A teardown of the new entry-level MacBook Pro reveals it to be one of Apple’s least upgradeable laptops.
The good news? Even the Touch Bar-free model includes some nifty upgrades. The bad? From proprietary pentalobe screws that make opening the case unnecessarily difficult to the RAM soldered to the logic board, this isn’t a laptop you’ll be able to upgrade easily.
MacBook Pro teardown takeaways
The teardown artists at iFixit also note that Apple ensures that the battery assembly “is entirely, and very solidly, glued into the case, thus complicating replacement.”
[contextly_auto_sidebar]
In addition, the proprietary PCIe SSD isn’t a standard drive, which means users must “cross [their] fingers for future compatible drives,” lest they be stuck with what they’v bought with no hope of upgrading.
Apple devices, and particularly Macs, have a long history of being tough to upgrade.
Aside from the Steve Jobs-less years in the 1990s, in which Apple embraced the idea of users being able to upgrade their Macs easily, the company never particularly liked the thought of people taking apart its products.
Still, it seems Apple has thrown in some nice new under-the-hood features with the new MacBook Pro. Among these are reconfigured keyboard keys and small, precision hinges that iFixit suggests are “likely injection molded, allowing for thinner and more precise parts.”
You’ll find more geeky details in iFixit’s first MacBook Pro teardown. Now we’re just waiting to get the teardown of the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, to see whether that’s just as tough to upgrade. We’re assuming the worst!
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
2 responses to “MacBook Pro teardown reveals why you can forget about upgrading”
Sorry, but this is a false statement; “Apple devices, and particularly Macs, have a long history of being tough to upgrade.”. Until about 5-6 years ago, Macs had been VERY easy to upgrade. So in truth, there is no “history” for this: it’s a relatively new thing, forcing people to have to buy a whole new machine every 3-4 years, instead of simply upgrading RAM, or a hard drive, etc.
Exactly. This is a post-iPad situation.