Saturday, June 17th 2023
iFixit Not Impressed with Apple 15-inch MacBook Air Repairability
iFixit has released their teardown and evaluation video covering Apple's brand new M2 MacBook Air model. This 15-inch screen variant was announced at WWDC 2023 and was released to retail soon after. The test unit has an A2941 model number and looks not too far removed from the 13-inch equivalent externally and internally, but the fifteen-incher is 22% heavier. Initial impressions are good thanks to more screen real estate, increased pixel density, large trackpad, a six-speaker sound system and smart battery tech. Things turn sour almost immediately upon starting disassembly—iFixit described their experience of disconnecting the internal battery as "miserable," and added that it was even more of a challenge to extract the laptop's logic board due to the force-canceling speakers/woofers getting in the way.
The team had to contend with plenty of connector brackets, ports, pentalobe + miscellaneous screws types and covers adding to their collective headache. The 66.5 WH-rated battery only becomes accessible at the tail end of a truly frustrating teardown process, although the reviewer notes that it was very easy to remove the cell assembly—only having to deal with "neato" pull tabs and clip-securing posts. These positives aspects are almost entirely negated by overcomplicated preceding steps. iFixit awarded a repairability score of 3 (out of 10) to the Apple M2 MacBook Air 15-inch model, and concluded that this premium laptop is "a heavy unrepairable beast (hidden) under (its) skin deep beauty."
iFixit's video description states: "The M2 MacBook Air has grown up and has a 15" summer bod to show off, with a hefty 22% more bulk, 26% more pixels, and a mere 0.2 mm increase in thickness. No butterfly keyboard, extra speakers, huge trackpad, and all-day battery life—plus speedy charging with a 65 W adapter—and you're ready for a day at the beach. But sand, as we all know, is rough, irritating, and it gets everywhere—so let's see just how repairable the MacBook Air 15" truly is."
Sources:
iFixit YouTube Video, iFixit, GizChina
The team had to contend with plenty of connector brackets, ports, pentalobe + miscellaneous screws types and covers adding to their collective headache. The 66.5 WH-rated battery only becomes accessible at the tail end of a truly frustrating teardown process, although the reviewer notes that it was very easy to remove the cell assembly—only having to deal with "neato" pull tabs and clip-securing posts. These positives aspects are almost entirely negated by overcomplicated preceding steps. iFixit awarded a repairability score of 3 (out of 10) to the Apple M2 MacBook Air 15-inch model, and concluded that this premium laptop is "a heavy unrepairable beast (hidden) under (its) skin deep beauty."
27 Comments on iFixit Not Impressed with Apple 15-inch MacBook Air Repairability
- damage to phones and laptops is predominantly a user care issue rather than failure of the components on the device itself
- in a modern slimline laptop the current SODIMM connectors and NVME connectors are too fat/cumbersome to make this feasible without significant laptop physical size compromise
So perhaps less price gouging on the higher RAM and storage options? Not likely - because the lower spec series are to bait, and the higher spec devices is where the companies make their profit.
So I'll just have to hope for longer warranties - and the consequence of that - manufacturers making their devices as robust as possible.
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Regarding Apple products
The devices that have lasted the longest in our family are Apple products. No kidding. We have working early generation ipads and macbooks that get handed down and are fully working, perhaps slightly shorter battery life, but not a bad thing when you want to limit how much time the kids spend goofing. And laptops stay on a desk plugged in most of the time. Everyone's usage scenarios are different.
So I don't agree with all this Apple hate on this forum. In my opinion their hardware is some of the best for the physical format. However, Apple is more expensive and Apple runs iOS/OSX and that is a choice you have to make. I am not a fan of OSX at all, I prefer Windows. And all the management control I have over it and the applications I run. But then I was weened on Windows, and find W10/11 frustrating and have to spend a lot of time making configuration changes and downloading utilities to help me do that. And STILL the damn thing tries to shit me down for autoupgrades whereas Apples doesnt do that.
For grandparents or children just using a browser, email, youtube, I would recommend an Apple product over anything else. It is a better physical product, quicker to install, requires less (re-)configuration, and I can help them via my PC using nomachine.