14 DAY TRIAL // Recent buyers of an Apple notebook have taken to Apple's Discussions board to complain about the hardware upgrades occurring lately, while prices for previous generation products have remained unchanged. Customers claim that Apple has taken advantage of their not knowing that updated notebooks were on the launching pad to sell them “old” MacBooks.
“So I bought a 2.4 GHz black macbook on August 29th and received it on September 5th.....,” says Apple Discussions user donhenderson. “I had no idea that apple was going to introduce a new macbook a month later!! I would have waited for these new ones but now I'm stuck with the now 'older' macbook; only 4 weeks and now its outdated! I play online games and I edit movies and music, and as far as the graphics go, I could've gotten a way better laptop in terms of graphics cards than a macbook. Instead I [sic] stuck with mac since I wanted out of the PC world I've been in for years. This new macbook's graphics card is a tremendous upgrade to the one I currently have and I'm starting to feel seriously taken advantage of by Apple ... This is disappointing, stressful, and upsetting and I'm sure I'm not alone here.”
Before jumping to any conclusions, everyone needs to know how much Apple has improved its new MacBook. According to the company, MacBook now delivers “outstanding 3D game play on a consumer notebook,” with up to five times faster graphics performance than the previous generation, thanks to the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor.
The 2.0 GHz, 13-inch aluminum MacBook also boasts a 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display; 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache; 2GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM (expandable to 4GB); 160GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm (with Sudden Motion Sensor); a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive; Mini DisplayPort for video output (adapters sold separately); built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; built-in iSight video camera and a glass Multi-Touch trackpad.
Most of these features are new, or improved with the recently released aluminum MacBook. The notebook is available now for US$1,299. A 2.4 Ghz new MacBook goes for US$1,599.
“That would be your fault for not doing research,” reads a reply to donhenderson's complaints. Many other replies sound almost identical. Some offer to help, pointing out to the guy that Apple has a fourteen-day return policy. Other posters reveal they are in the same situation, and that they feel the same.
“I bought my macbook 16 days ago, I bought the top of the range one aswell,[sic] the reason I didnt get a macbook pro was because of the size difference ... I understand completely how you feel,” says poster Robbiepereira.
While many think there's no common ground for Apple's ways of doing business and the customers' state of mind, we ask you: how would you feel having bought a lower-specced Mac days before an upgraded model came out bearing a similar price tag?