14 DAY TRIAL // During its Spring Forward event, Apple not only revealed the highly anticipated Apple Watch but also rolled out a new MacBook with Retina display.
The laptop was the first one to arrive with a USB Type-C port, and a few days after, Google followed suit and unveiled the Chromebook Pixel 2 which takes advantage of two such ports.
Now that the new MacBook is shipping out to consumers across the globe, the folks at iFixit have also got hold of their own unit, and as usual, they performed a quick teardown revealing the entrails of the new notebook.
Repairing the Retina MacBook is not for the faint of heart
The verdict? The new Retina MacBook is very hard to repair and has been given a repairability score of one out of ten. Ouch!
As iFixit has found, it is very hard to take the new MacBook apart, as pentalobe screws characteristic of Apple are holding everything in place and there’s also a new cable scheme which makes things a little thicker than they should be.
iFixit was surprised to find that a battery connector lay hidden under the logic board, which is a setup reminiscent of Apple’s iPad line.
Next up, the teardown looked at Apple’s new tapered battery cells, which were glued down and were very hard to remove and replace. The new MacBook’s battery is of a 5,263 mAh variety, which means it is just a tad more powerful than the one encountered in the 2014 11-inch MacBook Air (a 5,100 mAh powerhouse).
The Force Touch trackpad is also put under scrutiny and is described as a “slimmer, daintier version” compared to the one on the 13-inch MacBook Air trackpad.
The teardown also reveals the Broadcom BCM5976 touchscreen controller, ST Microelectronics 32F103 ARM Cortex-M based microcontroller and Linear Technology LT3954 LED Converter with Internal PWM Generator, which are in charge of running the new trackpad.
Some laptop parts are more repairable than others
Albeit being very hard to fix per ensemble, the new MacBook’s Touchpad and keyboard seem to be fairly easy to repair.
What about the brand new USB Type-C port? Well, apparently, it’s secured by a tri-wing screw and lies buried under the display Brackets.
Since there’s only one port on the MacBook, this particular component is bound to see a lot of tearing, so a lot of owners might come to a point where they will need to replace it. It will certainly not be an easy task for Apple.
