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MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

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Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#321

Post by mscasts »

simonh wrote: post #310
mscasts wrote: post #293

I love how Apple claim to care so much about the environment and then goes on to create basically the most unfixable pieces of hardware possible. Great job, really awesome for the environment Apple.

Only a tiny percentage of laptops are ever upgraded. If making the device upgradable and accessible adds the same percentage in materials then it's pretty much a wash. Also Apple devices on average have much longer service lives than devices from most other manufacturers. On average they stay usable longer, and even when they are replaced they're more likely to be handed on and keep in use even without upgradability.…

> Only a tiny percentage of laptops are ever upgraded.

Probably yes and that is also probably because behaviors like this. Manufacturers have trained consumers for years that upgrading of fixing stuff is not worth it. Personally, I have upgraded every laptop I have ever owned. This isn't possible with todays Macbooks.

> Also Apple devices on average have much longer service lives than devices from most other manufacturers

Bullshit, if anything I believe the opposite is true. What is your source for this?

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#322

Post by jaytaylor »

kmlx wrote: post #307
asaddhamani wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget about the RAM. The SSD is also soldered to the logic board. That's ridiculous.

isn't this for performance purposes?

Soldering it down doesn't provide any quantifiable performance improvements. It probably allows them to make it smaller / thinner, and less expensive to manufacture. However, now if any one component (memory, CPU, SSD drive) goes bad the entire set must be tossed! When this happens, it will be expensive for the unlucky customer. All so Apple could avoid including a bit more plastic for the component sockets.

Also, SSD drives have a limited number of write cyclew before they stop working, usually some 10's of TBW (terabytes written). For normal users, it will take them a very long time to wear out the drive. Conversely, developers and power user types may find their setups doing 50GB or more of writes per day. So for example, if a drive is rated for 75TBW, a power user could wear it out after only a couple of years.

I have some Samsung SSDs at home where I regularly track and monitor the write usage, and I'm always surprised at how many writes occur on my [often idle] Windows machine. Background OS and application activity is my hypothesis for the cause. The primary windows partition drive will probably need replacing within a year, and will have lasted three or four years.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#323

Post by diffeomorphism »

simonh wrote: post #310
mscasts wrote: post #293

I love how Apple claim to care so much about the environment and then goes on to create basically the most unfixable pieces of hardware possible. Great job, really awesome for the environment Apple.

Only a tiny percentage of laptops are ever upgraded. If making the device upgradable and accessible adds the same percentage in materials then it's pretty much a wash. Also Apple devices on average have much longer service lives than devices from most other manufacturers. On average they stay usable longer, and even when they are replaced they're more likely to be handed on and keep in use even without upgradability.…

> Only a tiny percentage of laptops are ever upgraded.

A larger percentage however needs repairs (apple care sells well for a reason). A 1/10 score means that a "repair" will basically be throwing (large parts of) the laptop away and exchanging it for a new one.

Similarly recycling is made much harder by this design.

> This is why they retain more of their second hand value.

And because there is large base of people paying that much for them. A high-priced sony vaio, elitebook, thinkpad etc. stays usable just as long and there is large interest in the secondary market (e.g. see reddit's /r/thinkpad) but at much lower prices. Macbook buyers instead treat them as design objects first (which keep value) and computers second.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#324

Post by Symbiote »

nikanj wrote: post #186
tolmasky wrote: post #165

I went with my gf to take a look at these last night at the Apple store. Her command key has completely stopped working on her 2018 MacBook that otherwise works perfectly fine. It feels clumsily large, especially since we’re coming from MacBook 13s. She kept asking me if I’d heard any rumors about when new 13s would come out. She went in pretty determined to get a new machine but decided to wait. The struggle continu…

A few blasts of compressed air very likely will fix the keyboard. We have cans of it spread throughout the office, because it took Apple three laptop generations to admit to their faults

Please avoid calling the "gas duster" type cans "compressed air". It's misleading.

They usually contain compressed fluorocarbons like difluoroethane. These are toxic chemicals, which are also potent greenhouse gases. Their casual use for cleaning should be discouraged.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#325

Post by epanchin »

mscasts wrote: post #293

I love how Apple claim to care so much about the environment and then goes on to create basically the most unfixable pieces of hardware possible. Great job, really awesome for the environment Apple.

I’ve never known anyone to throw away a Mac. They get used until the temptation to upgrade becomes too big, then sold onto someone with different needs.

I don’t have a Mac, and I think they should be more repairable, but I still think they’re ahead of most the rest.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#327

Post by Sangeppato »

_ph_ wrote: post #318
simonh wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a tiny percentage of laptops are ever upgraded. If making the device upgradable and accessible adds the same percentage in materials then it's pretty much a wash. Also Apple devices on average have much longer service lives than devices from most other manufacturers. On average they stay usable longer, and even when they are replaced they're more likely to be handed on and keep in use even without upgradability.…

Upgrading a laptop might increase its useful service life, but if bought well-specced, this isn't the biggest problem. The elephant in the room are repairs. Due to the design, too many repairs are not economic, so machines get thrown away early. Repairs, which should cost way less with a design that at least allows repairability.

Exactly. When I had some sticky keys on a 2015 MacBook Pro, the Genius told me that the only way to fix that was to replace the whole top case and it wouldn't have been cheap. I just went home, searched a bit on YouTube, removed the keycaps and cleaned them. It's the same for batteries: they want you to replace the whole top case for a stupid battery that they could have made much easier to remove (it's still possible to do it BTW)

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#328

Post by rimliu »

mscasts wrote: post #293

I love how Apple claim to care so much about the environment and then goes on to create basically the most unfixable pieces of hardware possible. Great job, really awesome for the environment Apple.

Ok, you got a replaceable battery. Now when you replace it you not only have old battery but also the hard shell for that battery to throw out. The same goes for storage. You don't have soldered storage, you have cased SDD. How is this any better than Apples solution?

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#329

Post by mscasts »

epanchin wrote: post #325
mscasts wrote: post #293

I love how Apple claim to care so much about the environment and then goes on to create basically the most unfixable pieces of hardware possible. Great job, really awesome for the environment Apple.

I’ve never known anyone to throw away a Mac. They get used until the temptation to upgrade becomes too big, then sold onto someone with different needs. I don’t have a Mac, and I think they should be more repairable, but I still think they’re ahead of most the rest.

Please stop with the apologetic fanboy rhethoric. It's not helping. I have thrown away several macbooks and I know several people that has too.

I used to have Macbooks, I upgraded them with new disks and memory. Today that would not have been possible which is one big reason I would never buy a macbook to begin with.

This behavior is bad for all consumers of their products and should not be defended with anecdotal stuff like "people don't throw away their macbooks" which is easily refuted by going to a garbage site.

Re: MacBook Pro 16" 2019 Teardown

#330

Post by cwingrav »

zelienople wrote: post #133

In case you haven't noticed, the planet is burning. Don't buy a laptop with a repairability score of 1.

Probably should look at the whole picture. They use recyclable materials and have recycling programs to collect them as they are very easy to break down into reusable parts: https://www.apple.com/in/environment/
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