gdgt

Had a similar situation. I bought my 1st-gen Air from the US with a 3 year warranty. The hinge broke, so I took it to the local Apple maintenance here in Estonia. They took photos, then ordered the part and called back in a week when the part had arrived to schedule the repair. It took them an hour to repair and thats it. Painless.

A few thoughts:

- Clearly this is a design flaw, the guy who changed the hinge told it is pretty common
- They switch the whole screen, I am not certain, but the replacement screen seems to be of lower quality than the 1st gen screen I had, which is a shame
- Now the hinge moves harder, maybe even uncomfortably so

I hope that if it breaks again it will do so before my warranty runs out.

My hinge wasn't broken, but it was lose, so I took it into my local Apple Store. They Genius told me that I can only adjust the angle using the center of the display. As you can imagine I took offense about the fact that he inferred it was damaged cause by me. I told him that this was not my first Mac and this is the first I'd heard of a right and wrong way to adjust the lid. Anyways, they fixed it and I only adjust it from the center, we'll see how long it lasts before it gets lose again.

My broken hinge will not be repaired by Apple not free or for a price, they didn't even gave a quote. Apple's policy for repairing the hinge problem under AppleCare is that if the machine has no damage that may have produced the problem, then it gets repaired. So, they used a small hit my machine got a year ago to say the problem was my fault. Apple covered their asses nicely. Now I how the Air to everybody that I can saying: Don't get a Mac. I will travel with the Air and transform a 2000$ machine from a worthless crap into an advertisement against Apple.

My MacBook Air had this problem. I brought it to an Apple Store and they didn't bat an eyelash at fixing it. Pretty simple. No editorial comments, no questions. They just fixed it.

A follow-up. I have my MBA back from the Apple Store. The fix was listed as:

"We replaced these parts (I'm summarzing):

Foam (3 different foam parts)
Antenna window
Clutch (2 different clutch parts - I'm guess these are the hinges)
Bezel

I'd say the bezel is refurbished, it lacks the "wear and tear" my MBA experienced in Iraq. It's not new though, it has some scratches. I can't tell if the other parts are new or refurbished.

Now my MBA is good as new. Sort of. Look for my discussion on battery life.