Teardown: Inside The New Plastic MacBook

Leander Kahney ()

macbook_teardown_battery

iFixit’s teardown of the new white polycarbonate MacBook reveals nice, tight construction, but also some scrimping.

Apple has added a faster processor, a bright LED display, a big new built-in battery that adds two  hours of extra life (Apple claims) and an improved Bluetooth antenna that promises to improve reception. The MacBook also has a space-age heat sink to cool the faster chip.

But Apple giveth, and Apple taketh away. Gone is the FirWire port and IR sensor, making it the only shipping Mac portable with no remote control.

Gone also are the two fake screws on the left side of the old MacBook that Steve Jobs insisted on to make the machine look symmetrical.

Announced today, the new MacBook costs $999, the same as the machine it replaces.

Hit the jump for more teardown action.

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The new battery is 60 watt-hours, the same as the more expensive 13” MacBook Pro. Apple claims two hours of extra run time. It’s easily serviceable with a little bit of disassembly with some specialized tools.

macbook_teardown_chips

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Here’s the Macbook’s CPU and Nvidia graphics processor, which like the battery, are the same as those in the basic 13” MacBook Pro.

macbook_teardown_heat_sink

The space-age heat sink.

2 comments »

About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, Hardware, Macbook, News |

  • Andrea

    I know it’s totally OT, but from my RSS reader looks like you’re feed is totally f***ed up. It doesn’t show up the new posts

  • imajoebob

    This makes the MacBook line as convoluted as Windows Vista. The White MB costs 200 bucks less than the 13″ MBP, has the same processor and video, and comes with a bigger HDD. Even with the Firewire. SD card (feh), and remote (double-feh!), this makes the 13″ MBP the ENTRY LEVEL system. But it costs more?

    I think they’ll have to do a revamp of MBP processors, bumping the 13″ to 2.53 and 2.66GHz. Could keeping the MacBook at $999 end up being a de facto price cut for the MBP?