PowerBook Part Watch: Day 19.

It’s now been 19 days since my PowerBook G4 Hithlum’s LCD failed. Let’s recap.

• Times I have called Apple: 8
• Times I have spoken to an Apple rep over the phone: 3
• Times I have emailed Apple: 1
• Emails I have received from Apple: 1
• Times I have visited an Apple store, 160 miles away: 1
• Status updates received from Apple via website: 1
• Hours spent waiting for Genius Bar Appointment: 1
• Escalations through customer service: 3
• ETA: still pending.

• Approximate time spent dealing with support-related issues: 20 hours
• Days primary personal computer unavailable: 19

Let’s compare and contrast with Merrystar’s experience with Panasonic and her Toughbook Tsiolkovsky, shall we?

• Total calls to support: 1
• Total calls to Fedex: 1
• Total emails: 2, both status updates from Panasonic’s logistics company
• Total website visits: 2 (1 to look up phone number for inital call, 1 to FedEx to confirm delivery)

• Approximate time spent dealing with support-related issues: 1.5 hours, including packaging (excludes backup time.)
• Days primary personal computer unavailable: 2.5

The Panasonic support rep was knowledgable, efficient, and thorough. The Apple reps — with the execption at the Genius Bar, to be fair — have not.

What’s worse is that I’m paying $350 to Apple for this service for 3 years. Panasonic’s cost? $0 for the same period of time. I’ve used it three times and each time has been this easy.

This is seriously leading me to question my next laptop purchase. Perhaps it’ll be time to switch back to Linux?