On Wednesday my 17” Powerbook arrived by airborne express.  I picked it up over lunch and return back to work, ready to officially become a “switcher”.  After starting it up, and getting a feel for it, I proceeded to download the 99 megabyte Matrix Reloaded trailer.  Much to my dismay, I was unable to watch the trailer due to a bright blue dead pixel in the center of the screen. 

Upset at this discovery, I called up the maczone to deal with the problem.  They informed me that I would have to contact Apple because they are not allowed to handle these situations.  I was a little annoyed at this point, but was willing to do what it took to get my laptop fixed.  Calling apple, I quickly got in contact with Tony, an apple rep.  I explained that there was a dead pixel in the center of my screen that I wanted fixed.  He put me o­n hold for something like 15 minutes while he was “looking up apple’s policy o­n it”.  When he returned, I was told that unless there was 4 or more “hot”, 4 or more “dark”, or a combination of 8 or more dead pixels, it was not a defect and they couldn’t do anything for me. 

Needless to say I was infuriated at this point, but the battle was not over yet.  Calling back to maczone yielded nothing but a waste of another 30 minutes.  At this point I was starting to accept this cruel fate.  The next day I called back to apple to bitch again and had some success.  After talking with the guy for a few minutes and explaining that dead pixel’s are a fact of life, but this particular dead pixel is absolutely unacceptable he issued me a case # and told me to take it to an Apple authorized repair center.

I took the laptop to my local compusa as that was the easiest place to go.  The apple guy there agreed with me and took the laptop.  Now I have to play the waiting game.  It went back to Apple via Airbone Express and I hope to see it again this coming week.  Until then, I’m out of luck.

I wish this process would have been smoother, but as long as the result is a fixed laptop, I am willing to brush off the experience and continue to buy into Apple’s products.  o­nly time will tell.