Having never ordered a laptop online before, I was sure to check the box for any signs of rough handling when it arrived. I examined both the brown external box and the internal white one for any scuffs, dents, and scrapes and was satisfied with their condition. But then I became so absorbed in transferring my data and playing with the new hardware that I neglected to give the entire laptop a detailed once-over. It wasn’t until the next morning that I noticed a problem: the Apple power adaptor had pressed a nice square dent pattern into the MacBook Pro’s bottom case during shipping.

​Four dents in a perfect square – a dead giveaway.

​If you aren’t familiar with Apple’s laptop boxes​, here’s a photo:

The white power brick is held directly under the laptop’s back corner.​

​Thankfully, the Genius ​Bar replaced the bottom case for free, but it’s a little disconcerting to see how far Apple’s trend of minimizing their shipping boxes has gone. There shouldn’t be any way to apply that much pressure to the MacBook during shipping, but the tiny box can’t provide enough protection. I’m curious to know if this is a common issue; both the Genius and Applecare technician claimed they’d never heard of it before. So if you have a Retina Macbook Pro, or possibly a MacBook Air or older Pro, check the bottom! While I can’t be sure, it’s possible that the aluminum bottom case of the Retina MacBook Pro is thinner than the older models.

​Interestingly, the Genius did hear of something similar happening to Mac Pros a few years ago. Apparently many customers were coming in with scratches all over one side panel of the Mac Pro, claiming it arrived that way in the box. Upon investigation, the factory worker who lifted the Pros into their boxes wore a large metal belt buckle that scraped against the computers.

Maybe this time a wayward employee in China is sitting on laptop boxes?

Still not going to be called the iPhone 5.

Today I’m re-launching as a “real” website at legomac.net! It’s hosted on Squarespace 6, so that means I’ll also be leaving WordPress behind. Feel free to peruse the new site and offer any suggestions, and I hope you come with as I transition over to a new platform. Since Squarespace 6 is very new, there are still a few bugs to work out; only once everything is working perfectly will I start redirecting to the new site and retire this one. So fear not, all the archived posts are still available at the new site, and I’ll be keeping up with both sites over the next few weeks until everything’s settled.

In case you haven’t heard, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is available to purchase from the Mac App Store for $19.99. My MacBook is too old to run it, so I can’t say from firsthand experience how good it is. But others seem to like it, and I’d trust the likes of Macworld and John Siracusa more than me anyway.

“We hear there are ongoing problems in European economies, which strengthened the US dollar, and the new iPhone’s obviously on the way, but we never bother to factor such things into our figures,” she said. “Instead, we just take Apple’s guidance figures, add a small chunk and cross our fingers. But in again using what we thought was a foolproof method, we nonetheless managed another miss.”