iFixit earlier this week posted a teaser of its MacBook Pro teardown, and now, the site is back with a full video that gives us a clear look at the components inside the new MacBook Pro models.
As iFixit mentioned in its first article, it’s easier to get into a MacBook Pro than it was before because Apple is no longer gluing the batteries in place. Instead, there are adhesive pull tabs that make battery replacement more streamlined. Repairs aren’t simple, though, because there’s the speaker system to deal with near the battery, and the adhesive tabs for the two main battery cells can only be accessed by removing the trackpad.
The fans are bigger than the fans that were in the prior-generation machine, and there’s more space for the speaker system due to the thicker chassis. There’s a 99.6Wh battery in the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which is a bit smaller than the battery in the prior-generation model. With efficiency improvements introduced with the M1 Pro and Max chips, battery life is much improved.
There’s an updated display cable design that gives them more slack when the display is opened and closed, which should prevent the “Flexgate” issues that have plagued older MacBook Pro models.
The three USB-C ports, the MagSafe port, and the headphone jack are modular for simple repairs, but the HDMI port and the SD card slot are soldered in place on the logic board. Memory and storage are integrated and not user replaceable.
All in all, iFixit gave the MacBook Pro a repair score of 4/10 because of the use of pentalobe screws, the difficulty removing the top cover, and issues with repairing features like the fingerprint sensor and the display, which lose functionality with component swaps.
iFixit also plans to do a full written teardown of the 14-inch MacBook Pro, which it says is very similar to the 16-inch machine. That teardown will be updated later.
