UPDATE:

I decided to send it back for full credit. I think the extra few hundred dollars will give me better peace of mind. Not only that, but I suspected the battery wasn’t all good. I was getting like 1% per every couple minutes just surfing the web with the display at 75% brightness. To that effect, all the talk about Penryn in February makes me think this may be the best move. 16% better battery life sounds good.

I decided to go with a 15" MacBook Pro 2.4 Ghz model. I went with a refurb as well because I ended up saving $300, which I was planning on using for accessories for the thing.

With Vincenzo Luck in full effect, something had to go wrong. When I first opened this thing up, the only bad thing I noticed was that the battery was stuck at 95% and not charging. A reboot fixed that. Everything else looked fine. It wasn’t until I started using the laptop at my office desk that I found some weird behavior with the ambient light sensor both on the keyboard and display side.

MacBookPro

When I move my hands around the light sensors under the speakers, if I have the keyboard and or display setting set to auto, the keyboard light comes on and off and the display shoots from 75% to 50% all within a couple swipes of my hand around the outer keyboard area. Now, after reading up on this, to an extent, it’s normal. But I feel like maybe my sensors are abnormally sensitive. I’m not trying to be a nitpicker, but if I spend over 2k on something, I’d like to have something that works out of the box.

I called Apple and I have an open case with them. They are willing to replace the thing, but suggested I go to see a Mac Genius first. Today, that’s exactly what I did. Wasn’t my luck that the OTHER Apple store I wanted to go to didn’t have any open appointments for today. The reason I wanted to go to the OTHER store was because of the issues I had with two of the geniuses at WestFarms. Wouldn’t you know, I got stuck with both of them. They remember me as the asshole who made them give me 4 iPhones in 2 days because my screen was messed up. Of course, THEY told me they thought my MBP was acting normal. After that I checked some floor models out and it did not seem to be happening there. It seems to me that the normal behavior is if you hold your hands over the sensors for 5 whole seconds, the light settings kick in, but on mine, it’s faster than 5 seconds.

At this point, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should keep it, return it for another, or return it for a refund and cough up the extra $300 for a brand new one and MAYBE some peace of mind. I say MAYBE because my iPhone wasn’t a refurb and look at all the problems I had with that.

So far, I have had terrible luck with Apple hardware.

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