Hello.
There is nothing eternal in the world; any thing can break sooner or later, and electronics are no exception. For many years I have been using a MacBook Pro as my work tool; the previous “firmware” literally traveled half the world, worked on it in the Far North, in the jungle, in deserts and in a bunch of less exotic places. Temperature range from minus forty to plus fifty and no problems for almost eight years of life. The laptop is expensive, but has recouped its price many times over due to its trouble-free operation over the years.
Considering that Apple changed the keyboard mechanism to a “butterfly” one, I did not want to buy a MacBook; the legendary reliability turned into zilch. I saw with my own eyes how a friend of mine was jumping around Times Square in New York because a key on his keyboard broke (long live the butterfly!) and he was lucky that this key was needed to enter his password. So lucky, so lucky. Other people’s examples clearly show what to be wary of.
Apple persisted for several years, but then they finally returned to the well-tested scissor mechanism, and my search for an alternative came to an end. I decided that I needed to take the new MacBook Pro on the M1, and at the same time I wanted to evaluate how the ARM processor works. But I was confused by the fact that all the memory was soldered on the motherboard; if the motherboard failed, it was not clear what would happen to the data. At that time, such a design was new, few people thought anything bad, and I addressed this question to an Apple top manager so that he could confirm or dispel my concerns. In the conversation, he convinced me that by definition there could be no problems, he said something like this: “Do you really think that we are so stupid as not to provide for a standard operation? Now there are no tools to get data from the memory of such a computer, but later a cord will appear, you will just need to plug it into the service, and all your files will be downloaded and given to you. No problem. There are millions of computers around the world, we cannot create a device in which everything will die forever. The story is new, and the lace will appear in a month or two, this usually happens. So don’t be afraid, buy a computer and use it for your health.”
I wanted to buy a new computer, so I took my word for it and bought myself a MacBook Pro on M1, a 13-inch machine. It was not without various minor problems, but, by and large, it satisfied me one hundred percent. The operating time was excellent, the screen was normal, the keyboard was cool and, most importantly, familiar. During all this time I could not complain about the computer’s performance.
September was rich in travel for me: St. Petersburg, then Kamchatka, then Singapore. He arrived, changed clothes and immediately set off further on the road. In those days that I was in Moscow, I was running around in order to have time to do urgent things, for example, photograph a bunch of devices that had accumulated and needed attention. And nothing foreshadowed the problems that awaited me in Singapore.
Two flights, I worked on each of them, a transfer to Abu Dhabi, the temperature was 32 degrees, but the watch happily reported that it felt like 52 degrees. During the four-hour layover, I managed to send a portion of articles to the editor, cleared up current affairs a little and completed a couple of big stories in order to look at them with fresh eyes in Singapore and send them to the company.
In the hotel room I sent a couple of letters, then closed the laptop lid and went into the city. In the evening, when I opened my laptop, I was faced with the fact that it simply did not work. Didn’t respond to charging, no keyboard shortcuts helped. To say that it was a state of shock means to say nothing. Instead of a comfortable trip, I had to figure out what to do, what to do. Run to buy another laptop, try to revive this one?
The Apple warranty has long expired, the laptop was purchased from MVideo in Russia, two and a half years have passed, almost three. I went to the big, beautiful Apple Store on Marina Sands Bay, where they explained to me that everything would take about a week, but there was no guarantee that the data would be saved. And then the consultant advised to contact an authorized service center, where “they will most likely help you, you may have to solder.”
Even then, I was confused by the phrase about soldering, I remembered the conversation about a miracle cord, a hundred dollars for a service that will pump out all the data, and a great company that cannot create a non-repairable solution. In a word, the mood was spoiled. I thought about buying a laptop, but then I decided to try my luck and try to repair my own. Until that moment, I didn’t think that anything wrong would happen to him.
The local guide advised the handy guys, who were also authorized by Apple, and the next morning he went to them with a laptop.
The service looks completely different from what we are used to in Russia. There is a large building all around, filled with electronics stores and repair shops. I left my laptop, they promised to look at it as soon as possible. Something curious and something that alarmed me and made me nervous: “We won’t enter the laptop data into the system yet, we may have to solder it, then it won’t be a repair from Apple, you need your data.” The soldering started to scare me.
A few hours later they contacted me and said that there was a failure in several components on the motherboard and they needed to be soldered. There are chances of salvation, am I ready to take the risk? If so, the repair will cost around S$300 and will not be official. I agreed to such a repair.
The next day it turned out that the service center was on vacation, and I had to wait another day in the dark. Then the service said that it could not repair the laptop, too many parts on the board were broken. The initial diagnosis I was given was flooding. But there couldn’t be any bay, I’m one hundred percent sure of that. The problem is in my hotel room, I wrote about this separately.
