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MacBook Pro Shortages Continue as Apple Struggles to Deliver Replacement Machines

Tuesday February 8, 2011 1:48 pm PST by Eric Slivka

Reports of tightening supplies for Apple's MacBook Pro models continue today, with one reader letting us know that he was just informed by Apple that a replacement for his faulty machine will likely not be available for 4-6 weeks, and possibly as long as 8 weeks.

The long lead time was reportedly cited for a replacement on a custom-configured MacBook Pro carrying the top-of-the-line 2.8 GHz Core i7 processor, and models with both traditional hard drives and solid state drives have been said to be subject to the same shipping timeframes.

Considering the long wait times, Apple offered the customer the option of waiting for replacement model to come available, a full refund, or a replacement with a standard configuration that would be more readily available.

Despite some hints that a MacBook Pro refresh may occur in the near future, questions have been raised about whether a design error with the chips expected to be used in the updated models would delay a potential launch. But just yesterday Intel announced that it will begin shipping the dual-core Sandy Bridge chips that would presumably appear in the MacBook Pro on February 20th, meaning that Apple could release updated machines relatively soon after.

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