Great question. In my opinion, an arrogant visionary was replaced with an arrogant bean counter at the helm of Apple. There's no reasoning behind this other than immediate greed and a lack of vision.
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Teardowns Confirm 13-Inch and 15-Inch Touch Bar MacBook Pros Have Non-Removable SSDs
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Great question. In my opinion, an arrogant visionary was replaced with an arrogant bean counter at the helm of Apple. There's no reasoning behind this other than immediate greed and a lack of vision.
Another dealbreaker. SSDs are always going to get larger and cheaper and now you're stuck with 2016 capacities and prices. The only way to future proof yourself is to buy the largest drive you can afford. Seems like a money grab on an already overpriced laptop. You can count me out .
There are still today Apple computers (and others but lets stick to Apple) from the 80s on, which work. Museum pieces basically, but they do still work. If something goes wrong, one way or another there is a way to fix them. I wonder how current models with non removable anything, will be repaired, saved if you prefer, 15-25-40 years from now. I will probably be dead in 40 years, but I find the idea of basically having these computers built with the same longevity and repair-ability as condoms, a huge flaw, which will (no matter how small) hurt future generations from accessing these machines in the future. What a shame.
Sounds exactly like the Apple I THOUGHT we all knew and loved. Controversial as ever. Turns out, everyone here has either never been through any of Apples MANY controversial decisions, or has really short/selective memory. Dongles rank pretty low on the list of controversial things they've done over the years. Dongles give you an option for transitioning. Before, Apple used to give you NO option for legacy technology. Steve Jobs was much less apologetic for users clinging to the past than current Apple is.
That flat rate repair is unofficial, discretionary and only available in the US and Japan. Everyone else has to argue with Apple or take it through the courts. What makes you think that it will stay at $310 now that the cost of replacing a logic board has doubled if not more with the higher capacity soldered in ssds?
When everyone thought that iOS and macOS were converging, like Windows and WPOS did in Windows 8, nobody suspected it would also apply to the hardware. Everything is becoming an iDevice.
If you solder ram and ssd memory on the main board you in theory make everything more compact and thinner as you don't need physical connectors, plugs and latches. IF the soldering is done right the connection could also be more robust regarding physical force like dropping etc.
Of course disadvantages are less maintainability and serviceability as for ex. a defect ssd chip means basically a full mainboard replace.
That's why quality testing and inspection should be done more thourrough in that case.
Ridiculous at the highest level... Meanwhile, Dell XPS has an official service manual for users who need (in case of fault) or want (in case of upgrade options) to change the most important internal hardware (RAM, SSD...).
+5 for the Dell XPS, -5 for the Apple MBP.
+5 for the Dell XPS, -5 for the Apple MBP.
Which is the only way to argue, if the pre-existing definition doesn't quite fit perceivable reality. A MacBook Pro is a laptop for professionals under the assumption that what professionals need the most is more compute power. Which is true for some professions, but not all. Nonetheless a twice as fast SSD delivers this kind of performance, even if soldered to the motherboard.
And I would counter argue that USB-C is the most versatile port ever created. Not only is it the same symmetrical plug on both ends of the cable, fitting into each port either way. It also sends and receives power, sends and receives video in both HDMI and MDP standard. You can connect almost any old plug via an adapter and you can avoid using adapters altogether by simply buying new cables, who come with the right plugs on each end. And for the first time a new connector is not an Apple proprietary solution, but the new industry standard coming to all PCs as well. From 5K displays down to old USB 1.1 peripherals, everything can be connected to the new MacBook Pro. Professionalism also commands that people stop complaining about non-issues and be more professional about it. So you need to buy a few new cables, big deal, get over it.
First to be clear, I'm not defending Apple's pricing decisions in any way or form. They grab too much money for everything they sell and with soldered components one more way of avoiding Apple pricing is gone. Those who do need 16GB RAM for their video editing work are indeed screwed for not being able to buy third party memory. But us who can get along with 8 and 256 today, will not prolong the life of our machines by upgrading right away. Our hardware demands no longer grow in the directions of ever more memory and storage on the system volume itself. Our movie libraries already exceed 2TB and will only grow faster with the prevalence of 4K. We have to use some kind of external mass storage and suddenly there is plenty of room on the main volume for the system and apps. The real innovative stuff like a P3 Retina display, a TouchBar with TouchID and Thunderbolt 3 ports can not be upgraded anyway. So don't feel bad about having to buy a new laptop. You don't have to and if you do, you will gain a lot of other stuff, which you ignored while mourning soldered RAM and SSD. This is only the fourth major form factor redesign of the MacBook Pro line and it will stay a top computer until the fifth is going to be revealed in about half a decade.
