Apple’s new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar have arrived, and our friends at iFixit have already dutifully taken one apart to reveal what’s lurking under the surface.
The most interesting revelation? The laptop’s new speaker grilles don’t house new speakers, but may instead exist purely for design purposes.
iFixit’s review notes:
“Gently nestled between MacBook’s edge and the keyboard are two speaker grilles — carefully crafted vents that channel sound waves out of the MacBook Pro straight to … wait. The speakers are not located under the speaker grilles. The speaker grille doesn’t even go clear through the case. These speakers likely blast their impressive sound through the side air vents. The ‘grilles’ are seemingly cosmetic, maybe to unify the product line.”
So what’s the mystery? Some users insist that covering the MacBook Pro speaker grille significantly affects the sound of audio played on the laptop, despite iFixit’s insistence that the openings doesn’t go clear through the case.
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While I haven’t yet managed to get my hands on a MacBook Pro, and therefore can’t confirm or deny whether this is indeed the case, this wouldn’t be the first time Jony Ive opted for a faux grille on a new Apple product. iFixit’s previous teardown of the iPhone 7 Plus shows that the handset’s second lower speaker grille also leads to nowhere.
The iFixit MacBook teardown also confirms that the days of upgradeable MacBook Pros are well and truly over. Giving the laptop a repairability score of 1 out of 10 (for the trackpad, which can be removed without first removing the battery), the report notes the following strikes against Apple:
- Proprietary pentalobe screws make opening up the laptop tough.
- Battery assembly is glued solidly to the case.
- Processor, RAM and flash memory are soldered to the computer’s logic board.
- The Touch Bar is difficult to replace, while also giving you another screen to risk damaging.
- The Touch ID sensor also acts as a power switch, paired with the T1 chip on the logic board.
Reviews for the computer, which started rolling out earlier this week, have so far been hit-and-miss — with many praising aspects of the MacBook Pro (such as the keyboard and display) while ripping others (the lack of ports) and feeling “meh” about the others (the Touch Bar).
Are you planning to buy the new MacBook Pro? Leave your comments below.
Source: iFixit
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.
5 responses to “MacBook Pro teardown reveals mystifying speaker grilles”
ifixit doesn’t understand acoustics and vibration, my guess they’re designed to transmit vibration through the little wells rather than push air through little holes.. and the sound that comes out the vents.. I bet that relies on REFLECTION off the desk… if you lift this laptop off the hard surface you’ll lose some of both volume and bass. ;) drilling little holes through the front would affect cooling and allow moisture and dirt to get in as well as clog up…
Seriously? “my guess they’re designed to transmit vibration through the little wells rather than push air through little holes”?
It’s purely aesthetic, nothing more.
It’s not necessarily just cosmetic. The shape, thickness and resonance of a sound enclosure has as much to do with the quality and tone of the sound as the speaker itself. The physics of how air moves inside specific shapes and the resonant quality of the materials used is a HUGE part of sound and speaker engineering that companies spend big bucks on to make their products sound the best they can. All the major speaker manufacturers sweat the details of speaker design to get the most out of their products. Drilling tiny holes in a material can dramatically affect the way it vibrates and transmits sound.
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https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9fa4b1562cfe0ab0b6767a07bc58602b6ba8f86df701e3f940546bb794ee8a27.png I think if you had a brain and knew anything about speaker enclosures you would realise they are exits for any low (bass) frequency resonating around the case, as in a reflex speaker it allows the base cone part of the speaker to move more and produce more bass ….