Help! Customer hinge broken!

[Tobeman]

A good customer of the shop I work in just came in, and seeing as none of us have any experience with Macs or Apple products.

His laptop fell off a ledge from a small height (backs up my theory that build quality on anything Apple is a bit anff, but thats for another topic ) and the left hinge has broken. From browsing over the net I see this is a common problem (see sarcastic remark in first set of brackets), and I can only find a few US sites that offer a hinge replacement. He has already contacted an Apple store in London and apparently they charge £50 to even look at it before telling him whats needed and any extra labour.. so he came to us.

I am able to get a left hinge replacement kit for about £90 from powerbookmedic.com however im not sure if that includes delivery. We would much rather purchase from somewhere from the UK as he desperately wants it repaired.

The laptop is a Powerbook G4 (with dvi output, there appears to be two models from what I have read)

Please advise!

Regards

Tobeman

[bsodmike]

All of the pbooks now support DVI output (iirc, the 15/17 do for sure) so it's best to find out what model he has (12/15/17). Have a look on fleabay, you might be able to find a hinge there, but not necessarily cheaper.

[Tobeman]

If it was for a mate I'd definately use eBay, except this is for a customer and eBay isn't really an option. However he is a frequent customer and has some kind of faith in us - thanks for the idea I'll still check it out!

It looks 12" to me.

[herulach]

Dont commit to doing anything unless you have a definate price, try getting in touch with apple directly (rather than through a store) they may sell you the bit.

[Tobeman]

I briefly attempted that, but Apples site is a bit cack and I don't have the time to sit around trying to find a damn contact number.. oh wait I found it, well I said to the customer I'd call him at 3:30pm, so I've got less than half an hour!