I can see!

I dropped my MacBook Pro five months ago on a shoot. The MBP slipped out of a briefcase that was closed but, unknown to me, unzipped. As I lifted the briefcase and turned to walk away, the MBP slipped out and fell onto hard cement flooring, landing on its top lid. The drop whacked the screen hinges out of alignment.

Subsequently, the 15″ LED screen developed three hairline cracks that converged in the middle of the screen, like an upside-down Y-shape. At this convergence point, and also both at the top and bottom of the screen, pixels began to slowly die day after day. A one-inch strip on the left side of the screen also died.

Several months later, the black blob grew so much it became difficult to get any work done on the MBP without resorting to using an external display.

Apple cited S$1,300 to replace the broken display, the reason for the high price being that Apple will replace the entire top lid assembly—everything from the lid hinges on—instead of merely replacing the LED screen. While the top lid of my MBP was pockmarked with dents at all four corners, my priority was getting the screen replaced. A quick search on eBay turned up listings of a brand new replacement LED screen that could be purchased for approximately S$360 before shipping costs.

I had fully intended on purchasing one from eBay and replacing the screen myself (a decision I would be glad I did not make later). Yesterday, at Sim Lim Square, I chanced upon a computer repair shop that had just brought in a new batch of replacement screens for the MacBook Pro. It was quite a stroke of luck; I had gone only to window-shop, and since the LED screens for the MacBook Pro were hard to come by (the same store did not have any when I made an inquiry two months ago), I was not expecting to find one.

The shop owner quoted S$450 for the repair. ‘And we can do it right now for you,’ he added. I said yes immediately.

The repair procedure generally went well. The only time in which the repair person struggled was when it came to separating the screen from the front bezel; these two components were taped together all around with double-sided tape.

Apple’s industrial design for its products, with a seamless and unblemished appearance in mind, generally results in very little assembly points that are accessible for repair work. Take a quick look around the exterior of the top assembly of the MacBook Pro and you will not find a starting point to begin a disassembly except for two screws, hidden from plain sight and obscured from clear access, at the bottom of the front bezel. Observing how the repair person had to pry the two parts away from each other very carefully, I concluded that Apple must have thought it would be easier and quicker to replace the whole top assembly without running the risk of prying and damaging any of the individual components.

So if you need to have your computer repaired (knock on wood), I would recommend a visit to Vital Computer at #04-36, Sim Lim Square (Tel: 6883-1488).

However, I would strongly recommend that you insist on either the store owner (who worked on my Mac) or a senior tech to perform repair work on your computer; the impression I got from casually observing the store as I waited was that the junior techs could be quite novice. While I was waiting, a customer walked in with a MacBook Pro that could not start up any more. Later, I overheard the tech assigned to the job, when asked by the owner why he had not begun work on the MBP, replying rather helplessly that he did not know how to reinitialize a Mac, a procedure which really should be common knowledge to even the end user.

The other observation I made was that the techs thought nothing of using a screwdriver to pry components. Using a stainless steel screwdriver to pry plastic or, worse, soft aluminum that the chassic of a MacBook Pro is made of is definitely not best practice, is a move that gives me the chills, and is something I would not think of doing myself unless I had a plastic prying tool such as these. All techs should use these. Customers do have an emotional bond with their gadgets and would wish to see as little cosmetic blemishes arising from repair work. To be fair, the store owner did tell me that it was very difficult to separate the screen from the bezel and that he reassured me that he was ‘going to be as careful and gentle as possible’.

An hour later, I had a brand new screen. After almost half a year of staring at a black blob, having to arrange application windows around it, and just about going insane, I am so chuffed to be looking at a pristine screen again.