As always on forums, some take any post as an opportunity to air their own views without really having any interest in the content of the original post. I thank the likes of Apple Macster for the tremendously helpful advice they gave me when I was contemplating buying my first Mac, and in case the message didn't get through in my first post I'll repeat it. I have come to love the Mac experience and I most certainly did not post to rubbish Macs, because I believe they are superior to PC's in all sorts of ways.
The whole point of my post was to share my experience for the benefit of others, and that particular information concerned the quality of service but more importantly a sad acknowledgement of a couple of the points Mac critics like to jump on. One of those is that Mac owners tend to fall in love with the product so much they become defensive when problems are pointed out. The second point is that Apple seems to think they can get away with anything when it comes to service because... well, refer to point one.
In the final analysis a computer is a computer. We all have our own requirements and expectations, and mine are fairly uncomplicated. One of them happens to include an expectation that warranty or no warranty, a part costing the best part of the original cost of the whole computer should be expected to last more than 18 months. This is a long way from advising people not to go to France because of a bad experience at the Eiffel Tower.
Let's face it, I'm stuck with the thing because who's going to buy it? I just won't be leaping unthinkingly into the Apple barrel when it comes time to buy a new one. This experience is yours to take on board or disregard as you see fit.