Among the popular spinoffs of Advice Dog is the Socially Awkward Penguin:

The Socially Awkward Penguin replaces the dog with a waddling penguin and has (generally) two lines of text describing situations that are socially awkward and embarrassing. The top line is a premise which describes a situation that can potentially go wrong with embarrassing consequences and it gives you a premonition of this which is then stated in the bottom, the punch line.

What makes it work is the picture of the penguin taking awkward baby steps and the universality of the situations it describes. It derives its humour from the hilarity and extent of social gaucherie and also in the vicarious realism of these embarrassing situations.

Although the penguin image is constant, the sheer range of socially embarrassing moments and situations makes this meme evergreen and limitless.

Also check out Philosoraptor, equally funny.

So, just as an amusement, and as a way to test my friends, I thought of making up a FIJ myself to see if I properly understood the (much too) subtle distinction between a fact, an inference and a judgment. Rack your brains, use your discretion and trust your gut — this helps!:

1. God exists.

2. We have no evidence to suggest that god exists.

3. It is a matter of personal faith whether a person believes in god or not.

4. A majority of the Indian population is theist.

5. Recent studies show that Indian atheists are in the minority.

The question is open to interpretation. However, my personal opinion is JJJIF. <—- Now that’s a judgment, amirite?

If you’re a prospective Macbook buyer and you want to read some reassuring words about how good the laptop is and reinforce your decision of persisting with buying the Macbook, then you’re in for a surprise. That’s right. What you’ll find in this post isn’t empty Apple-loving rhetoric and how ‘amazing’ and ‘fantastic’ the company is. This review was written after more than two years of owning the Macbook, so it’s free from the new-product-infatuation. And keep in mind, the model that is being reviewed was bought with a 1-year standard warranty.

Why I bought the Macbook

When I wanted to buy a laptop for myself, I had narrowed down my choice to Acer & HP. Acer had an unbeatable features-per-price ratio while HP was more stylish and had some neat touch controls. I hadn’t even thought about Apple Macbooks then. I hardly knew they existed. Of whatever little I knew about Apple laptops, I reckoned they weren’t ‘real’ laptops that an average person could use. After all, they looked different and had a strange OS. Later, my friend and me went to Croma, a tech supermarket, to get a hands-on feel of the laptops.

They had two Macbooks on display – a white one & the ‘Blackbook’. I instantly got attracted to the white Macbook and started playing with it. The clean interface with the lovely icons in the Dock looked great. A little toying around with the OS gradually revealed more impressive bits – the Dashboard, Exposé, iSight…

I went home and went to apple.com to check out the specs of the Macbook. Now this is where Apple is really good at. The pictures on the site were fantastic, what with all the shiny & shadowy effects, complete with reflections that reminded of Web 2.0. For the price, the specs looked ordinary. I mean Acer offered almost double the storage and memory for a lot less. I did search a few forums to know if Macbooks are in fact slower than similarly priced laptops. They all more or less said that since Apple makes the hardware and the software to run on it, they know best how to get the most out of their hardware. Fair enough, I thought. They have a point. And what about the software? What if there’s no OS X compatible software? Well, I could always use Parallels. Boot Camp was an option too. In this way, all my doubts about the potential flaws that I suspected the Macbook had were cleared and I had made my decision.

The Hardware

The Macbook that I purchased was bought from Canada by my cousin in March 2007. It was the Late 2006 model – MA700LL/A:

• 2 GHz Core 2 Duo
• 1 GB RAM
• 80 GB HDD
• Intel GMA 950 (64 MB shared)
• SuperDrive
• Mac OS X Tiger

Decent specs, but definitely not in tune with the price. But then again, you can’t really complain because you have a choice and Apple’s not forcing you to buy it.

Design Flaws

The overall looks of the Macbook are good, no doubt – minimalistic with rounded corners and smooth materials. It’s another reason why Apple is so successful – they know the impact aesthetically pleasing products have on the buyer. Look at the iPod – for all its limited functionality and lack of added features, the iPod looks damn good. While other companies overlook this area, Apple knows people like shiny things. If you make ‘em look good, people will receive your products well. This is probably why Apple has a huge number of fanboys. I’ll admit I was highly impressed by the looks as well and this was an important factor in deciding to buy it.

However, if you look beyond this so called puppy love, you will notice some inexplicable design flaws:

• The Screen

Firstly, the screen does not open up to 180°, rather the maximum it goes upto is 135°. Alright, this can’t be considered a ‘flaw’, just a minor limitation.