So for the guy who says "yea but I wanted it to render video in Premiere faster" you say "Quit whining, you got a faster port there".
Makes no sense.
The I/O speeds are nice, but you guys act like it's the end-all, be-all of a pro laptop, and nothing else should matter.
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Your kidding right?
You know that if you need anything fixed in the mbp, your probably looking at $1000
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I bought a new laptop and the only dongle I needed to buy was an ethernet to USB-C and thanks to Apple they are on special at the moment - what a winner.
I also have HDMI, SD card slot, USB-A + USB-C, Battery Level Indicator, Kensington Lock, standard screws to open it with, replaceable SSD, replaceable ram with a free slot to upgrade to 32GB when I need it and I still get to keep my sandisk ultrafit usb thumb drive permanently plugged in to back up files to and I saved $2000 but did have to gain 170g in weight. Has 8m pixels vs the 5m on the mbp but doesn't come with as many apps and is a few mm thicker.
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Would you rather have a port to access the SSD or be able to remove the SSD?
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I thought it was battery and screen issues.
Do you have proof that Apple will save millions in repair costs?
I know from recent dealings with Apple that I would be massively out of pocket for repairs.
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256GB is not enough for photographers.
As for 8GB, wait until OSX has been upped a few versions. Extra ram is also used to speed up systems as ramdisk.
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Correct, but what happens when you have not been able to backup for a few days and something in the laptop fails?
Wouldn't you like to be able to put the ssd in to an enclosure to recover things?
And if there is water damage? what then?
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Ah the joys of Apple screwing things up...I remember I used to be a fanboy, how times change.
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Well I was quoted $3000+ to repair my rMBP recently by Apple
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Yet most people on here keep on stating that the average mbp user doesn't need the ultimate optimisations.
My rMBP 2012 was fast enough for software development before it dies last week.
The teardown also shows us that the 15-inch MacBook Pros have Samsung SSDs on board (the whole thing—controller, DRAM, NAND). We can infer from the performance numbers that these are using the new Polaris controller found in the SM916 and 960 Pro SSDs combined with 48-layer MLC 3D V-NAND. These are essentially Samsung SM961 / 960 Pro SSDs, the fastest PCIe 3.0 x4 NMVe client SSDs ever produced. Although the SM961, which is the OEM version of the drive, has been shipping for ~5 months now, the 960 Pro has still yet to hit retail shelves. Furthermore, Apple's pricing on these drives is completely reasonable compared to retail (well, the 2 TB upgrade might be about 15% on the high side). So if you buy the 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro, you know you're getting the fastest SSD available and you're not getting taken to the cleaners on the pricing.
Even if this MacBook Pro had a user replaceable SSD, at the moment you couldn't upgrade the SSD to anything faster or even save much money putting in an equivalent higher capacity drive yourself. If it was a standard m.2 PCIe drive you could, however, put in a cheaper TLC based drive with lower performance, endurance and reliability. That's not "Pro" thinking, it's typical cheapskate consumer thinking. 3 years from now, the SSD market will be different, and not being able to upgrade at that point may be painful. But it won't, in reality, because these SSDs are already able to saturate the PCIe 3.0 x4 link they're connected to. The minimum capacity Apple offers is 256 GB, which for many will be sufficient as a boot volume for many years to come. If you use pro apps with tons of assets or run lots of VMs, you can opt to pay for a bigger internal SSD up front. Most pros who work with large media files or data sets keep them on external volumes anyway. And those four Thunderbolt 3 ports offer a PCIe 3.0 x4 link's worth of bandwidth to external devices, same as the on board SSD gets.
