2023-11-10 15:53:00
Apple marked the end of the classic design of its notebooks with the launch of the MacBook Pro with M3, which no longer features the famous bar-shaped touchscreen at the top of the keyboard, the Touch Bar. Although it is a reason for Discontent for some, this new laptop design should please repair technicians.
This Friday (10), iFixit released a video that shows the disassembly process of the 14-inch MacBook Pro in its versions equipped with the M3 and M3 Pro processors. Although it has a new design, the most basic model appears to “inherit ” some features of the extinct M2-equipped model. Check out the details below.
When removing the bottom cover of the notebooks, it is possible to notice an important difference from the design of the MacBook Pro with M3: this notebook only has one fan to cool the processor, just like the MacBook Pro with M2. The model equipped with M3 Pro, in turn, is more powerful and tends to heat up more, therefore, it has two fans.
The other components of both versions are organized in a similar way, and now that the MacBook Pro no longer has the Touch Bar, the internal structure of all high-end models can be understood more easily. The sensitive screen, in fact, was something that increased the complexity of repairing notebooks.
Despite getting rid of a feature called “unpopular and irreparable” by iFixit, the notebooks continue with Apple’s criticized parts pairing policy, which requires checking any component that has been replaced. If a part is not original to the brand, the user may experience functionality problems.
iFixit made a practical demonstration of this case by replacing the MacBook Pro screen without official support from Apple. The result? Image rendering failures could be seen at the top of the panel, and the only way to resolve the problem is to use the company’s calibration software — available only through its authorized service networks.
Returning to its disassembly, the 14-inch MacBook Pro, in its “cheaper” version, now has two NAND memory chips, which should correct the SSD performance problems of the version with an M2 processor. Despite this, the NAND chips and RAM memory are soldered to the logic board, which makes upgrades impossible.
This can be a big problem — especially for users of the version with just 8 GB of RAM. When the computer’s memory is at the limits of its capacity, macOS uses a feature called “memory swap”, which dedicates a part of the SSD to act as RAM. Constant use of this function may reduce the lifespan of the SSD.
iFixit gave it a score of 4 out of 10 in terms of repairability to the 14-inch MacBook Pro. The negative rating is due to the parts pairing policy and the integrated nature of memory and storage, which make repairs extremely expensive.
The MacBook Pro with M3 is available on Apple’s official store for prices starting at R$18,499 for the version with 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB of SSD storage.
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