When I picked up the laptop, they explained to me that they would most likely help me in Russia, the repair would take several days, but the data could be retrieved. We need a new motherboard and we need to resolder the memory! There are simply no other ways to get the data. I thought that the local guys simply didn’t want to bother with complex repairs, I was sure that in Moscow my problem would definitely be solved. In the end, I’m not alone with such a breakdown and such issues should be resolved somehow?
You can’t call me an ordinary customer of the service. I called my friend with a request to restore the data, the whole Apple topic is his domain, and if his guys can’t repair the laptop, then no one can do it. I drove up to a clean, beautiful service center and handed over the car. The whole story is under the control of the top managers of his company.
But then everything happened again. My application in Singapore is not visible in the system, it was simply not recorded (no problem, that’s understandable). After disassembly, they didn’t put the heatsink back on the processor, but it’s not a big deal, we’ll chalk it up to forgetfulness. The main thing is that the result is exactly the same, with one exception. The board shows traces of soldering, which did not lead to any result.
I was asked the same sacramental question – am I ready to give the laptop to the craftsmen to try to restore it? There are partners who solder and have reached unprecedented heights in this. I was just interested, and I agreed. The craftsmen were not ready to solder my board, they offered me a simple option – buy a new motherboard (almost the cost of a laptop) and try to solder the memory into it. There are no guarantees that the operation will be successful. As I was told, “if there are no crypto wallets full of bitcoins, then perhaps you should say goodbye to your computer and not suffer.”
There were no crypto wallets, but there was a fair amount of work that I didn’t want to lose. It is possible to recover, but this is additional time, on average the loss of ten days of work. At a minimum, take new photographs of dozens of devices, plus partially lost photographs from Kamchatka. And this despite the fact that I have archiving configured both to the cloud and local to the NAS. The periods between trips were too short, the archives simply did not have time to be preserved, and I did not create an archive with my own hands, although I had such an idea. I always believed that you need to listen to your feelings and do what the voice inside is pushing you to do.
In total, I took the laptop, all these dances around the dead MacBook Pro cost me two hundred dollars, as well as lost time. The car is dead, as dead as you can be forever. I don’t want to try to restore data, there is no guarantee and confidence that the computer can then be used in principle and it will not die at the most inopportune moment.
What conclusions did I draw?
For me, a computer failure is a big problem, especially if it happens while traveling. Every day I work a lot, write texts of one kind or another. This is my job, it’s almost impossible to do it from a phone (of course, you can, if you’re willing to spend 3-4 times more time, your productivity will simply drop to the floor). I was lucky that a friend was with me on the trip and she happened to have a second laptop; she gave it to me for a few days. Otherwise, you would have to buy the same MacBook, with which you would then have to come up with something and put it somewhere. I can touch-type, there is no question about it, but I won’t use a MacBook after finding out all these details.
The reason for me is banal, it turns out that the MacBook is designed in such a way that you will definitely lose your data, only soldering in some third-party services will help you, and the result of such soldering is not at all guaranteed. And I buy laptops for a period of five years, for me this is the minimum period of use of a computer that can justify its high cost. My MacBook Pro did not choose this period; it lived exactly half of the time.
Not a single laptop is immune from problems, anything can happen in the world, and there are no complaints about Apple here. My only complaint is that the design of the laptop is such that it cannot be repaired and user data cannot be saved. This is unacceptable for me, so my love affair with the MacBook for the coming years is over; I cannot use such devices, the price I have to pay for it is too high.
Each of us independently assesses our own risks, so you yourself must understand how important your data is to you and how much you are willing to put up with the inability to restore it in case of failure, which comes with the latest MacBooks. Breakdowns happen, but they lead to different results for different companies.
Since no one canceled the work, when I returned to Moscow, I took the Huawei Matebook X Pro 2023 (premium version). Just recently, in the spring, I tested this laptop, and I liked it. The keyboard is as close as possible to the MacBook Pro, excellent screen and sound. While I’m sitting on this computer, it’s possible that I’ll stay on it in the end. I think I will write a separate article about what I experienced during migration and how my habits changed.
Smart people learn from other people’s mistakes, so don’t fall into the trap that was set for my data. Don’t let your work suffer because your laptop is broken and it’s simply impossible to repair it. In my new laptop, the SSD is easy to remove at home, so repairability is on a completely different level. And now I will bypass the MacBook, the price is too high for my mistake and trust in the balabol, who talked about the greatness of the company and that smart people work in it and they will not create a solution that cannot be repaired.
