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Apple M3 MacBook Air Repairability Deemed Average Following iFixit Teardown

T0@st

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Earlier teardowns of 13-inch Apple M3 MacBook Air models revealed a pleasing storage performance upgrade. Popular American e-commerce watchdog, iFixit, has joined in on the fun—CEO Kyle Wiens has confirmed that the 15-inch M3 MacBook Air 256 GB base model also houses two 128 GB flash storage chips. A provisional repairability score of 5 out of 10 has been awarded—this verdict could change once iFixit staffers finish up in-depth investigations into Apple's latest thirteen and fifteen inch ultraslim notebooks. A revised figure might appear online once the site publishes its full how-to-guides.

iFixit's video teardown demonstrates that not much has changed when comparing the new models to Apple's M2 MacBook Air family of products. Tinkerers will face the usual obstacles, mainly dreaded pentalobe screw designs. The team discovered plastic pull-tabs during the removal of M3 MacBook Air batteries—a pleasing alternative to older (headache inducing) adhesive-fastened methods of securing power cells in place. The iFixit team had to deal with many fiddly screws and brackets during excavation efforts—they noted that Apple's interior design does not include any labelling, and the screws are not numbered. Framework's Laptop 16 was cited as a shining example of doing things correctly.




iFixit: "the MacBook Air occupies a bit of a strange place in the MacBook lineup—It offers two sizes, just like the Pro, and unless you're getting the powerhouse 16", they weigh about the same too. For the layperson, it's a matter of a couple extra ports—and even then all that USB-A tech will need dongles. But surely there are more differences below the surface? Let's dive into the 13" M3 MacBook Air."


Their "how-to website" is often updated with articles dedicated to each product teardown (days after YouTube coverage). Keep an eye on their blog list.

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If anyone replaced the battery of a Imac / book, you know it's extremely delicate engineered stuff.
 

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If anyone replaced the battery of a Imac / book, you know it's extremely delicate engineered stuff.

on purpose, to make most people pay extra on replacements, no purpose other than being a dick
 
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on purpose, to make most people pay extra on replacements, no purpose other than being a dick

Yes and no. Macbook hardware is quite neat to be fair. It's all engineered into a very tiny and single board which houses pretty much everything you need. Thus far more efficient then a whole traditional motherboard which you find in traditional X86/X64 hardware. If it was not for the screen a fast macbook could be the size of your handpalm.

No because it's difficult to fix or swap out a battery in the first place, without having to watch a Ifixit video. It would be easier to simply return the macbook and have a professional do all that work.
 
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I don't understand why Apple didn't add support for AV1 encode in M3 SoCs.
 

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Yes and no. Macbook hardware is quite neat to be fair. It's all engineered into a very tiny and single board which houses pretty much everything you need. Thus far more efficient then a whole traditional motherboard which you find in traditional X86/X64 hardware. If it was not for the screen a fast macbook could be the size of your handpalm.

No because it's difficult to fix or swap out a battery in the first place, without having to watch a Ifixit video. It would be easier to simply return the macbook and have a professional do all that work.

I mean we can agree to disagree, I can tell you right now changing the battery in my old gtx 1070 laptop was easy as cake. and that handpalm idea is horrible, hence the 114 Celsius link I provided, I'd rather have a fan and get max performance for what I am paying for
 
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I mean we can agree to disagree, I can tell you right now changing the battery in my old gtx 1070 laptop was easy as cake. and that handpalm idea is horrible, hence the 114 Celsius link I provided, I'd rather have a fan and get max performance for what I am paying for
And that why the base MacBook pro 14 exist. Apple gimped the thermals on the air on purpose.
 

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And that why the base MacBook pro 14 exist. Apple gimped the thermals on the air on purpose.

ya its all overpriced, screw apple. I just bought a zen 4nm node APU laptop for 470 bucks, 16gb ram, 14" 1200p IPS, wifi 6e and 16gb ram lol
 
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I just had to do a motherboard replacement on a 2021 MBPro 14". I've had to do some MBAir's as well. The Air is not nearly as difficult as the Pro. It took me two hours to do the motherboard on the Pro. To compare, I can do a full teardown and rebuild of a Dell Latitude in about 30 minutes.
 
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I mean we can agree to disagree, I can tell you right now changing the battery in my old gtx 1070 laptop was easy as cake. and that handpalm idea is horrible, hence the 114 Celsius link I provided, I'd rather have a fan and get max performance for what I am paying for
That's the problem...folks buying the Air won't be doing max stress tests. It just wasn't designed for those types of workloads. I purchased my first Apple laptop which was an M3 Air 16GB 1 TB. I didn't even open it when it arrived and I returned it same day because I knew there was no way I could use this laptop and be happy with it. So I ended up buying the Macbook Pro M3 Max 16c/40c/48GB/1TB version because for work and gaming, I knew the Air wouldn't do me justice. With all of that said, people won't buy the Air for heavy work loads, but for a simple daily driver, its perfect.

Side note - I did buy my son the base M1 Air the next day for $699.

ya its all overpriced, screw apple. I just bought a zen 4nm node APU laptop for 470 bucks, 16gb ram, 14" 1200p IPS, wifi 6e and 16gb ram lol
Seems like a nice machine, congratz!

I just had to do a motherboard replacement on a 2021 MBPro 14". I've had to do some MBAir's as well. The Air is not nearly as difficult as the Pro. It took me two hours to do the motherboard on the Pro. To compare, I can do a full teardown and rebuild of a Dell Latitude in about 30 minutes.
Ain't nearly as sexy is it? Lol just kidding.
 
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My toshiba (windows 7 era) would average 97C w anything and idle would be 80c.... doing anything on it would send it to 110-160C easy.

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I didn't bother repasting cuz I didn't plan on using it much after that
 
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