Follow-up on my previous posts to this thread: I orderd a 15″ Powerbook last week, it arrived with a dead, non-charging battery and a defective trackpad button. After constant daily pressure applied to Apple and the mail-order retailer I purchased from, I got the machine declared DOA by Apple and the retailer was then able to send out a replacement which arrived this afternoon. I’m just getting data transferred from last week’s bum machine onto the new arrival now, and typing on my familar G4 Titanium with the two broken LCD hinges.

The trackpad button on today’s delivery seems to function much better than the the unit I have to return tomorrow. However, now that I’m back on the Titanium, it’s my opinion that the button on those old machines is so much superior to these new PowerBooks’ buttons. The Titanium trackpad button is crisp, decisive and limber. It clicks down easily and doesn’t take undo effort to hold it there. In contrast, I find the new PowerBooks’ buttons (based on my experience with two such models) overly stiff and lacking that definite experience of being depressed or raised that the Ti has. I know I’ll grow used to it, but being able to compare the two next to one another right now, the Ti’s is night and day different and better.

On the positive side, I like the two-finger scrolling.

Meanwhile, the new machine also has a dead, non-charging battery like the DOA box. Something missing in Apple quality control these days? Or am I just the lucky one here?

Along the way — at every step of this process nearly — I’ve had to dig my feet in and not accept that a brand new computer should immediately be sent in for repairs. It’s taken at least 30hrs in phone calls, phone queue waiting, internet research, my own sleuthing with the machine to get this outcome, but it’s better by comparison to sending this bogus PowerBook in for immediate repairs.

After last night’s call with MacMall, I got back into Apple phone queue (4 times), spent an hour with them, and had to leave it with the promise that it was escalated to customer relations to deal with and I needed to call back this morning. An hour this morning on phone with Apple. Had to start at the bottom again, then wait 20 minutes to get through to cust. relations rep., after he went over the case again and talked to other people, he claims that apple cannot swap a machine sold through a reseller, but if I’d bought it through Apple, they would be at the point of sending me a replacement machine. So he instructs me to talk to MacMall again (FYI: I’ve been on phone with MacMall four times and Apple circa six times regarding this and the dead battery problems), tell MM that apple declares it DOA and MM can call to check the case notes and confirm that. Waiting to reach my rep. at MacMall now….