My previous Macbook (early 2008 white, plastic one) lasted for 5 years, no issue. Battery was fine (slowly dying as all batteries, but no big deal, it just wouldn't last as long as it used to.) Then I got a message about the battery actually dying (get to service, the white early 2008 has user-replaceable battery, though.) But it was already the time I needed a more powerful computer, and I just got a new one and removed the battery of the old one (it still works perfectly fine, no longer as a portable though.) I don't expect a computer (i.e. all pieces together) to serve me for more than 4-5 years, so this battery life is more than I can expect. Of course, if it was a system I could tinker and slowly replace piece by piece, it could but I no longer feel the tradeoff of money/abilities/time is worth it.
Doesn’t like itOwned 3 years
I started on Mac in 2007, in 3 years I had 4 logic boards and hard drive failures. It was a White Macbook plastic edition. I was so impressed with the warranty in spite of the crappy heating issues, I later bought a Macbook Pro all metal edition. I got the 3 year warranty then and used it once when my logic board overheated. After that I held it for nearly 10 years until I replaced it last year.
Likes it
It's a smart move. I started using a Mac as a student in 2007 with a cheap Mac Mini and then I was so enthusiastic that I also got the white plastic MacBook, so that I could use Mac at the university. Since then I have bought countless MacBooks and some other models (I like to refresh every 1-3 years and then my old model typically gets passed along to other family members). Trying to get students to use your product is a good strategy. Also, people tend to mix pricing increases with inflation. When I my first iPhone 3G, it cost 500-700 Euro if you were able to get your hands on one without a subscription (remember when iPhones were provider-exclusive?) [1] An inflation calculator for my country tells that this is 753-1054 in current Euros. The iPhone 17 is now sold here for 839 Euro new. Same ballpark. [1] https://www.iculture.nl/nieuws/iphone-3g-als-los-toestel-87-...
Likes it
Did similar. A 2008 white macbook and a late 2008 unibody macbook (non-pro). It was a fun project. The white plastic macbook is in decent shape too with just standard light scratching on the body. It was sold for parts only but worked just fine. Needed a battery replacement, and I found some old magsafe "L" chargers for cheap. Maxed out the RAM at 4GB (Supports 6GB (4G+2G) but 1pc of 4GB DDR2 are expensive). The 2008 unibody macbook needed the lower body replaced (bad keyboard main issue) but the rest of it works fine. The original battery still worked and held some charge, but I got a 3rd party one anyway along with the magsafe "L" charger. Maxed out RAM at a usable 8GB DDR3. This was also sold dirt cheap "for parts". Both ran MX Linux for awhile until I needed the SATA SSDs. They now sit with their old mechanical hdds and the last supported OSX versions on them. Maybe one day I'll get around to selling them.
Neutral
I had the late white plastic one; I got confused, because the first x86 MacBooks looked identical.
Likes it
The fish one on my 2006 white plastic macbook takes me back.
Doesn’t like it
There have been a few instances where someone wouldn't be too far out of line in assuming planned obsolescence with Apple. An example would be the notorious 2008 Macbook. When Apple launched Mountain Lion in 2012, it ditched support for the plastic Macbooks. So, that 2008 white Macbook my girlfriend bought only got new OS updates for 3 years, which was a pretty big bummer. For comparison, similarly equipped 2008 Windows laptops can run Windows 10 today without much fuss. In the end, her LCD started to short out anyway -- a common issue with Macbooks of that era -- so we got her a basic Toshiba laptop for about 1/2 the price of a Mac. It's still humming along nicely and I just dropped an SSD in it to give it a huge speed bump.