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May 17, 2006

hardware

Black MacBooks flaky?

Posted May. 17, ’06, 12:45 PM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Hardware

Scratch and sniff?Holy shades of Titanium PowerBook G4, Batman! One blogger has reported that the black matte finish on the new MacBook can flake off with just the scratch of a fingernail.

Now, so far this appears to be an isolated incident. I checked in with Macworld editor Jason Snell, as our colleagues in San Francisco had picked up a couple of the new laptops yesterday.

My guess is that it was a manufacturing flaw in the unit — the ones we’ve got here have shown no sign of that, at least not yet. I just tried to scratch one and got nothing.
As many of you might early remember, Titanium PowerBook G4s suffered from a similar problem where the silver paint would flake off over time. This is hardly the only Quality Assurance problem Apple has run into: More recently, users of the MacBook Pro have complained of a high-pitched whining noise often emanating from that computer.

Is the black flaking another in a long line of Apple QA problems, or just a one-off manufacturing defect? If there are any new black MacBook owners out there who are having a similar experience, let us know.


4 Comments

Banjo said:

Yikes!
Good job I've ordered the same spec of MacBook in (proper Apple) WHITE, then!
It makes 150 dollar bills magically appear.

May 17, 2006 1:48 PM
Moe said:

Interesting article that got my attention in a different way. I suffer from really bad dandruff. If I work on a black Macbook, I can see all the flakes falling on the keyboard and soon enough, my Macbook will look like a dalmatian. I'll stick with white for now.

May 17, 2006 1:50 PM
Oliver said:

Moe, www.headandshoulders.com/

Trust me, it really works.

May 18, 2006 12:43 AM
Tyler S Gee said:

Since it has a plastic case I would have thought the color was moulded into the plastic like all the other multicolored Mac before.

Can someone confirm its really painted?

May 18, 2006 5:48 AM

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