On top of being a super geek, one of my other well known characteristics is that I am a bit anal when it comes to the quality of the products I buy. I’m hardly ever happy with a sub-par product. Even the littlest imperfection drives me nuts. So, needless to say, I was extremely irritated when I noticed that my brand new MacBook had started to discolor or look dirty. The discoloration had occurred in the palm rest area and it was driving me nuts. Some people would be able to look past this however, it really had me irritated.
When I first noticed the discolortaion, I immediately assumed that it was the same problem that several people had reported with earlier versions of the MacBook. Back when the MacBook first came out there were a number complaints about the MacBook discoloring in the palm rest area. Even though Apple has supposedly fixed this problem, I immediately assumed that my MacBook was suffering from the same problem.
Since I was concerned that my MacBook was discoloring due to a defect in my laptop, I went ahead and called Apple care. The individual that I spoke with told me that I had two options. #1, I could ship my MacBook back and have the palm rest replaced or #2, I could send my MacBook back and have an entirely new one sent to me. Since I haven’t spent a ton of time getting things setup, I decided to choose option #2. While on the phone, I was a little concerned because the product specialist that I spoke with told me that this problem no longer exists and that he hasn’t received a complaint like this in a long time.
Upon getting off the phone I started to wonder if the replacement MacBook would have the same problem. From what I understand, Apple changed the material that they use in their palm rests long before I purchased my laptop. So, by getting a new laptop I wasn’t sure that the problem that I was having would go away. Like a good geek, I headed over to the Apple discussion forums where I posted a question in which I asked if the replacement laptop that I was about to receive would have the same problem as my current laptop. One of the replies that I received suggested that maybe I should try and clean my laptop and that it may just be dirty. In order to clean it, the commenter suggested that I try and use a Mr. Clean Eraser. Since I had nothing to loose, I went to Wal-Mart and picked up two magic erasers.
After just a couple of swipes (don’t do it too hard) of the eraser my MacBook started to look new once again! I guess my problem wasn’t as severe as I initially thought it was. Since my MacBook now looks as good as new, I decided to cancel the exchange and keep my existing MacBook. In order to prevent this problem from happening again, I’ve gone ahead and purchaseed a Macpad from Macstyles.com. Hopefully this will protect the palm rest and help to keep my MacBook clean and looking good.
To be honest, I’m a little surprised that my MacBook looked dirty after having it for < 1 month. I would have thought that Apple would have figured out how to produce plastic that isn’t so susceptible to getting dirty. After all, when I spend $1400 on a laptop, I don’t expect it to look dirty after three weeks of use. Come on Apple, you can do better then this :).
If your MacBook is starting to look a little dingy, I recommend that you try out the Mister clean eraser. It really made my dirty MacBook look clean again.