14 DAY TRIAL // Not long after Apple announced its new, unibody, plastic MacBook, the teardown-obsessed people at iFixit got their hands on a unit and took it apart. As usual, the teardown steps are accompanied by relevant imagery, showing to the world what Apple put inside its newest MacBook model. iFixit specializes in MacBook repairs, and even sells the tools one is required to pop open a machine and replace / repair parts.
Below is a breakdown of iFixit’s findings regarding the new, polycarbonate MacBook. Readers are also encouraged to head over to this page and see a complete list of specifications for the device in question.
Case
According to the team at iFixit, there are no more rubber feet to tear off. Eight Phillips #00 screws hold the lower case in place (two less than the 13" Pro, the technicians point out), while, “The lower case is surprisingly heavy, weighing in at 266 grams.” This is because, “The lower case is actually a sheet of aluminum with rubberized coating injection-molded onto one side,” iFixit explains. “In contrast, the lower case on the 13" Pro weighs only 142 grams, so the rubber coating nearly doubles the part's weight,” the team adds.
Battery
“The battery is held in with both tri-wing and Phillips screws, an indication that Apple doesn't want you replacing the battery yourself,” the people that help thousands repair their devices every day say. “The battery is 60 watt-hours, the same capacity as the 13" MacBook Pro [and] despite its higher capacity, this new battery is actually lighter than the previous MacBook's battery. This battery boasts a power to weight ratio that's 23.5% better than its predecessor,” the teardown continues to reveal.
Inner workings
The MacBook now uses PC3-8500 RAM just like every member in Apple’s notebook line. “The hard drive isn't as easy to replace as it used to be [although] it is still considered ‘user replaceable’ by Apple. It's strange that the hard drive is ‘user replaceable,’ but the battery is not,” iFixit notes. Other observations include:
- unlike the earlier plastic MacBooks, AirPort and Bluetooth share the same board; - the Bluetooth model number is BCM943224PCIEBT; - all three antenna cables appear to route into the display assembly; - the optical drive is an 8x SATA SuperDrive; it's a Panasonic model UJ898, made in China September of 2009 and it has a fan; - the logic board and heat sink come out as a single part; - sports a[n] NVIDIA 9400M GPU and an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz CPU.
Concluding that, “The new MacBook is quite a nice machine to disassemble,” iFixit promises to post detailed repair guides for the respective machine in the future. The team also plans on taking apart Apple's new iMac as soon as it can get one on the operation table.