DrunkenBlog

Dual-USB iBook Batteries

Something seems to be seriously wrong with these things, I've gone through four so far and the machine is barely a year old. Checking through various sites shows that I'm not the only one... this seems to be specifically related to the dual-USB iBooks, as my Powerbook and older iBook haven't had issues.

The older toilet-seat iBook has gotten a new battery, but it was after a few years and I considered it to be tolerable. Ie, here's the current situation. iBook battery stops holding charge after 3 months or so, and only allows something like 15-30 minutes of charge. Go through all trouble-shooting steps, then call Apple. Batteries aren't covered under AppleCare (just the initial, 90 day warranty) but since this is one I've bought new from them they say they'll send out another one. A week and a half later it hasn't showed, so I call back, to be told they are out of them (backordered) and it could be another few days or few weeks.

It really sucks- this isn't some special component, just a stupid battery. How they can be out of batteries for products they have on the shelves of their stores and are actively selling is beyond me. So, for the next few days to the next few weeks, my portable computer is decidedly non-portable again.

I honestly wouldn't recommend these current iBook's to anyone as too many people are having problems... and the 12" powerbook is also having a lot of problems, and the 17" powerbook isn't available yet. Which leaves only current stock of the 15" powerbooks as an apple laptop that has hada bunch of the kinks worked out and it is hotter than hell on your lap and still has the fan issues which can drive me batty on mine (revC 667), although the fan issue is better than the revB 667.

 Posted by drunkenbatman
    March 13, 2003, at 05:26 PM