First Teardowns Reveal New MacBook Pro’s Repairability

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The first MacBook Pros are slowly making their way out into the wild, and one teardown is revealing some details on the internals of these new laptops.

The photo comes from a Reddit user posting in the r/Apple subreddit, who was eager to pull apart their shiny new 14-inch MacBook Pro. As reported by MacRumors, these photos give us our first unofficial look at what is different internally this time around.

In addition to the photos, the Reddit user provided some insight into what they were seeing. They stated that opening up the back lid to get inside is identical to on previous MacBook Pros released from 2016-2021. It uses the same “pentalobe” screws and clips that need to be manually popped before you pull the lid toward the front of the machine.

Once you have the lid off, you’ll see a familiar sight. However, there are some subtle changes that should drastically improve repairability and long-term sustainability for the MacBook Pro. The biggest difference is the battery, which is no longer glued to the frame. They now use pull tabs as used on the iPhone, which allows for easy access to swapping it out.

The Reddit user notes how big of an impact this could have on the overall sustainability of the product as it pertains to e-waste. No more throwing out the entire laptop to service a dead battery!

Another improvement is that the ports (including MagSafe) seem to be “modular and easy to place,” as the user notes. Again, the more features of the laptop that can be replaced the better.

The Reddit user also confirmed that the black keyboard deck “is still part of the unibody,” meaning that it can’t be easily replaced. While Apple made an improvement in this regard when switching from its butterfly switches back to the more conventional Magic Keyboard, it could be better.

We’ll have to wait for the inevitable full breakdown by iFixit to learn more, but it certainly seems like Apple made some small but meaningful changes to improve the repairability of this device.

Laptops that let you replace components like storage and memory do far better, and a fully modular device like the Framework Laptop takes it even further. MacBook Pros have long since been known for poor upgradability and repairability, especially in the generation of designs from 2016 until now.

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