Apple Wants to Keep You Out, MacBook Teardown Shows
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Our buddies at iFixit took their screwdrivers to a brand-new, 11-inch MacBook Air, and quickly reduced it to its component parts.
Quickly, that is, once they found a way past Apple’s unusual five-point Torx screws, which seem to be designed with one purpose in mind: To keep you out.
Apple uses very unusual five-point Torx screws throughout the MacBook Air, starting with the screws holding the bottom case cover on and extending to the screw used to hold this flash memory board onto the logic board. iFixit’s crew had to file down a couple of Phillips screwdrivers to get inside.
That “keep out” mentality extends to the rest of the MacBook Air’s interior, it appears, with a host of beautifully-designed, carefully-engineered parts that are in principle removable, but in practice almost entirely non-upgradeable.
For instance, the 64GB flash drive that stands in place of a hard drive in this system “would be easily user-replaceable,” notes iFixit, if you ignored the Torx screws.
Also, it’s a completely custom part, meaning there’s no way to order a replacement. Flash drive fried? Your only alternative will be to go through Apple support.
Same goes for the 2GB of RAM or really any of the other components.
It’s an impressive feat of engineering, but, we have to conclude, not one that invites maintenance, upgrades, or hacks and mods by the customer.
For the full disassembly, including details about which parts go where, see iFixit’s MacBook Air 11-inch model teardown.
Photos courtesy iFixit.
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Fuente: Gadget Lab
