Teardowns find Apple's 2017 MacBook & MacBook Pro models virtually unchanged in design
Apple's new 12-inch MacBook and 13-inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro models are essentially unchanged from their predecessors apart from performance boosts, according to teardowns published on Thursday.
The biggest design change, in fact, is that the 12-inch MacBook now uses a second-generation butterfly keyboard like the one in 2016 Pros, repair firm iFixit said. The tweak should make keys more responsive.
iFixit scored both of the test machines a 1 out of 10 on its repairability scale, noting that as before, the CPU, RAM, and flash memory are soldered to the logic board, making user replacements impossible. Batteries, meanwhile, remain glued-down, and the Pro's Touch Bar is said to "add a second screen to damage" without a way of safely removing it.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro.
The situation contrasts with a teardown of this year's new iMacs, which found they were actually easier to upgrade than previous models, if still difficult because of the steps needed to get inside.
Both the 12-inch MacBook and 13/15-inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro lines now use Intel's Kaby Lake processors, and/or faster AMD Radeon GPUs. Prices start at $1,299 for the basic MacBook, and $1,799 for a 13-inch Touch Bar Pro. A 15-inch Pro is at least $2,399.
The biggest design change, in fact, is that the 12-inch MacBook now uses a second-generation butterfly keyboard like the one in 2016 Pros, repair firm iFixit said. The tweak should make keys more responsive.
iFixit scored both of the test machines a 1 out of 10 on its repairability scale, noting that as before, the CPU, RAM, and flash memory are soldered to the logic board, making user replacements impossible. Batteries, meanwhile, remain glued-down, and the Pro's Touch Bar is said to "add a second screen to damage" without a way of safely removing it.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro.
The situation contrasts with a teardown of this year's new iMacs, which found they were actually easier to upgrade than previous models, if still difficult because of the steps needed to get inside.
Both the 12-inch MacBook and 13/15-inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro lines now use Intel's Kaby Lake processors, and/or faster AMD Radeon GPUs. Prices start at $1,299 for the basic MacBook, and $1,799 for a 13-inch Touch Bar Pro. A 15-inch Pro is at least $2,399.
Comments
Apple should use standard ports and components, not soldered. And why is the very same make and model of RAM purchased from Apple Store two to three times more expensive than in retailers like Amazon?
But...besides the faster on-chip graphics in the Kabylake processor, those new top of the line MBPs also come with Radeon 5xx mobile GPUs that are much faster than the previous generation's Radeon 4xx mobile GPUs. While a faster built-in GPU would be great for visually interacting with data or gaming on-the-go, when back at your desk, you would probably want to use a desktop-class GPU anyway (connected via Thunderbolt 3 using one of the new kits) thus negating any real value of the newer models' 5xx mobile GPUs.
Actually quite its happy about it 😃
2) To understand pricing you need to look at the entire model line. You can't look at a build option and say, "but the cost difference from the vendor is only x so Apple should only charge me x to upgrade." The lowest-end of a product line usually has a lower profit margin than the top end so that a company can create an average profit margin. This isn't shady or even clever. It's standard business. You see this quite prominently with their iPhones which only used storage capacity as their differentiating factor. We know that the cost of doubling (or quadrupling, in some cases) the NAND isn't a flat $100, and we know that other components can be of higher quality.
They could use standard SSDs, true. But they opted for lower-power, faster storage instead.
To be fair, there are probably a great deal of AI readers that do. You're welcome to state your opinion, of course, but you should also realize that you're jousting at windmills.
We aren't Apple's target market anymore! As-is, the MacBook and MacBook Pro suit probably a solid 90% of Apple's audience, and it's probably more.
I'm not doing the reviews of the new gear, but I'll inquire.
The End.
I could care less about the graphics card, but I needed 1 TB and whatever maximum RAM I could get.
Good one!
I am actually seriously considering buying a MB instead of a MBP. Though I see your points I am not sure it would matter to me. I would probably get a small usb-c splitter so I could charge and attach a usb-c connected external SSD, but 90% of the time I would use the laptop either completely naked - No, the laptop, not me (though don't entirely exclude the possibility), and the rest of the time plugged into a 24 or 27" monitor / hub. The camera is a non issue for me. I use it probably less than once per year. Facetimimg is always done on the iPhone.
On the other hand, in a "non-portable" device, like an iMac that's going to sit in the same place on a desk for most of its lifetime, you can afford to use socketed components since the typical stress load is lower, so it's much less likely for a component to come loose. Even so, Apple has other factors in consideration when making decisions about building its computers. At the moment, it makes most sense for them to build them the way they are doing it now, it's possible that next year those considerations will be different, and they will make different decisions as a result.