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Comment by sdfhbdf | Hacker News Reader

While I understand you might be frustrated.

It could be considered satire if you would substitute "Apple" with "Generic Windows Laptop OEM" and "MacBook Pro" with some plastic model of a windows laptop.

What I'm trying to say that 7 years is a great lifespan for a laptop and a fact that only now first-party repair is becoming problematic (I understand it was possible to replace battery with OEM a year ago) and you have to resort to third-party parts seems still outstanding for a consumer goods company.

Apple does have its fair share of problems with less repairable laptops as of recently - that's for sure. Especially if you listen to Louis Rossmann

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Seriously, if I had a problem with a dell XPS laptop I’d have throw it away. Repair after 7 years? I think Dell would laugh in your face.

Lenovo and Apple are the only brands that even remotely stand by their products after even a couple of months and don’t make it horrendously awful to repair.

It’s a miracle it works after 7 years of use. I’d venture to say that Apple is the best of breed in longevity for the original purchase. You paid about $1/day for that laptop. If you can buy another that lasts remotely as long and it isn’t made by Lenovo I’d love to hear about it.

>It’s a miracle it works after 7 years of use

What do you people do with your laptops? ThinkPads aside, even my $300-350 Acer laptop is coming up on 6 years of (11-12h daily) use and everything works more than fine. I don't even use an SSD. The one I had before this lasted a good 10-11 years of similar if not heavier use (my entire family used it).

Before covid, I carried my laptop to where I was working, and I did that on a daily basis for years. No matter how gentle you are, they take a beating because the rest of the world definitely isn't nearly as careful.

As an aside: the Dell Latitude 610 I carted around for several years was a goddamn beast. It weighed a shit ton, but it took some drops and hits that I was positive wrecked the thing. What killed it eventually was the hinges on the screen breaking and shearing the video connector.

And yet, late last year or early this year I was able to buy a replacement charger [edit to add: they sell the battery too] from Dell for my 2013-model-year Latitude laptop. Not the exact same model as was originally bundled, but it's still new from Dell, still officially documented as compatible with my laptop, and still works fine with it in practice.

You described Apple as a consumer goods company and called this scenario satire if you just substitute a different company. Keep in mind the sale to OP was made by the much less consumerized Apple of 2014, not the "you can't touch /System without disabling important protections" Apple of 2021, and was from a Pro laptop line ostensibly targeted at business use cases, not a consumer model.

The expectations of OP for a top-tier business laptop seem quite reasonable to me, both in the past and in the present. My laptop still meets my needs well enough after more than 6 years of use (yeah I bought it in 2014) that I haven't been able to justify the purchase of a replacement, even though I could afford one if needed. Dell's offering of guaranteed compatible new parts reinforced both that decision and my openness to Dell business laptops whenever I do upgrade, since it's not a planned obsolescence trap.

You can still buy the Magsafe Macbook charger from Apple's website to this day. Like, Google it and it'll come up.

A charger is completely different from a lithium-ion battery, which degrades over time.

They still sell a battery for this model too:

https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/dell-45-whr-4-cell-primary-b...

I focused more on the fact that they were still willing to provide this level of support for the repairs that such an old machine might need than on the particular part I chose to buy. My battery could use a replacement too, but I use it plugged in too much for me to want to spend on that. In a different lifestyle I'd buy that as well.

That charger is probably the same one they have used in all models for like 20 years...

No, they have several different models with different wattages and other characteristics. But, sure the fact that they switch chargers less often than Apple does is another plus.

you just compared buying a charger to replacing the battery. Also, I am sure if OP wants to replace the battery at a 3rd party store, they could. It’s been 7 years.

The point was that the manufacturer is still willing to produce and sell new replacement parts that are officially advertised and supported for that old of a model, instead of refusing to. I didn't have to guess that it would work, it was on the product page, and they would have treated it as a warranty issue (under the charger's warranty) if it didn't.

They also still have a page on their website documenting current battery products that work with this exact model, including one battery model that can be installed inside the machine like the original one. It's a very different attitude than Apple's.

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