The palm rest of the Macbook was cracking last December and I thought it was due to mishandling on my part. Turns out it’s a design defect that Apple finally admitted to. Posted here at The Inquirer and Gizmodo. Here’s the damage.

cracked palm rests

After reading the news, I went to the Apple shop at Wheelock. The repair centre is run by Sapura and I talked to the lady saying that Apple is repairing this for free even if the Macbook was out of warranty. I was put on a phone with Apple Support and talked to tech guy. I used an alpha voice and told him that Apple had admitted to this issue and was repairing this laptop for free. I assured him that the damage was right at where the lid touched the top plate. The guy said he had to talk to the cheif engineer (!!) and after a 10min hold they told me it was FOC. Repair took about 2 days, including a 1 day to wait for the part. It would have taken 3-4 days if I had left it at Wheelock. I took it straight to Toa Payoh North where the service centre was located.

Here’s the new top plate. Looks brand new as it includes a new keyboard (!!). Yay.

new top plate. nice.