New eMac Experience Unimpressive

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-Wallstreet-'s picture
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New eMac Experience Unimpressive

Well, as I posted earlier, I ordered an eMac on July 21st and was waiting for it to get here. When that one got here (8 days after I ordered it), there were scuff marks on the front and the internal speakers didn't work. As this was a brand new (not refurb) Mac direct from Apple, I was not happy and set up a return and replacement with Apple. I sent in the defective eMac on the 30th of July. The new eMac shipped on the 3rd, and didn't arrive until the 11th, today. I was very happy when I saw the FedEx man carrying the box on the sides and the bottom was barely holding shut on that single piece of tape. The box was in the worst condition imaginable, it had obviously been opened, and the top and bottom pieces of styrofoam were broken into six pieces. At least when I took out the eMac, there were no scuff marks, and when I turned it on I heard the bong from the internal speakers. But, right after the startup sound, I thought I heard a faint hissing coming from the right speaker. I ignored it the best I could because I wasn't about to go through another replacement with Apple. We went out for dinner while it sat encoding a video. When I came home, the hissing was even louder and now it's coming through both speakers. Even if you hit the mute button on the keyboard it doesn't affect the hissing at all, and I tried switching inputs in the sound controls because I thought it might be playing the microphone through the speakers, but that didn't help either. I'm really dissapointed in Apple lately. Their tech support absolutely sucks, and so does FedEx.

My advice: If you're going to buy an eMac, don't order it from the Apple Store Online or thru Apple over the phone. Go to the Apple Store and transport it home yourself.

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hmm ... my iBook arrived in p

hmm ... my iBook arrived in perfect condition ... there wasnt even a mark on the box! ... but we dont have Fedex in the UK so maybe that has something to do with it Wink

are you going to send the eMac back again?

TOM

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Fedex, ugh...

I ordered a new HDD from newegg(which isn't the point, but whatever), and when it got here the box looked like it had been through a few wars, and had been draged around the world behind a car. the hard drive had a few scratches on it and all the buble rap was popped, but it's been running fine ever since. i'm still annoyed that they abused the box so much though. i also have gotten a few thing fedex "priority mail" one showed up looking like it had gone thorugh a paper shreder, so now whenever i ship anything, i put an obsurd amout of packing on it, in a box 3+ times the size of the thing(I.E. shipping a computer monitor in the box an oven came in) but i shouldn't have to do that, o well thats how the world is, everything is done as cheaply as possible. o and BTW the speaker problem sounds like a loose wire, same thing happened on my PB 1400. just open it up(if you feel your up to it) or have a repair man/tech savvy friend do it for you. and unplug and replug FIRMLY all of the sound cables, should make it work fine.

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No

I won't be returning it to Apple. Although the hissing shouldn't happen on a brand new computer, I'm going to just deal with it. When anything's plugged into the headphone port, the hissing stops and it doesn't go through the headphones, which is good, because I have mine plugged into a receiver thru the headphone port all the time. I'm still angry about it though. The weird thing is, after I unplug something from the headphone port, the hissing is starts very quiet and it slowly gets louder.

I'll also take some pictures of the box so you can see how bad it is.

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Please, Do Us All A Favor

As agonizing as it may be, I would absolutely send it back. You gave Apple good money for a product that should be in perfect condition upon arrival. I would call an Apple rep and calmy and politely explain your situation. Then send a complaint to Fed-Ex, explaining that your package arrived in worse than expected condition, it may spur a call or investigation to your local shipping warehouse. But please, if you don't return it, whats to keep them from sending out other ill-handled shipments?

jt
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Re: Please, Do Us All A Favor

. . . if you don't return it, whats to keep them from sending out other ill-handled shipments?

VERY good point! If the box looks aweful when it arrives, don't accept it, by opening it, you'll be destroying your only evidence of the mishandling.

jt Wink

Jon
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When you sign to get the pack

When you sign to get the package, you are also signing that the package has arrived in good condition. When the delivery man bring you a crappy package, make the fuss right then and there, and have witnesses if possible. Get pictures of the package (with the delivery man in the shot too) if at all possible. Those steps might make dealing with a poorly handled package go a whole lot more smoothly.

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Sorry Guys

Strangely, I wasn't asked to sign anything. And I never, ever, ever call Apple with the exception of when I called about my defective eMac. Apple has the worst phone support I've ever had to deal with and just setting up the return and replacement took over 2 hours on the phone, of which more than half was spent on hold.

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ugh

What you're going through right now...is what drove me to a Dell.

It's not FedEx, or Apple.

It's the eMac.

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That is really weird. I had a

That is really weird. I had a great experience with apple phone support. They were prompt, and helpful. When the problem proved to be hardware they didn't hesitate to ship out a box to me, which arrived next day. All in all, apple had the best support I have ever dealt with ( and consumer report agrees with me Smile )

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Re: Sorry Guys

Strangely, I wasn't asked to sign anything.

Hmm ... same with my iBook Beee

TOM

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I own a new 1.25GHz eMac, I p

I own a new 1.25GHz eMac, I picked it up at my local Fry's Electronics. It's running great! no problem whatsoever! I don't understand why so many people don't like this machine.

And I just got an iBook from Apple they shiped it to me via fed-ex. It got to me in one day! and the box and everything were in PERFECT order.

That goes for my 4G iPod too, fed-ex etc.. perfect.

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Update

Although I'm still mad at Apple and FedEx, I will agree that this eMac is running great. I ran it through MacBench X today and it's almost twice as fast as my old 700Mhz G4 iMac. My brother has the original eMac and I was always impressed by it's stability. It seemed like my iMac was always crashing and giving me problems while his was always rock solid. And I like how the eMac is not as fragile as the iMac. When I installed the RAM in it today, all I had to do was pick it up and lay it face down on my bed. With the iMac, it had to be a flat hard surface with a towel underneath and then a little tiny phillips screwdriver was need to do all four screws.

All in all, I'm satisfied with my new eMac. It's plenty fast for my needs, and I hope it lasts me for many years.

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I've done an internet search

I've done an internet search of MacBench X and I can't find it anywhere. where did you download it from? I'm interested in running it on my machines

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Google!

Go to google and type in MacBench. It's the first result that comes up. He and I tested - my PB and his eMac. His beat mine overall by like 30 points.

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A [url=http://www.google.com/

A Google Search Gives me This Link as the first one.

Also www.macbench.com takes to to the same site.

When I search that website for Macbench I get info that the tool is no longer supported or availible to download. Then again, the latest version number that the search yeilds is 5.0 You mentioned MacBench X. maybe a link to the download location?

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New News

Um, wait a minute. Isn't this eMac supposed to have a 7455 or better? MenuMeters is reporting it to be a 7450, which better not be true...

>:(

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maybeyoushould

Sell it.

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No

I can't do that. My parents wouldn't be happy if I asked them if I could sell my brand new computer. Plus I like it, it's twice as fast as my old iMac, and it love the eMac form factor. I'm happy with it, but I'm just mad at Apple misrepresenting their merchandise. Just because it's their bottom of the line model doesn't mean they can ship defective models out. Don't they have some sort of inspection crew? How does stuff like that get by?

Jon
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It's a part of any manufactur

It's a part of any manufacturing company's daily problems. They rely on the end user to let them know of problems that slipped by the QAD. Apple can't know there are still problems if no one tells them about it... Wink You gotta keep following the cycle, or the cycle breaks, and it all ends up as GIGO... Blum 3

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