Many people are probably drooling over the new line of Apple products, including the MacBook Pro with its awesome retina display, however, many are voicing their opinion of Apple’s continued migration towards machines that are not user-serviceable.
According to articles on iFixit and SlashGear, the new Apple MacBook Pro will pose a number of problems for those who like to work on their own computers, as well as computer repair and service personnel. Here are a few nuggets gleaned from the iFixit teardown:
- Proprietary fasteners are used, requiring special driver (called “Pentalobe”)
- RAM is impossible to upgrade – soldered to the motherboard
- Proprietary SSD drive (no aftermarket alternative as of now)
- Proprietary battery components glued in place
- Display is fused – requiring replacement of complete assembly
Along with your expensive MacBook Pro will be expensive maintenance, most certainly accomplished through returning the device to the Apple Store, who will not service it there, sending it to a repair facility.
Turnaround on something as simple as a battery replacement could be a week, or more. Which could be compared to minutes for many Windows based notebooks.
Replacement of the Retina display in the event is damaged would be quite expensive, probably over 350 dollars, compared to half that for some mainstream Windows based notebooks.
The original article can be found here: Apple MacBook Pro with Retina Display Tear Down and over on SlashGear you can find this article: Retina MacBook Pro teardown reveals new heights of user-inaccessibility
We perform Mac repairs, however, with the move towards this type of construction, we may have to re-evaluate that offering, based on whether parts are made available to us.