The IT Nerd

Some more bad news for the new MacBook Pros. On top of the USB-C fiasco that Apple had to make go away, and the fact that the solid state drive is soldered directly to the main board, and the battery life isn’t close to what Apple says it should be, comes the teardown of the new 13″ MacBook Pro with Touch Bar via iFixit. They rated it a 1 out of 10 in terms of repairability. Here’s why:

• Proprietary pentalobe screws continue to make working on the device unnecessarily difficult.
• The battery assembly is entirely, and very solidly, glued into the case, thus complicating replacement.
• The processor, RAM, and flash memory are soldered to the logic board.
• The Touch Bar adds a second, difficult to replace, screen to damage.
• The Touch ID sensor doubles as the power switch, and is paired with the T1 chip on the logic board. Fixing a broken power switch may require help from Apple, or a new logic board.

In short, it seems that this computer which ranges in price from $1899 to $2549 in Canada is either meant to be replaced if there is an issue, or sent away for repair as I am pretty sure that the Genius Bar folks in the Apple Store can’t do much to fix these MacBook Pros other than replacing the entire logic board which seems to be the only thing that can be done with these MacBook Pro. I’m also going to go out on a limb and say that the new 15″ MacBook Pro isn’t going to be any different.

In my opinion, if you are considering buying these computers, you should also buy AppleCare. Unless you only plan to keep it only for a year or have a lot of disposable income in case something breaks after 12 months. Because I can see out of warranty repair costs being sky high. The thing is, I want to love the new MacBook Pro. I really do. But I feel like if I buy it, I’ll be cursing it in a few years because it’s impossible to repair or upgrade. Never mind the USB-C thing. This strategy by Apple makes me loathe them and is making me strongly consider a Windows 10 laptop the next time I need a computer.

Am I alone in thinking this? Please post a comment and share your thoughts.

This entry was posted on November 16, 2016 at 11:12 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.