iFixit tears down the new Retina MBP, calls it ‘least repairable laptop’ yet

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

More details here:

http://9to5mac.com/2012/06/13/ifixit...e-laptop-ever/

Some of the “highlights” of the teardown are below, including details on the difficulties with repairability:

* Just like in the iPhone 4/4S (and the MacBook Air), proprietary Pentalobe screws prevent folks from accessing the machine’s internals. That means you need a special screwdriver just to remove the bottom cover.

* As in the MacBook Air, the RAM is soldered to the logic board. Max out at 16GB now, or forever hold your peace—you can’t upgrade.

* The proprietary SSD isn’t upgradeable either (yet), as it is similar but not identical to the one in the Air. It is a separate daughtercard, and we’re hopeful we can offer an upgrade in the near future.

* The lithium-polymer battery is glued rather than screwed into the case, which increases the chances that it’ll break during disassembly. The battery also covers the trackpad cable, which tremendously increases the chance that a user will shear the cable in the battery removal process.

* The display assembly is completely fused, and there’s no glass protecting it. If anything ever fails inside the display, you will need to replace the entire (extremely expensive) assembly.

It does look shiny though.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The cooling system looks really compact considering it has to cool a 45W TDP CPU,and a GT650M GPU.

[Greecean]

^ WOW that really is compact - very impressive!

[jimborae]

Note to self, "Don't buy an unrepairable Mac"

[GeorgeStorm]

It's impressive in a way, although does mean if almost anything breaks, you'll need to send the whole laptop off for repair, can't fix anything yourself.
Also read that while it says it's made of highly recyclable aluminium and glass, it's not possible to recycle either when they are glued together like they were in the ipad or this new mac, if true, nice one apple...

I think it's a step backwards overall, but apple fans will still buy it.

[DannyM]

Out of curiosity what will Apple cover in the first year if anything breaks? Is it everything covered so long as it wasn't damaged by the user? What sort of cover do they offer after the first year?

I've fixed a few none apple laptop screens that were out of warranty fairly cheaply for people. I can imagine it been a costly endeavour after the first year for macbook owners.

I'd love a macbook with the retina display but the extra cost of the machine and potential costs of any future repairs should make this a laptop to avoid unless it suited to your profession.

[dave87]

I think if you buy one of these you'll either end up insuring it or have sufficiently high income to enable replacement should it break - they're not going to be cheap, are they?

[mbkuk1]

this is not good new's note to self new macbook = poo

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The display is not as impressive as I originally thought!!

Anandtech is very happy with the laptop,but I do think he has sidestepped something which is a bit of a fail:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/t...splay-review/5

"Apple made no mention of impact to color accuracy or color gamut. It turns out that the omission was for good reason, the Retina Display offers no improvement along either vector. The numbers show a slight regression compared to last year’s panel but the difference is imperceivable. "

Coloure accurracy looks rather poor for an IPS panel.

It seems the HP Elitebook 8740W and 8760W which uses IPS panels and the Dell M6500 which uses a TN panel(these are 1920X1080 and 1920X1200 panels) have higher colour accuracy:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4673/h...or-so-dreamy/7

The consumer 13.3" glossy display in the Sony Z2 and 11.6" glossy display in the Asus UX21 are better too:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5530/s...s-peripheral/6

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5843/a...ux21a-review/4

The Asus has the most colour accurate display of all laptops!! The MBP does have a 16% higher pixel density.

[SixFeet]

don't all apple products rate very low on ifixit?

[pp05]

This is why they lost their 'green' rating in the US and with it government sales. Turned out they wanted to change what qualifies for green star.

[yefi]

* Just like in the iPhone 4/4S (and the MacBook Air), proprietary Pentalobe screws prevent folks from accessing the machine’s internals. That means you need a special screwdriver just to remove the bottom cover.

Why do manufacturers bother with tamper-proof screws? It's not like if you want to open it, that's going to stop you. Pentalobe screwdrivers are available on ebay from uk sellers for 99p...

[pctech2012]

Of course Apple don't want you to be able to fix it, they want to flog you Applecare or their overpriced repair services.