M2 MacBook Air teardown reveals accelerometer, simple cooling system
The repair experts at iFixit have completed a teardown of the new M2 MacBook Air, revealing a very simple chip cooling mechanism, an accelerometer, and other details.
MacBook Air with M2
In a YouTube clip posted on Tuesday, iFixit walks viewers through disassembling the new MacBook Air model. Although not a full teardown or repair guide, the four-minute clip reveals several interesting details about the new device.
For example, as we've already discussed, the MacBook Air with 256GB of internal storage sports a single storage chip instead of a pair of 128GB chips as found in the 2020 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 processor.
Other Logic Board components seen in the video include the M2 chip itself, a proprietary Thunderbolt driver, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, and an accelerometer. It isn't clear what the accelerometer is for, and Apple has not yet revealed a use for it.
Cooling is another aspect of the MacBook Air that's relatively unclear. iFixit did not find any heat spreaders, and describes the built-in heat shield as "super thin" and unable to help much with heating similar to how the M1 processor is cooled in an iPad Pro.
While the MacBook Air has "a lot of thermal paste and graphite tape," and is an efficient device, iFixit notes that it isn't clear on how exactly the device maintains the proper thermals.
"Maybe the M2 Air is secretly an iPad, or maybe Apple is just letting it run hot," the site wrote.
There are some aspects to the device that should make repairs and replacements a bit easier. Like the M2 MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air sports adhesive pull tabs on the battery and ports that aren't glued down. That should make swaps simpler and faster to remove.
On the other hand, the M2 chip and the SSD are soldered onto the board. That means both components aren't easily replaced except by technicians with the proper tools.
The full teardown is available to watch on iFixit's YouTube channel. An in-depth repair guide is likely soon to come, too.
Read on AppleInsider
MacBook Air with M2
In a YouTube clip posted on Tuesday, iFixit walks viewers through disassembling the new MacBook Air model. Although not a full teardown or repair guide, the four-minute clip reveals several interesting details about the new device.
For example, as we've already discussed, the MacBook Air with 256GB of internal storage sports a single storage chip instead of a pair of 128GB chips as found in the 2020 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 processor.
Other Logic Board components seen in the video include the M2 chip itself, a proprietary Thunderbolt driver, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, and an accelerometer. It isn't clear what the accelerometer is for, and Apple has not yet revealed a use for it.
Cooling is another aspect of the MacBook Air that's relatively unclear. iFixit did not find any heat spreaders, and describes the built-in heat shield as "super thin" and unable to help much with heating similar to how the M1 processor is cooled in an iPad Pro.
While the MacBook Air has "a lot of thermal paste and graphite tape," and is an efficient device, iFixit notes that it isn't clear on how exactly the device maintains the proper thermals.
"Maybe the M2 Air is secretly an iPad, or maybe Apple is just letting it run hot," the site wrote.
There are some aspects to the device that should make repairs and replacements a bit easier. Like the M2 MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air sports adhesive pull tabs on the battery and ports that aren't glued down. That should make swaps simpler and faster to remove.
On the other hand, the M2 chip and the SSD are soldered onto the board. That means both components aren't easily replaced except by technicians with the proper tools.
The full teardown is available to watch on iFixit's YouTube channel. An in-depth repair guide is likely soon to come, too.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
I don’t know anyone who is claiming the Intel MBs were better than Apple Silicon, except maybe for Windows virtualization. Quite the opposite. Many reviewers noted how much cooler the M-series MBs are while resting on your lap.
The goal of the MBA is to create a thin, long lasting, noise-less laptop. The lack of a fan is a feature, and doesn't demonstrate that they don't care about thermals. Being fanless is the number goal for the MBA. The M2 is about as performant as a 30 to 45 W TDP x86 processor, is housed in a 11 mm thick laptop, doesn't make any fan noise, and lasts longer than competitors. It's the best laptop for basically 90% of the market. It's not even close.
Lots of sturm and drang with the release of the M2, and it's always best to ignore it. Like Maxtech's thermal pad mod. They did it with the M1 MBA too, which kept the temperatures of their M1 and M2 MBA lower for a little longer. Just your usual higher thermal capacitance soaking up a little more heat for a little longer - the pad was in contact with the bottom aluminum panel - before the system got into equilibrium and the chip reached its maximum allowed temperatures. Maxtech seemed proud of this but it's a shit take. They said it themselves: it came at the cost of bottom panel being hotter, and probably too hot to touch. They felt it was ok because they were using the MBA on a desk.
Guess who would not be ok with that? People using it as laptop, on their laps, holding it with their hands. Basically the purpose of a laptop. No OEM would do that. Even gaming laptop OEMs won't do that. This is not Apple not caring about thermals. It's Apple prioritizing thermals for how the product will be used, and they designed it as such.
Random Internet takes are not worth 2¢. They are negative information, a negative 2¢ as it were, and 99.9% of the time is not correct.
They know precisely why Apple designs and builds the computers they do. In their videos and teardowns, the "theme" is always prepared in some fashion.
About two years ago I did a bit of idle research about building my own PC. I wanted to see if I could make a fan-less desktop with reasonably high-end components. The best case I could find was US$1700. For just the case.
Today, you can get something like "The Beast" from MonsterLabo (https://www.monsterlabo.com/page-d-articles/the-beast) starting at EUR790 (again, for just the case) or pick an already-assembled PC from, say, SilentPC (https://silentpc.com/fanless-pcs/) with prices starting at US$1340 for a minimally-expandable Ryzen 5600G system. Compare that to the M1 Mac Mini with the same 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD drive (the Ryzen system comes with a DVD drive) and a base price of US$699.
Apple cares a great deal about thermals and provides better performance for less power and a lower price than anything on the PC enthusiast side of things when you want a system without the noise of fans.
Indeed, I would say we need to applaud the mods because modders often are thinkers who do sometimes come up with some pretty neat ideas. Folks in the vintage Mac community do mods all the time. It upsets the purists, but the mods please the majority of us.
This is true regardless of how one feels about MaxTech.
And, nobody talked about the consequences of having a hotter bottom panel, nor what it really buys. What does it really buy a user? A tinkerer gets some joy points for the feat. That's great for them. The remaining 99.9%? I think it just makes them more misinformed. There is zero need for that 99.9% to even think about it. Maybe if Maxtech explained what the thermal pad was doing, I'd be more understanding, but this is their 2nd go around. They know precisely what it is doing (creating a heat conductance path to the bottom panel) and heating up the bottom panel. As it stands, a lot of people think the thermal pad is black hole for heat, basically magic.
This ifixit video with all its snark is a variation of the same here too. It really is best to listen with the audio off. Too many cliffhanger drama style questions. Questions that they know the answer to. If they don't know the why of this or that, do the work to find out.
You get more clicks if you just say "magic".
If I actually had a use case for a PC, I would seriously give some thought to that MonsterLabo "The First". Small footprint. I don't mind the cost as you aren't going to fine such huge sinks for less. It looks like you will need to add a fan if you want good performance out of a GPU or a high end Alder Lake, though. With both the SilentPC and MonsterLabo, they can't go all the way fanless with higher performance components. If the system was less than 100 W or 200 W depending on the case, fanless without too much compromise. An i9-12900 and a RTX3060, looks like they will be Watt limited unless you add the fan.
That's if you are interested in having a high Watt computer in your room. I have zero interest in that now. I will be happy with an Mac mini with an M1 Pro or M2 Pro in it, and with an 8 to 16 TB of OWC miniStack drives on top. 30 to 50 Watts max, or less.