Apple MacBooks – cracked white top

May 13, 2009

It happened to me – the infamous white macbook laptop case cracking.  I’d read about this a couple years ago, but had forgotten about it.  Until last night.  I opened my macbook and the case had a crack in it.  Specifically, the area to the left of the left shift key had a larger than hairline crack which results in about a 3/4″ stop of the white plastic just breaking off.  Sure the thing was still functional, but it annoyed me.  And hundreds of other people on forums too.

Thing is, I’m out of town this week.  Out of the country really, over in London.  And I still need my laptop in the evenings for work (well, all the time for work, really).  I went to the ‘genius bar’ and they were booked up.  I spoke to someone (didn’t get his name) and he said “drop it off and we’ll have it back to you in probably 3 days”.  3 days!?  I said no, not good enough, as I need the laptop for work, and I’m going back to the US soon.  He then says he thinks they could do it overnight.  I winced, and he went further and said if I could drop it off, they could either fix it today or have it back to me tonight if they couldn’t.  *That’s* really what I wanted.  I had a few hours to kill in London anyway today, so I could bear without having my laptop for that time period. 

The chap really wasn’t sure if they could do it or not, because it’s an American/US style keyboard.  I’d forgotten there was a difference.  Primarily the US ‘return’ key is longer – that’s the biggest difference I can see.  Oh, and the characters over numbers like #@$%, etc – all different on British keyboards.

Anyway, they managed to have it fixed and ready back for me, no charge, in about 4 hours start to finish.  Dropped it off at 10, and I had it in my hands at 2:15.  They’d actually called about 1:40 to say it was done, but I didn’t get back from the British Museum until 2:15. 

Thanks to the great staff at the Regent Street Apple store for making the repair experience of a travelling Yank as pleasant as possible.

Oh, by the way, I walked all the way from Regent Street Apple store to the offices of cardsmadeeasy.com to get some sample business card paper.  Nice staff, nice samples, horrid walk.  Note to self and others – take the tube next time and save the feet!

Posted in Apple, Travel