Hey,
I thought I will write here a line or 2
So for quite some time, my 2011 MBA had a uneven backlight issue where the backlight would sunk too deep into the housing causing the darker area around 1cm wide at the very top of the screen, moreover there was backlight bleed on the bottom - the previous owner did a lousy job when replacing the LCD. I've got a bit fed up with that issue and had some spare time, so I've disassembled the LCD housing (not the first time I've done this) and tried to stuck some plastic below the lcd to lift the backlight and prevent it from sinking down. Unfortunately, in doing so, I accidentally contacted with the LCD itself - really wasn't much force, but much to my surprise and shock - the LCD cracked which resulted in it being unable to display anything correctly an inch or so from the right LCD edge.
So I started searching Ebay/Aliexpress thinking that I will surely find some used LCD for 50-60 bucks. Who was I kidding - that's what completely shattered and in very poor condition display assemblies are for, the genuine ones generally come for 200-300$ which is practically half the price of my whole MBA.
After thinking for quite a bit how ridiculous this is and how I'am totally not paying this kind of money for my stupid mistake, I've had a genius idea - let's buy another MBA, take LCD from it and sell everything else for parts! Then after long hours of searching and surfing for options, I've stumbled across the auction for late-2010 MBA, which supposedly has a battery with less than 200 cycles on it - it's surely replaced and probably not genuine - I thought.
Quickly I calculated how much can I make by selling everything except LCD, separately for reasonable prices compared to similar listings, and it all added up to around $485 - not bad. So I had my budget at that, I waited till the very end of auction and launched the automatic bidding with maximum bid slightly more than my initial budget at the very last seconds. To my relief, I won the auction for roughly $482 which coincided perfectly with my calculations!
Now when I've received this laptop... I couldn't find a single scratch really. I wouldn't really believe it's a 2010 model if I didn't know. It was probably sitting in the store warehouse somewhere forgotten and collecting dust for quite a long time. So it looked nothing short of brand new!
BUT. As good as it's condition, it still has outdated C2D CPU, only 2GB RAM, doesn't have keyboard backlight and is just not as good as my 2011 (visibly though my 2011 looks and has more signs of wear). So I just HAD to start disassembling it.
I've really struggled with the bottom case - apparently 2010 models used either thicker screws or smaller screw holes since it required considerably more force to unscrew them than on 2011 MBA. Add to that 2 defective/slightly stripped screws, and this meant I've spent the whole day battling those 2. Finally I had to drill them and that was the only option really.
When I've removed the bottom case (fiddling with the screws and drilling resulted in a few big scratches/visible dents and I was really beating myself up for it since otherwise it looked brand new - but well what can you do when those screws just wouldn't move...), I immediately realized that the battery was original - there was barely any dust inside and it looked just like on the outside - brand new like. i ended up swaping I/O board, cpu fan, trackpad (the one on 2011MBA had some minor problems with physical click), LCD assembly and bottom case (2011 one was somewhat bent/bulged from long ago replaced old battery). It would be nice to swap the top case/palmrest as well, but since it doesn't have the keyboard backlight it would be extremely painful to migrate keyboard from one chassis to another - if zillion tiny screws wasn't enough, there is a real risk of breaking or messing something up. Initially I've swapped the batteries as well, but it turned out 2010 battery wasn't compatible with 2011 model. As for SSD, both are 128GB, but the one on 2010 is supposedly slower Toshiba as opposed to Samsung SSD on 2011. Everything besides LCD will soon be going on ebay.
All being said, just wanted to rant here a bit and share my story.
I thought I will write here a line or 2
So for quite some time, my 2011 MBA had a uneven backlight issue where the backlight would sunk too deep into the housing causing the darker area around 1cm wide at the very top of the screen, moreover there was backlight bleed on the bottom - the previous owner did a lousy job when replacing the LCD. I've got a bit fed up with that issue and had some spare time, so I've disassembled the LCD housing (not the first time I've done this) and tried to stuck some plastic below the lcd to lift the backlight and prevent it from sinking down. Unfortunately, in doing so, I accidentally contacted with the LCD itself - really wasn't much force, but much to my surprise and shock - the LCD cracked which resulted in it being unable to display anything correctly an inch or so from the right LCD edge.
So I started searching Ebay/Aliexpress thinking that I will surely find some used LCD for 50-60 bucks. Who was I kidding - that's what completely shattered and in very poor condition display assemblies are for, the genuine ones generally come for 200-300$ which is practically half the price of my whole MBA.
After thinking for quite a bit how ridiculous this is and how I'am totally not paying this kind of money for my stupid mistake, I've had a genius idea - let's buy another MBA, take LCD from it and sell everything else for parts! Then after long hours of searching and surfing for options, I've stumbled across the auction for late-2010 MBA, which supposedly has a battery with less than 200 cycles on it - it's surely replaced and probably not genuine - I thought.
Quickly I calculated how much can I make by selling everything except LCD, separately for reasonable prices compared to similar listings, and it all added up to around $485 - not bad. So I had my budget at that, I waited till the very end of auction and launched the automatic bidding with maximum bid slightly more than my initial budget at the very last seconds. To my relief, I won the auction for roughly $482 which coincided perfectly with my calculations!
Now when I've received this laptop... I couldn't find a single scratch really. I wouldn't really believe it's a 2010 model if I didn't know. It was probably sitting in the store warehouse somewhere forgotten and collecting dust for quite a long time. So it looked nothing short of brand new!
BUT. As good as it's condition, it still has outdated C2D CPU, only 2GB RAM, doesn't have keyboard backlight and is just not as good as my 2011 (visibly though my 2011 looks and has more signs of wear). So I just HAD to start disassembling it.
I've really struggled with the bottom case - apparently 2010 models used either thicker screws or smaller screw holes since it required considerably more force to unscrew them than on 2011 MBA. Add to that 2 defective/slightly stripped screws, and this meant I've spent the whole day battling those 2. Finally I had to drill them and that was the only option really.
When I've removed the bottom case (fiddling with the screws and drilling resulted in a few big scratches/visible dents and I was really beating myself up for it since otherwise it looked brand new - but well what can you do when those screws just wouldn't move...), I immediately realized that the battery was original - there was barely any dust inside and it looked just like on the outside - brand new like. i ended up swaping I/O board, cpu fan, trackpad (the one on 2011MBA had some minor problems with physical click), LCD assembly and bottom case (2011 one was somewhat bent/bulged from long ago replaced old battery). It would be nice to swap the top case/palmrest as well, but since it doesn't have the keyboard backlight it would be extremely painful to migrate keyboard from one chassis to another - if zillion tiny screws wasn't enough, there is a real risk of breaking or messing something up. Initially I've swapped the batteries as well, but it turned out 2010 battery wasn't compatible with 2011 model. As for SSD, both are 128GB, but the one on 2010 is supposedly slower Toshiba as opposed to Samsung SSD on 2011. Everything besides LCD will soon be going on ebay.
All being said, just wanted to rant here a bit and share my story.
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