New Aluminium Macbook Isn’t Rock Solid! Be Gentle!

Unlike what the intuitive impression might reassure, the new Unibody Macbook is just as fragile as the old white Macbook as discovered rather violently today only 2 weeks after my purchase.

I have dropped my old vanilla white Macbooks non-severely a few times in the past from table height and nothing too permanent in terms of cosmetic damage. Although sheer tension on the Macbook makes it feel unsafe when it skews while holding from a corner and the new Macbook feels completely solid, the reactions to drops draw to completely different conclusions.

So my Macbook was in a poorly designed side-loading camera/laptop bag, and in a rush I forgot to zip it up (shit habit since I never did on my messenger bag), out comes the Macbook from my torso height. Instead of resolving the resulting energy through shattering or denting or scratching though, the aluminium deforms and twists.

Too bad I have no pics since I had the poor Macbook immediately airlifted to the nearest Mac store but if the ethernet port was originally a tetris cube, it’s now a tetris Z angle shape. The screen doesn’t even lift open since the bent metal on the screen assembly blocks the rotating path.

Two weeks later, after getting a fix from Apple for just 200$ (they felt bad for me because I just had it for 2 weeks and charged only labour), exact same scenario. Dropped it again on the driveway coming out of the car… It was on the front side and the unibody was bent along with the battery inside and the trackpad which is now unclickable. Another trip to the Mac store costed 300$… Although none of these drops felt violent, the damage certainly was.

Moral of the story, metal laptop is still a laptop! Be nice!