The Quiet Mac

It is with a great sigh of relief that I announce the likely end of my MacBook Pro saga.

As recently as a few weeks ago, I expected that the end of this saga would take the form of finding a buyer on Craigslist to take the thing off my hands, but events turned in a more positive direction as I patiently worked my way through the Apple support system.

Eventually I ended up in the hands of a thoughtful representative with a lot of discretion over how best to handle my situation. The amount of bad luck I had endured really accumulated over the past few months. The defects themselves. The repeated failures to fix them. The bad Apple store rep. The slightly mutilated MBP case. Oh, I might have forgotten to mention that. On my last repair shipment, the techies must have put it back together in a hurry, as they left a gap in the case where it meets the DVD-ROM area. I mentioned this in passing to one rep, where it was apparently added to my record.

Finally, after apparently reviewing the list of everything wrong with the Mac and my experiences so far with Apple, the representative offered to send me a replacement. I was wary, at first. Just go through this all again? I’d rather have somebody good at Apple take an honest look at it and replace the parts that are busted. But then I heard rumors of the new MacBook Pro logic board, and couldn’t help but hope that this meant a happy outcome was in sight. I asked my Apple representative if a replacement would be “fresh off the line.” I didn’t want some replacement from March or April, that happened to be sitting in some Cupertino stockpile (as if). He could only say that they tended to be shipped out as fast as they could be made. So I agreed – let’s spin the wheel.

The new MacBook Pro arrived this morning and what can I say? The thing is dead silent. You can trust me, I know what the freaking pain sounds like. Yes Virginia, there is a quiet MacBook Pro. Impressively, I could not even hear a noticeable sound difference with my ear pressed up to the machine while tweaking the slider on QuietMBP. Actually, after plugging the power in I can hear the slightest “sizzle” if I put my ear to the plug where it’s plugged in. And this might be only while it’s charging. Anyway I don’t think it’s loud enough for me to hear from any normal distance, and I bet this amount of sound is present in almost any laptop, ahem, notebook. So after months of negativity it feels good to return to my initial state of just being impressed with the MacBook Pro. Just about everything is “amazingly right.”

Even the surface temperature is slightly cooler than my old MBP. I’m transferring over from the old one right now, so both machines have been turned on the same length of time, and roughly (I assume) doing the same amount of activity. The old MBP’s “hottest spot” (above the function keys) is still so hot that I cannot leave my fingers there for more than a few seconds. The new one is still hot there, but I can leave my finger there indefinitely. Major improvement, even if ideally they could cool things down even more. To be honest, the heat is still frustrating, especially in the summer, but if it’s just the heat, then I’ll shut my whining mouth for a while.

I know at least some of you have been holding off on a new MacBook Pro because of things I’ve said about them here. I’m happy to have helped you avoid a costly and possibly frustrating mistake. But I don’t want Apple to lose customers, goodwill, or sales. I’m a stock holder, for crying out loud! Now that I can happily endorse this (please, nothing go wrong in the next few days), I say get out your credit card and join us!

Update: I’ve been using the new MBP for several hours and my inital impressions are holding up. It’s quiet as a mouse. I love it! But just to show that I’m not completely devoid of crankiness, I have two minor complaints. First, the space bar makes a slight squeaking noise every time I press it. This is definitely new, but it’s so much nicer than the whine. Maybe I can fix it with a little well-placed graphite or something. Second, the lid closes in a way such that unlatching it is slightly clunky. I have to sort of press the button in extra far to get it to pop open. Overall, very minor inconveniences. How minor? There’s no way in hell I’ll risk ruining the happy state of my MBP right now by bringing it in for these teeny issues.