> A note of perspective on the horrible situation with Lombard hinges failing.
*nods* I see where you are coming from, but I don't agree with it. > The general lifespan of a standard PC desktop is considered around 6months. > After that it's obsolete. No, it's not. It is only if you define obsolete to mean "not the fastest out there". In all honesty, every single mac sold right now is obsolete if you take use that definition, for almost every single function out there. Functional obsolescence is generally defined by a product not being able to meet your current needs, or it becomes more expensive to use the current product than to buy the newer model. If I want to play return to castle wolfenstein, then the old 500mhz tibook's are obsolete, and some would say the 550-667mhz machines are also. If I want to do numerous other tasks, they are not. > The general lifespan of a standard Mac desktop/tower is considered around > 9months-1yr.After that it's obsolete Actually, it's not. The current consensus is more of around 3 years, with a large portion of it being 4 years... But 3 years is the sweet spot for consumer/large shop upgrades. This is why you see major changes in apple's product line every 2.75-3 years or so, because at that point often the people with older machines are looking to upgrade because their current one is not meeting today's needs and new ones have greatly increased capabilities, and it isn't cost effective to continue with their current solution. The only reason this changes is if there is a dramatic technological shift in a quick short of time. This happens rarely. > The general lifespan of a standard PC laptop (toshiba/IBM/Dell) is generally > considered around a year. After that it's obsolete. > THhe general lifespan of a standard Mac laptop is generally considered around > 18 months. Lol. Seriously, who considers this to be true? Where can you find statistical data? What you are saying is that if you buy a laptop, it should only work for two years, after that you should buy a new one. I don't buy that, and never will buy into it. I agree that you shouldn't complain about the computer you buy today not being able to do whatever you want it to do 2 years later (less the manufacturer says otherwise)- it should do everything it did when you bought it for a good length of time. If you buy a cheap stereo, you can't be surprised when it stops working after a year or two because they use cheap inadequate parts to get by. If you buy a high-end dennon system or grado headphones, you SHOULD be surprised if they stop working after awhile. This is the thing. You don't bitch about the wall streets falling apart, so they don't make the lombards not fall apart, and now the tibook's have their hinges falling off and cracking after a few months of light use for some. This actually has bitten me- I have had 2 apple laptops have major hinge problems. One was a tangerine ibook (14 months old, under applecare) and apple just decided not to fix it. Cost $600. Had the same happen on a tibook. > I'm sure this will start a flame war about somebody's Mac512k that is "not > obsolete", but those of us in the real world need to have machines which will > run modern software at modern speeds. The rest of Mayberry may want to use an > LCII and consider it modern, but it isn't. I still use my Powerbook 170 > (from 1989), but it is obsolete. This is very short sided. You're using a terribly exaggerated example in order to make the other side look foolish. He is not talking about his lombard not running OS 10.5 the way he wants, or performance issues. Simply hardware failures due to design flaws or cheap parts. And I can go with him on that- it isn't as though he bought a cheap $110 palm m100 and then can't believe it when the buttons start to fall off after awhile. Lombards were $3k+ luxury machines. The lombard is not someone bitching that their mac512k is falling apart. > Now. The lombard was built in 1999. That is more than 6, 9, 12, 18, or even > 24 months ago. That is more like 36-48 months. Maybe YOUR car runs 350,000 > miles without needing a new timing belt, but mine doesn't. Perhaps your car > goes 400,000 miles without having the shocks get a little springy. Mine > doesn't. > > I happened to look at the spec's on my Pismo this afternoon. It's a 2000, > 500mhz, and the drive is a 6month old 30gig fujitsu. It shows just over > 4.8MILLION writes to the drive. That's not read/writes--that's JUST writes. > Anyone care to comment on how they'd feel after 4million of ANYTHING? Well, this is a hard drive. It is =made= to do that. This is not a specific apple designed part failing across machines. > Get a grip people. A laptop running the equivalent of a third lifetime is > going to have a few problems! I think they do have a grip, they just live in a different world than you do and have different expectations. With apple machines, I remember that if one would suddenly not boot 90% of the time it had to do with the PRAM battery going dead after a few years. Now that isn't the case. It shouldn't be. You're paying a premium, and in a lot of cases are not getting a premium. > Get a grip people. A laptop running the equivalent of a third lifetime is > going to have a few problems! Even if it is a Mac, it's not perfect! > > Yes the Lombard hinges do tend to get weak over time. But they're NOT THAT > BAD. And considering that they can be replaced for less than $100, it's > probably not worth whining about too much. If I were bent double four or > five times a day, then slung in a backpack and bounced across town, I'd > probably fail after three or four years. What about you? You know, I don't know how much it costs to have the hinges replaced on a lombard. But do you have any idea how much it costs to have the tibook hinges replaced, or the wall streets? Sorry david, but I just don't believe that the lombard is old enough that people should be surprised they still work. Michael Bryan Bell ------------------ ICQ: 16106263 Yahoo: mhbell1 No Link for you! AIM: drunkenbatman -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? 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