How many people out there have upgraded the internal SSD in a MacBook released since 2013 when they shifted to PCIe? Very few. They all could have been part of the logic board and better than 99% of owners would never have known the difference. Were those machines disposable trash like the new ones? I do often see waste bins overflowing with 3-year old, just out of AppleCare MacBook Pros. It's astonishing what this must be doing to the environment. Oh wait, they're actually either still being used by their owners who haven't seen a compelling reason to upgrade to a new Intel platform since Sandy Bridge, or they're listed on eBay by the hundreds with an average selling price still north of $800.
But if the SSD dies, you now have to replace the whole logic board and that's expensive. Actually, what people should be worried about is the reverse. If the GPU, CPU or RAM has an issue, you need to replace the SSD as well. Aside from the 256 GB configurations, the SSD is now either one of or the most expensive component of the logic board. We'll have to see how this plays out. BTW, for those kvetching about the battery, Apple offers a battery replacement service. It's $199 for the MacBook Pro.
The *minimum* RAM configuration for the 15-inch models is actually 16 GB now, which is also the maximum the system can support given Apple's choice of memory technology. The Skylake memory controller supports up to 64 GB if you use DDR4, but the number of chips to get there would have been near impossible to cram on that tiny logic board, and the amount of power they sucked down would have been excessive. So Apple went with LPDDR3 for the considerable power and space savings. We'll have to wait for Cannonlake-H until Intel has a quad-core mobile CPU that supports LPDDR4. In the meantime, Apple equipped every single 15-inch MBP with the maximum capacity of the highest clocked and most efficient memory available for the platform, guaranteeing the best possible memory bandwidth across the board. Compare to other PC OEMs who ship the majority of their systems with a single channel populated, halving memory bandwidth and crippling integrated GPU performance, all to save $4 on the BOM. Oh, but they're user upgradeable. Sorry, but that's once again cheapskate consumer thinking, not pro thinking.
Even if this MacBook Pro had a user replaceable SSD, at the moment you couldn't upgrade the SSD to anything faster or even save much money putting in an equivalent higher capacity drive yourself. If it was a standard m.2 PCIe drive you could, however, put in a cheaper TLC based drive with lower performance, endurance and reliability. That's not "Pro" thinking, it's typical cheapskate consumer thinking. 3 years from now, the SSD market will be different, and not being able to upgrade at that point may be painful. But it won't, in reality, because these SSDs are already able to saturate the PCIe 3.0 x4 link they're connected to. The minimum capacity Apple offers is 256 GB, which for many will be sufficient as a boot volume for many years to come. If you use pro apps with tons of assets or run lots of VMs, you can opt to pay for a bigger internal SSD up front. Most pros who work with large media files or data sets keep them on external volumes anyway. And those four Thunderbolt 3 ports offer a PCIe 3.0 x4 link's worth of bandwidth to external devices, same as the on board SSD gets.
How many people out there have upgraded the internal SSD in a MacBook released since 2013 when they shifted to PCIe? Very few. They all could have been part of the logic board and better than 99% of owners would never have known the difference. Were those machines disposable trash like the new ones? I do often see waste bins overflowing with 3-year old, just out of AppleCare MacBook Pros. It's astonishing what this must be doing to the environment. Oh wait, they're actually either still being used by their owners who haven't seen a compelling reason to upgrade to a new Intel platform since Sandy Bridge, or they're listed on eBay by the hundreds with an average selling price still north of $800.
But if the SSD dies, you now have to replace the whole logic board and that's expensive. Actually, what people should be worried about is the reverse. If the GPU, CPU or RAM has an issue, you need to replace the SSD as well. Aside from the 256 GB configurations, the SSD is now either one of or the most expensive component of the logic board. We'll have to see how this plays out. BTW, for those kvetching about the battery, Apple offers a battery replacement service. It's $199 for the MacBook Pro.
The *minimum* RAM configuration for the 15-inch models is actually 16 GB now, which is also the maximum the system can support given Apple's choice of memory technology. The Skylake memory controller supports up to 64 GB if you use DDR4, but the number of chips to get there would have been near impossible to cram on that tiny logic board, and the amount of power they sucked down would have been excessive. So Apple went with LPDDR3 for the considerable power and space savings. We'll have to wait for Cannonlake-H until Intel has a quad-core mobile CPU that supports LPDDR4. In the meantime, Apple equipped every single 15-inch MBP with the maximum capacity of the highest clocked and most efficient memory available for the platform, guaranteeing the best possible memory bandwidth across the board. Compare to other PC OEMs who ship the majority of their systems with a single channel populated, halving memory bandwidth and crippling integrated GPU performance, all to save $4 on the BOM. Oh, but they're user upgradeable. Sorry, but that's once again cheapskate consumer thinking, not pro thinking.
