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MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown

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41–50 of 93 posts

Re: MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown

#41

This is really an iPad running MacOS, with everything soldered on, zero upgradeability and near-zero repairability. That's the antithesis of a "professional" machine. I wonder if we'll see a similar trend with the mac pro if Apple doesn't decide to scrap it completely. We run quite a few mac pros and macbook pros at work, so this has us thinking hard.

I imagine the majority of professionals that use computers as part of their professional work don't even know what an SSD is or has given any thought to its upgradability.

Re: MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown

#42

This is really an iPad running MacOS, with everything soldered on, zero upgradeability and near-zero repairability. That's the antithesis of a "professional" machine. I wonder if we'll see a similar trend with the mac pro if Apple doesn't decide to scrap it completely. We run quite a few mac pros and macbook pros at work, so this has us thinking hard.

They already have an iPad they call "Pro". "Pro" doesn't mean anything to Apple anymore. (unless you want to go cynical and say it means Profits)

At least in the iPad, the "Pro" actually means something. The iPad Pro is more powerful than any laptop by any manufacturer made before 3 years ago. For the same size and weight, you can get a non-Pro iPad Air 2, which is cheaper but lacking in that ridiculous processor and graphics power

The "Pro" iPad, in addition to these considerable spec improvements, also supports their proprietary stylus for graphics professionals.

I think the "Pro" word is not as clear in the Mac line now as it is in the iPad line.

Re: MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown

#43

> Repairability 1 out of 10 This is my main reason to stop buying Apple hardware, not so much the lack of an Esc key. The Mid 2012 model still scored 7 / 10.

I have used 1 Apple device in the last 15 years, an iPod shuffle I got as a gift (I shorted it out by sweating near it). Are other manufacturers doing much better? On my older laptop, the HDD is 2 screws to access. On the laptop my mom used previously, you had to take the CPU fan assembly out after removing the keyboard to get at the HDD.

My one-year-old Dell gaming laptop has one screw holding the entire bottom panel on, with ram/hdd/ssd/etc all easily accessible once it's off.

Re: MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> decided with this round of macbooks to shift from producing laptops into content consumption appliances like iPhone I wouldn't go that far, but I would say for a company that likes to shout so loudly about environmental waste they sure like to make disposable unmaintainable devices these days.

And will recycle them for you. http://www.apple.com/uk/recycling/

Pretty sure that's mandated by the EU.

Re: MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown

#46

This is really an iPad running MacOS, with everything soldered on, zero upgradeability and near-zero repairability. That's the antithesis of a "professional" machine. I wonder if we'll see a similar trend with the mac pro if Apple doesn't decide to scrap it completely. We run quite a few mac pros and macbook pros at work, so this has us thinking hard.

I imagine the majority of professionals that use computers as part of their professional work don't even know what an SSD is or has given any thought to its upgradability.

A lot of people know how to add a bigger disk or more RAM. Or they know somebody who knows.

Re: MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown

#47

> Repairability 1 out of 10 This is my main reason to stop buying Apple hardware, not so much the lack of an Esc key. The Mid 2012 model still scored 7 / 10.

well let us all be honest here, laptops have always been difficult to repair if at all regardless of manufacturer due to custom parts required just to meet the form factor. Desktops only if your not an all in one design are repairable if that is describable but costs of new hardware being so low its usually for many to just replace the whole machine.

I don't even worry about tablet/phone repair. On my iPhone4 I did replace the back glass a bunch of times and was more happy when they changed to anything but glass backs

Re: MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown

#48
post #38

Repairability score: 1 out of 10. No big surprise.

They could have done 2 if the SSD was user replaceable. You have to carefully planned your MBP configuration, unfortunately SSD upgrade are terribly expensive. An extra 25% of the price to go from 256GB to 1TB. Actually that's probably fine for a professional machine, as you will be alright with a smaller disk until you replace the MBP anyway. For a power-user machine that you plan to keep several (5+) years, that's…

The fact that you have to plan your disk and RAM configuration years ahead is really annoying. Especially for a laptop that's on the high end of the price range.

Re: MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar Teardown

#49

I love the fake speaker grilles that don't even go all the way through the machine... Form follows function, minimal design indeed.

I hate to admit this but I'll bite. Apple is being steered by fifty shades of Steve Ballmer now. Colored and extra-large iPhones, death to magSafe, stupid mini-iPads that have no reason to exist other than being a marketing offer.

Decisions for the sake of making decisions.

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