Apple's Macbook Pro with Retina Display - Incredibly Hard to Repair?
The new Macbook Pro with Retina display could be on your list of things to buy this year. However, before you take your credit card out, you should know that the notebook scores extremely low (one out of ten) in terms of repairability.
Source: iFixit
Apple's new Macbook Pro with Retina display may be one of the most sought after notebooks in the market today. However, before you rush out to buy one, take note that the team from self-repair tutorial site iFixit has given it the lowest rating possible (one out of ten) in terms of repairability This means casual D.I.Y upgrades of the notebook are also pretty much impossible, in case you were thinking of upgrading the base model yourself.
First and foremost would be the proprietary pentalobe screws, that lock the base down. The machine's RAM is soldered on so that means upgrading it yourself (or anywhere else) is out of the question -- which in turn means you've got to do your upgrades before you purchase. iFixit also determined the proprietary SSD to be non-replaceable as of now.
And from there, things seem to get worse. The built-in battery isn't screwed down, but glued down. Attempting to remove it could damage the trackpad's fragile wiring found underneath the battery. Last, but not least, should you find any problems with your new Retina display, you're pretty much stuck. The whole assembly is completely fused together (camera and antennas), without any glass to protect it. In other words, the only way to repair it is to replace the entire assembly.
During the teardown however, iFixit also discovered some interesting things about the new Macbook Pro too. It turns out that the asymmetrical design of the fan spreads the noise out into different frequencies so that it will be harder to discern, making it seem as though the notebook is incredibly silent.
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