For a middle class young adult living in India, buying an Apple laptop is nothing short of a dream. The same was true for me. Back then I had been running my business successfully for 4+ years. An agency based out of Kolkata. We had 3 verticals. Digital Marketing, Video Production and PR/Amplification.
Any surplus profit I pumped back in the business. For enhancing camera equipment. A couple of high end camera’s, few lenses, gimbals, action camera’s, video and flash lights.
With all the investments finally finished in the camera department by end of 2016, I started thinking, “what can make the business more robust, generating more money?”
Increasing video content production velocity seemed like a genuine next step.
It was time to buy a MacBook. This single investment can increase our production velocity significantly. Apple’s proprietary video editing software Final Cut Pro was the go to software when it came to fast video editing output. It was industry standard. I started saving for that in the beginning of 2017.
On October 27, 2017, I finally made the call and purchased the MacBook. It costed me a little over 1.25lakh. At that point it was a huge sum of money for me. But I wasn’t much concerned about the price.
I felt overjoyed and delighted. Over the moon as the popular proverb may describe. Finally a MacBook. That too a Pro version. With all the bells and whistles.
Years have passed since then. Yesterday the MacBook died yet again. If I recall my memory correctly, it was the 4th time it died over a course of 9 years. The very first time it gave up on me was in late 2019.
I still remember that day vividly. It must have been just 2 years after the purchase date. The moment I entered office, SG our lead video editor came rushing towards me. At that time the laptop was used for editing videos primarily. I had used the laptop personally editing videos for approximately a year before passing it on to SG. He was using it to produce great quality output. Clients were happy with our work.
I saw what was happening. The laptop screen was flickering. Vertical lines scattered across the screen. I tried to do a restart to see if that would solve the issue. Nothing. I close the lid and try reopening it and suddenly I notice the screen working perfectly. As I opened the lid a little further the problem started resurfacing.
That day we had few important deliveries to make. We connected the MacBook with an external monitor and finished of the work that was due. Later that week I enquired with Apple Service Centre. The cost of replacing the screen would be upwards of Rs. 45,000. I obviously did not have that much amount of cash. Especially for repairing a MacBook I purchased barely 2 years ago.
I was not the only person facing the problem. This particular model had a well known ‘flexgate’ problem. It was a design flaw at the product level itself. All MacBook Pro models during that time suffered from this issue. Upon knowing this my heart sank. Disappointed. This was an Apple product at the end of the day. I guess even for companies as big as Apple product flaw exists.
If this would have been a windows laptop the pain wouldn’t have had been so much. But this was an Apple product. I had high hopes from it. Alas, all that hope and expectation with the MacBook was over in just 2 years of using it.
Over the years I have spend a total of Rs. 60,000 extra on it, replacing the screen 2 times. Even after that the ‘flexgate’ problem keeps resurfacing. After the second repair I decided there’s no point repairing the screen anymore. The permanent solution I adopted was using an external monitor as the display. That’s how I have been using the laptop for the past 2 years.
Infact truth be told I had thought of replacing the MacBook with a new one many a time. But the investment of more than 2 lakh did not make sense anymore. I wasn’t editing any video anymore. Not at least in a professional format, in exchange for money. The few videos which I did make was mostly for personal use on the YouTube channel.
Every time the thought of buying a new MacBook came to my mind, I made myself understand until and unless I am making and uploading 100 videos in 3 months time (more like moving into the realm on content creation) the investment is not worth it. For hobby purposes the old MacBook which had turned into a desktop by this time served just fine. Things were going smoothly.
Then the most extraordinary incident happened.
In the recent past I have not been taking a lot of landscape photographs (which I used to take years back.) Have not been traveling to the exotic landscapes that was once a regular affair. Whenever I felt like editing a photograph, I looked up some old raw photograph and edited them. Apart from that the MacBook was getting used to write these articles.
Apart from the MacBook Pro (which had turned from a laptop to a desktop) I had a 2021 model Asus laptop. It was lying there in my almirah not being used any more. Ever since I joined this new organisation where I presently work, I do all my ‘work’ related stuff on the laptop the office provided. For the hobbies of writing and editing I used the Macbook.
Since I wasn’t using the Asus laptop anymore, my wife suggested “if I don’t use the windows laptop why don’t I sell it off?”
It looked like the right thing to do. That’s what I did. My wife’s office needed a windows laptop. They were already looking for a second hand one. I offered mine. I sold off the Asus laptop. That was Thursday.
On Friday, when I tried switching on the MacBook, I noticed the laptop isn’t taking any charge. I tried multiple things. Changing the charger, trying out different adapters. yet nothing seemed to work out. Imagine the luck. Just 2 days back, I had 2 laptops, 1 windows and a MacBook. And now, I have none. One got sold off and the other one (the beloved MacBook) completely died.
I felt extremely bad. Disheartened. I kept trying out various things in the hope to get it started again but she did not respond. This particular MacBook was my first apple laptop which I had purchased. It was more than an electronic device for me. It had memories associated with me doing business.
As I write this on my iPad as the screen, the keyboard connected with Bluetooth, there are so many feeling flowing through me. On the one hand I am able to see this handy new mobile setup. The iPad along with an external keyboard and a mouse (which I may need to purchase) can be connected with Bluetooth. For the purposes of writing these articles (which I love writing) this absolutely serves the purpose. There is absolutely no need for a laptop. This is a pretty handy setup.
On the other hand I feel a sense of being empty. Editing photographs is something which I love. Especially the landscape ones. That’s what I would dearly miss – editing landscape photographs on the MacBook.