My iBook took a tumble off of a stack of
Total Control 1000s yesterday and cracked the screen frame.
My previous iBook fell off my dorm bed and cracked in the same place. I was able to replace the frame and it eventually died of the G3 logic board bug. I think the screen frames are the same, so I'm going to try replacing the frame with one from my G3.
While it may be asking too much for a consumer notebook to survive falling three feet onto the steel plate at the base of a telco rack, all my non-iBook laptops have survived much worse.
I suspect the magnesium frame used in the iBook is too brittle and can't handle the sheer stress next to the hinge.
Prior to the iBooks, I had a Sony VAIO with a 17 inch screen. It survived falling five feet off a ironing board. My brother is using it now, six years later. Its hard drive died and was replaced a few months ago.
The Toshiba 486 laptop that I used in my early teens survived even worse handling.
If I can repair it, my iBook will stay safely at home. I'll try to find a used Panasonic CF-28 for field work. I doubt I can break one of those. I don't need a gaming powerhouse, just something that is compatible with Ubuntu and will run Firefox with decent performance.
Labels: laptop, work