Mac Book Pro fails “wife test”

My wife loves using her Mac, but not her new Mac Book Pro. She loves her old 800mhz iBook.

The iBook is a flawless machine. Other than running slow, it is super reliable. The new Mac Book Pro I bought her has been a disaster.

First of all. It’s been to the shop 3 times. New motherboard, new Super drive, new bluetooth, new battery, etc. But there are still problems. The #1 issue is iChat. We use iChat video multiple times per day to communicate, but iChat always randomly crashes or fails to connect when she uses the Mac Book Pro. Her iBook never crashed and always works. Burning CDs from iTunes never failed on her iBook, but fails randomly on the MBP. She only uses iChat, Mail, Safari, and iTunes, so these problems affect most of her activities.

Recently my 2 year old son Kai wanted to play with the MBP and ripped off all the keys on the keyboard. I clicked most back into place, but there were a few parts that broke and could not be clicked back. So now typing is unreliable.

Kai also pressed in the display release button on front and managed to get it jammed and now we can’t close the lid. I realize this isn’t Apple’s fault, but he’s not that strong. This stuff is too delicate.

I tried to use the machine myself for doing development while at home, but this “Mac Bake Pro” fries my laps and it’s just not pleasant to use for more than a few minutes. I end up all sweaty and hot. This is with a new motherboard, so the heat issues are suppose to be better.

My power cord for the iBook broke recently, and I put off replacing it since we bought the MBP. Now I need to go spend $100 on a cord to switch my wife from a brand new machine to an old iBook. What a waste of money.

If only I could make lemonade from this lemon…