries, I hear that Apple replaced the screens for customers for free (I'm not sure if this is true or whether it'…

Wait, if you go to an authorized Apple service provider, they HAVE to provide you a with a free screen replacement as long as the device is it's within 4 years of purchase date. Either that or your the screen problem wasn't actually caused by staingate or maybe your device was not eligible for that particular service. It's obviously possible that the person there maybe didn't know about it (he's supposed to though)? In that case you could just go to a different service center.

Re: Repairability

#50

Post by lr »

This is the choice quote:

"Thankfully Apple is not yet making cars, otherwise, to change Engine oil, we may have to dissasemble the headlamps, engine, transmission, differential, etc."

Of course, an Apple car would be an EV and there would be zero user-servicable parts, for sure!

I do want to note that, my 2012 Macbook Air still runs, but the battery does indeed need to be replaced. And I fully agree: It would be very nice to be able to use the laptop with a dead battery as long as it was plugged in.

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