Complete 2018 MacBook Pro teardown shows off six-cell battery, bigger speakers
Finishing up its teardown of the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro, iFixit on Monday noted that the computer has bigger battery and speaker components, which appear to have come without an increase in overall weight.
The system has upgraded from a five-cell, 49.2 watt-hour battery to a 58 watt-hour six-cell part, the repair firm said. The battery is indeed slightly heavier, up to 232.7 grams (8.2 ounces) versus 196.7 (6.9 ounces). Updated speakers are both "longer and narrower," to the point that they bump up against the logic board.
To compensate, Apple appears to have cut some mass off of the top case, iFixit indicated.
The teardown mostly illustrates expected features of the Pro, such as its T2 co-processor for functions like "Hey Siri," security, and boot operations. One other point of interest however is its modified power adapter, model A1947, which has more shielding as well as added impact-resistant foam, at the expense of switching from a metal USB-C port to plastic.
The Pro is as hard as ever to repair, with a soldered processor and memory, and the upper case -- including the battery, keyboard, and speakers -- forming a single unit. The one significant improvement is said to lie in the trackpad, which can be removed by extracting several Torx screws.
Apple's new Pros have a variety of upgrades over 2017 models beyond standard processor and memory upgrades. These include Bluetooth 5.0, and the first use of True Tone color balancing on a Mac.
The system has upgraded from a five-cell, 49.2 watt-hour battery to a 58 watt-hour six-cell part, the repair firm said. The battery is indeed slightly heavier, up to 232.7 grams (8.2 ounces) versus 196.7 (6.9 ounces). Updated speakers are both "longer and narrower," to the point that they bump up against the logic board.
To compensate, Apple appears to have cut some mass off of the top case, iFixit indicated.
The teardown mostly illustrates expected features of the Pro, such as its T2 co-processor for functions like "Hey Siri," security, and boot operations. One other point of interest however is its modified power adapter, model A1947, which has more shielding as well as added impact-resistant foam, at the expense of switching from a metal USB-C port to plastic.
The Pro is as hard as ever to repair, with a soldered processor and memory, and the upper case -- including the battery, keyboard, and speakers -- forming a single unit. The one significant improvement is said to lie in the trackpad, which can be removed by extracting several Torx screws.
Apple's new Pros have a variety of upgrades over 2017 models beyond standard processor and memory upgrades. These include Bluetooth 5.0, and the first use of True Tone color balancing on a Mac.
Comments
I wonder what happened with Liquid Metal...
That said, those “speaker grills” are an ersatz joke. (They’re not really holes, you can’t shine a flashlight through them.)
Secondly, all the touchbar models can switch to function keys at one touch.
Your post seems whiny and misinformed.
This just goes back to Apple isn't just sitting around with their thumbs up their asses and purposely not releasing new Macs like some think. They ARE doing something, most likely with each and every model they sell now. I'd like to think that its pretty safe to say when a new Mac mini arrives it won't just be a new CPU/GPU inside of it. Same goes for iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, etc, etc. This shit simply takes time to get out the door for one reason or another whether its waiting on the proper CPU that suits what Apple wants to accomplish with a particular model, and/or whether its re-engineering/redesigning something hardware and/or software.
Agree 100%. I would also like to see just how many people complaining about the lack of Fn keys actually used the Fn keys as anything other than brightness/volume/music control buttons.
Was Apple using too much aluminum before which reduced how large the battery could be (which includes space other components could use, as well as space for cooling) and the ability to reduce weight, or did they make other changes? For instance, is the aluminum a stronger alloy, not unlike what they had to do with the iPhone 6S series over the iPhone 6S series?
PS: The battery did increase in weight, but did it increase in weight exactly as you'd expect for the additional Whrs, or is there also an increase in battery density to be noted.