- The MacBook Neo has been dismantled on YouTube
- The content creator found the laptop to be incredibly easy to take apart.
- That should make it much easier to repair than most Apple laptops.
Apple laptops have a reputation for being particularly difficult to handle once opened, with components often stuck in place or buried under masses of intricately routed and incredibly delicate wiring. So it’s surprising that the new MacBook Neo is, in the words of one reviewer, “absolutely amazing” in this regard.
This comes from a teardown video posted by Tech Re-Nu on YouTube. There, the content creator felt that Apple’s latest laptop was unusually suited to people who wanted to open it and access its internal parts.
For example, Tech Re-Nu noted that there were no adhesive tabs holding the MacBook Neo’s speakers in place, while the headphone jack was completely modular, which Tech Re-Nu described as “a very good job by Apple.” This comes after similar findings from a teardown by YouTuber Dave2D.
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In fact, Tech Re-Nu was surprisingly effusive in its praise of the MacBook Neo and its teardown process, stating, “I can’t say we’ve ever had a Mac that looks as repairable and as modular as this one. No tape, no complicated adhesives, modular parts, minimal parts too, no hinge covers or anything like that. It’s just a super simple, elegant design.”
Why has Apple done this?
Look
Apple has often found itself in the crosshairs of right-to-repair activists who say its penchant for making its laptops difficult to tear down makes them much harder to repair, which in turn can contribute to high levels of e-waste. Additionally, this type of device can be more expensive for users who need to purchase a new device when, in theory, they could have been able to repair it if doing so were easier.
Apple most likely operates this way because of a long-standing desire to make its products as compact and simple (on the outside) as possible. Both Steve Jobs and former Apple design chief Jony Ive believed that Apple products should be free of unnecessary extras, and that often extended to empty space: one apocryphal story shows Jobs dropping a prototype iPod into a fish tank and pointing to emerging bubbles as evidence that there was too much unused space inside the device.
As a result, Apple tries to pack the insides of its devices as tightly as possible, making sure to include advanced components while keeping product dimensions as slim as possible. One result of this is incredibly densely designed internal components that are a nightmare to take down for all but the most skilled.
However, the MacBook Neo is evidently different. Because it removes many of the more advanced components commonly found inside other Macs, it’s much easier to manage inside. The motherboard, for example, is small, while the battery simply pops up once the screws are removed, without needing to deal with adhesives or built-in tabs.
Another reason for Apple’s simplified assembly could be pressure from right-to-repair advocates. The movement has scored some significant victories in recent years and Apple has felt compelled to provide users with repair tools and guides, something it never allowed in the past. With regulators increasingly targeting big tech companies, Apple could have decided to get ahead of any potential scrutiny by changing the way it assembles the MacBook Neo. However, that conclusion will depend on whether the MacBook Air M5 and MacBook Pro M5 Pro are equally easy to disassemble, something that, for now, is unknown.
What we saw in the Tech Re-Nu video was a laptop that is perfectly put together without being too complicated to repair. And that’s good news for anyone who wants to snoop inside their MacBook Neo if something goes wrong.
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