Secondly, and more importantly, the lowermost part of the outer screen casing touches the surface on which it is kept if you fully open the screen. This is unpardonable on the part of Apple. Don’t they have any testers in their design department? Really, Apple? You just had to open the screen and it would become obvious. But I guess Apple thought we wouldn’t notice. Or worse, we would, but keep quiet because Apple thought we would be too happy about the looks to care. But not everyone is a fanboy, Apple. You can’t get away with a defect like this.

As you can see, the lowermost part of the screen casing gets worn off due to contact with the ground.

Quite mind-boggling, isn’t it? You’d expect a company like Apple which rates design so highly to at least test their products after they’ve designed them.

• Palmrest Discoloration

The palmrest area (the areas surrounding the trackpad) is a sucker for dirt. Of course, this is not a problem in the black Macbook. After a couple of months of usage, large parts of the palmrest turned a dull brown colour. This was in spite of cleaning the area regularly with a moist soft cloth. The brown patches turned permanent and it was then that I searched the internet about this defect. I learnt that Apple had acknowledged this problem (discoloration) and were replacing the keyboard casing free of cost. I was in the United Kingdom for a month so I decided to give it for repairs in London (Apple Store at Brent Cross). They did replace the keyboard casing and put a British keyboard too (no problems with that).

The discoloration started again after a few months use, this time nearer to the trackpad.

• Casing Cracks

The screen bezel has two thin projections jutting out on either side. These magnetic latches make contact with the  edge of the palmrest. Now what happened is, due to repeated opening and closing of the screen, the palmrest developed cracks on either side at the place where the contact with the latches is made. The right side crack gave way and a gaping hole now exists while a faint crack is visible on the left.

Again, bad designing/lack of testing at work.

Random Shutdown

This is a famous and highly annoying problem. After 6-7 months of use, the Macbook would suddenly shut down before it ran out of juice. The battery would still have about 15-20% charge when the Macbook would randomly shutdown. This problem continued and worse still, the Macbook started shutting down at 30% battery, then 40%,50%… It was crazy. I couldn’t carry my Macbook and hope to run it on the battery. Oddly though, the Macbook never shutdown when it was plugged in. The battery must be the culprit, I thought. As if to confirm my doubts, the Macbook then started going off at 95% battery i.e. the charge that is counted as ‘fully charged’ – the adapter doesn’t charge the battery at 95%+ (threshold value).

Fortunately the warranty was still valid so I deposited my Macbook to a service centre in my city. They diagnosed a problem with the motherboard (!) and replaced it, claiming to have got the new motherboard from Bangalore. As expected, the random shutdown continued and the warranty period was nearly over. I had no choice but to use the adapter at all times.

Dead Battery

Ever since the random shutdown problem was encountered, I always used to plug my Macbook to a power source with the battery attached. This was a big blunder. After a few months of doing this, the battery got bloated and puffy and is now completely useless.

Screen Bleeding Colours

After the warranty expired, a plethora of problems surfaced [see above]. The screen started distorting the picture a little, but it was corrected with a gentle tap to the side. It was a bit like disturbance/noise as seen on old TV sets. Soon, this problem started occuring regularly and it reached its worst when the screen was horizontally divided into two parts – the properly functioning upper part and the rogue lower one. The gentle tap didn’t work anymore, it had to be repeatedly stroked to restore the image. And then, the worst became worse. The colours started bleeding and mixing. It looked like a mess. Slowly, the lower area of the screen turned white, so I was left with half a screen. A few more days passed and the entire screen was dead. It was just white – no colours, no display, nothing – just the backlight.

Keyboard Malfunction

The keyboard wiring is suspect, especially the Fn key. Some combinations of the Fn key don’t work and some other combinations do something else. For example, the volume down command – Fn+F4 does not work but surprisingly enough F4 works by itself and Fn works in other combinations! Strange.

Lid/Sleep Malfunction

Of late, the fans did not stop several minutes after the lid was closed and the sleep light did not illuminate. The alternately glowing white LED (for sleep mode) did not work when the lid was closed, indicating the Macbook did not go to sleep when the lid was closed, hence the fans remained on.

What Next?

I haven’t used my Macbook since November 2008 and I am frustrated at this failed investment. I’ve been using a Dell Vostro 1200 ever since (with a 3 year warranty of course). It works great, so far.

The cost of repairs equal the price that I bought it for. If I sell my Macbook, I’ll get close to nothing. The only way forward now seems to attach it to an external monitor so it can be used as a desktop. I’m on the lookout for a mini DVI to HDMI cable so that I can hook it up to my LCD TV. I’ll update this post if that works out.

But I’ve learnt my lesson the hard way. Stay away from Apple! Sure they look good, but you will suffer in the long run. However, if you still want to buy Apple products, go the distance and buy the extended warranty!

Related Sites

Apple Defects

Macbook Random Shutdown