OK Rod, you had your rant, here is mine.
I purchased my Pismo in late 2000, just before the tibooks hit the market. In the following 2 years I had to have the DVD/CD ROM module replaced (luckily under warranty) and also had to replace the fried Power adapter (which is a common problem with Pismo yo-yos - you can look that up on google as well). The Power adapter was AU$189. So I've invested some money into this relatively new machine - which I loved dearly - then the HD failed on me last month. Not a problem, I thought, these things break. After HD replacement the logic board and processor card fail. To use your luxury car metaphor (true, I probably could have bought an old European classic for the 7K I spent on the Pismo), this one didn't run long. To bring economics back into the picture, the product didn't give me a lot of value for money. I treat all my Macs (work and personal) with great care - and I've used and owned a few since 1994, use them everyday, all day, and am a real Mac advocate. The pismo, in terms of longevity, was the worst machine of the lot. In your defense, laptops generally "break" easier. I have purchased a low cost ibook as a pismo replacement, and will probably look at trading it in a 2 years time (provided it holds up ;) ). Sorry for the essay, but I needed to get that out Dirk Written on a rock-solid G4 Quicksilver 733 --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Rod Lavington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Thursday, June 12, 2003, at 08:58AM, dtac666 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >Shay, > > > >I daresay that will not come cheap. My (now declared dead) Pismo was diagnosed with > >a faulty processor card and logic board - replacement parts were quoted at more > >than $2.000. > > > >Apparently since the machine is no longer being manufactured, the parts are > >drastically marked up by Apple. > > > >Sorry for the bad news. > > > >Dirk > > > > Actually, the parts are not marked up once the machine is not manufactured. The price is the exact same price when the machine is first released. When Apple gets a machine manufactured, they also extend the run for spare parts. So, the pay the price at the time for what the logic board would cost for that machine ie if part of the manufacture cost for a logic board in a new machine is $1500, then they pay $1500 per board for the spare part board. > > Don't forget that Apple produce a different logic board for each machine, at a much lower production run than a PC company. PCs (generally) have a generic motherboard in the machine, which are produced in much greater numbers than a Powerbook 500 Pismo logic board. Greater the number, the lower the price of the board (until a point is reached that producing more boards becomes more expensive again - lookup Economies of Scale in Google for an explanation) [this is a Mac list, not an economics lecture ;-)]. Margins aside, why do you think a Powerbook is so much more expensive than a desktop machine? > > Ever owned a luxury car? Go price up a master cylinder assembly for a 1990 BMW 7 series, then compare it to a price of a master cylinder assembly for a 1990 Commdore Executive. > > :-) > > [Rod's service rant over] > > Seeya > > Rod!
