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MacBook Neo Teardown: Modular Ports, Glue-Less Battery, Zero Tape

Waiting on that iFixIt teardown for their score...any minute now...9/10? Maybe possibly an unheard of, 10/10?>??>

Will iFixIt ever utter the words that this laptop is the "most repairable" ever made by Apple?!??!

What an insane timeline - Apple releases a laptop with a phone SoC inside of, it and it is the cheapest laptop ever made by them, and it could possibly be the most repairable as well?!?!

Never would've predicted this coming from a company that prioritized iPhone sales above all else just a decade ago...
 
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Kottu said:
So,It won’t take much time for someone to fill up that empty space with more storage or replace the internal components with M3 or M4 Air.
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That’s what I was thinking… particularly if an MBA battery can be put in there.
 
turbineseaplane said:
I would perhaps temper this a little bit.
It's cheap and feels that way the more you use it, particularly the screen, trackpad & keyboard, which are key to the experience (obviously).

Also, the colors are really "bleh" in person.
The green is the only one that feels like an actual "color". The website photos are very misleading on this.

I'm fascinated to see how well it sticks in the market past the initial interest here.
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Millions of people who would not buy a Mac because of the high price will buy this Mac.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
I've been wondering, as an OLED evangelist and lover, which of these will come first?

1. Macbook Air with OLED
2. iPad Pro OLED that can run macOS

I'm increasingly of the mind that #2 might come first.
Click to expand...

If touch comes to macOS, I agree with you about #2.

Truth be told, I don't understand the iPad Pro. It's the most overkill, software-limited device I have ever used. If it didn't cost as much as a MacBook, it might make more sense.
 
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WarmWinterHat said:
If touch comes to macOS, I agree with you about #2.

Truth be told, I don't understand the iPad Pro. It's the most overkill, software-limited device I have ever used. If it didn't cost as much as a MacBook, it might make more sense.
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Agree on cost.
I would swallow it, however, if it could run macOS, even though it'd be smaller than I prefer.

I'd love to have one with cellular and that screen 😍

I mean .. I'm now traveling around with my Mac Mini and an external OLED screen + keyboard, mouse and pad, so bringing similar things to use the iPP as a Mac screen would be right in my wheelhouse.

The ergonomics of normal peripherals are something I really gravitate towards, especially as I get older.
 
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Happy_John said:
If the Neo shifts a large amount of units (and it probably will), sourcing parts will not be a problem. The non-retina MacBook Air and the unibody Mac Minis were everywhere during (and after) their lifespans, and there was never a problem sourcing replacement parts, either original or decent quality "clone" parts. You ended up working out the good suppliers from the bad pretty easily. The screen and the logicboard will have to be got directly from Apple (or a donor machine), but the rest will be available on the open market.
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I updated my 2010 MBA in 2020 by buying the highest end motherboard off eBay for 50 bucks.
 
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tonmischa said:
The EU passes a law on the “right to repair,” and suddenly there are computers that are easy to repair.
Well, well. So it is possible after all.
Click to expand...

Then you would see it on the MBA and MBP both of which isn't that easy to repair. The M5 MacBook Pro got a repair score of 4/10 from iFixit.

The main reason why it's easy to repair is because Apple wants to sell it to schools.
 
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adamjackson said:
Apple is going to sell a metric-ton of these things. Great internet computers for $499 that are repairable and simple with MacOS? I honestly expect these things to finally move Apple's market share needle beyond 15% to 20%+

and as a shareholder, I really don't care about the hardware profit margin because at 256GB, these all be ripe for iCloud attach rates where people are paying apple $5 - $10 a month for storage. $100-$200 a year in services revenue for every single device is where it's at. Buy one of these, pay apple for Apple Music + iCloud and install Chrome + ChatGPT and iWork and you're rocking. Only pros will need more power.

In a year, this things gets the A19 and 12GB of RAM then we're cooking!!!
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You know we as a people are cooked when folks start lying to themselves about how much a massive corporation is selling something for...so that they can AstroTurf for said corporation.

1186.jpg
 
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PBG4 Dude said:
I updated my 2010 MBA in 2020 by buying the highest end motherboard off eBay for 50 bucks.
Click to expand...

Yep, MBAs were great for swopping parts, and they could take a serious beating and roughhousing. They had the best keyboard of all intel-era MacBooks as well, in my opinion. Brilliant tough little workhorses. In the end, it was the quality of the screen (and soldered-on RAM, but that was across the board with all MacBooks) that made me move away from them.

I hope the Neo will end up being the "new" non-retina MBA. It will be very interesting to see, when they give it a chip bump, if the logicboard can be swopped over without any fuss.

As it is, a nice plus of the Neo will be that, even if you smash your screen somehow, or suffer water-damage, it still holds value as a donor machine, which is nice.
 
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Kottu said:
So,It won’t take much time for someone to fill up that empty space with more storage or replace the internal components with M3 or M4 Air.
Click to expand...
Buy an expensive laptop and put innards in cheaper one? Hmm, why not?

Take cheaper innards and put back in empty Air, and sell it? Yes?

Take profit from doing this and buy a pound of vegetables for the lady? That could happen
 
Just out of curiosity, I wonder if this would run without the battery, which would be easy to test with this, apparently (a repair mode)

I've done this before with a Windows laptop, and it runs but the OS had some problems on that particular device. A MacBook might not even turn on. Point is, some Windows PCs are modular like this Neo (If you can call it that)
 
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stlredbird said:
Tell me again why my M5 iPad Pro can't run MacOS now?
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iPads have had macOS-capable hardware for years now, but Apple does not want their reputation for usability tarnishing by allowing a non-touch optimised OS to be run on a primarily touch-focussed device.

The rumoured touch-enabled MacBook will be interesting, as it will provide a way of trying touch support with macOS, while still keeping keyboard and touchpad as the primary input devices.
 
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