Does RMB’s No Fan Give It A longevity Advantage?

[beeinformed]

Hi,

Does the RMB’s lack of a fan give it an advantage in terms of longevity as compared to the MacBook Pro models which have one or two fans (depending on the model you choose)

Thanks in advance for your assistance to my inquiry!

 

[Plutowillreturn]

If I had to guess, the answer is likely that it depends. Fewer moving parts should mean fewer things that could go wrong.

 

[Grey Area]

I would speculate that the Macbook's main longevity advantage of being fanless is that there is no fan that could break down. Apart from that I think the lack of fan is no help, and maybe even a liability. Some rugged notebooks are fanless in order to keep them sealed against water and dust, and that will increase longevity in certain environments. The Macbook is not sealed despite being fanless, so it does not gain that advantage. It is also a very dense machine, and with no fan the heat must be dissipated via the case. The internal components are more likely to get warmed up, which does not help their longevity.

Batteries do not deal well with heat. It is just a single anecdotal data point, but my colleague reports her RMB's battery life went down from 10 to less than 5 hours in two years. I would love to see a more comprehensive survey on this, though.

 

[Ma2k5]

It is negligible.

 

[Plutowillreturn]

To put it in perspective, the iPad Pro and recent iPhones to an extent are running chips and logic boards that are comparable to the rMB in terms of performance. There are no fans in those devices and besides changing the battery when needed, I would assume they could last for a while.

 

[tomscott1988]

I would speculate that the Macbook's main longevity advantage of being fanless is that there is no fan that could break down. Apart from that I think the lack of fan is no help, and maybe even a liability. Some rugged notebooks are fanless in order to keep them sealed against water and dust, and that will increase longevity in certain environments. The Macbook is not sealed despite being fanless, so it does not gain that advantage. It is also a very dense machine, and with no fan the heat must be dissipated via the case. The internal components are more likely to get warmed up, which does not help their longevity.

Batteries do not deal well with heat. It is just a single anecdotal data point, but my colleague reports her RMB's battery life went down from 10 to less than 5 hours in two years. I would love to see a more comprehensive survey on this, though.

The battery issues is well known but I think its a battery fault with it being gen 1 tier battery. Mine in my 2015 macbook is also not amazing 3 years later.

 

[EugW]

Yes, and no. There are many things that break on a laptop, but FWIW, the ONLY thing that has broken on my 9 year-old MacBook Pro was the fan.

Replacing it should have been easy, but it was harder than I thought. First off one of the screws was stuck and the metal was relatively soft so it stripped, even thought I had proper good quality dedicated screwdrivers. I ended up having to drill out the screw to remove the fan. Plus, it didn't seem to want to come out easily until I loosened another board.