What happens if you have an accident that destroys the SSD itself?
We can come up with what-happens-if scenarios all day long. Bottom line is you should have good automated backups at regular intervals. If you're in a situation where you have not been able to backup for a few days, that is a problem with your backup system, not a problem of Apple.
If you truly have data you would be devastated to lose, you should have at least one off-site backup at all times.
[doublepost=1479579761][/doublepost]Price is one thing for these units that Apple is probably going to have to address. The soldered on SSD is not a big deal if everyone is going to use cloud storage anyway. For data storage, it is probably less expensive to sign up for 10 terabytes than buy a large SSD. Of course for maximum speed, the data you are working on would need to be local. I think a bigger deal is soldered on RAM. Users should be buying as much of that as they can afford with these new machines because that can really effect your local speed.
iFixit has completed its teardown of the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, confirming the notebook is equipped with a non-removable SSD just like the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Only the entry-level 13-inch model with a standard row of function keys has a removable SSD in Apple's new MacBook Pro lineup.
15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
The teardown confirms the processor, RAM, and flash memory are soldered to the logic board, meaning the SSD in particular cannot be removed or upgraded after the fact. If you opt for Apple's standard 256GB or 512GB configurations, for example, you will be unable to upgrade to a larger Apple or third-party SSD at a later time.
Interestingly, however, the teardown finds the new MacBook Pro has a connector that leads to "nowhere," which iFixit speculates could be for Apple to access the soldered-in SSD for data recovery. iFixit suggests there might at least be a chance of recovering data with Apple's help should the logic board experience hardware failure.
Apple's notebooks have become increasingly hard to repair and upgrade as their designs have become thinner and lighter. iFixit gave the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar its lowest "repairability" score of 1 out of 10, noting the Touch Bar is difficult to replace while the entire battery assembly is strongly glued into the case.
The rest of the teardown reveals the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is very similar to the 13-inch model, beyond having a different six-cell battery layout.
Article Link: Teardowns Confirm 13-Inch and 15-Inch Touch Bar MacBook Pros Have Non-Removable SSDs
As a macbook air user for the last 3-4 years, I have gotten used to using it without much connected to it with cables. I purchased a lot to dongles at first when I thought I might need them but turned out not using them much. Only occasionally did I use a hardwired ethernet adapter. Backups were done wirelessly for the most part with an occasional backup to hard drive by USB. The USB adapter is probably the one you will want to support all the old peripherals we still have hanging around using the older form factor.
Seems like the fears many of us had dating back several years ago have finally come to fruition. Apple has made the first disposable MacBook Pro. What doesn't make sense is that the price doesn't reflect its disposable design. It would at least make a bit of sense if they had made it less expensive to offset the zero future upgrade potential.
Apple just got ethered on the first comment.
And you're stupid enough to believe more ports are better ports. Like China is the better country for having more people. So your SSD is replaceable, but how fast is it? Is it a SATA III SSD limited to 550MB/s? And you've got an HDMI port, but which standard? HDMI 1.4a limited to 10 Gbps or HDMI 2.0 for up to 18 Gbps? Which of course still falls short of TB 3 with its 40 Gbps. So you'll never run an external 5K display. But at least you can permanently connect a USB thumb drive. What a success, worthy of being secured with a Kensington Lock. I'm about to steal your cheap laptop, only because I like to get me some standard screws.
Ideally access it, but we've effectively had a "port" the last few years anyway considering Apple has used a proprietary connector. This really changes very little to me. I'm over the days of hacking my MacBooks into other things.
Me: The ram cant be upgraded
You: But the ports are really fast
Me: The SSD cant be upgraded
You: But the ports are really fast
Me: They made it unecessarily thin thereby limiting the battery life they could have had
You: But the ports are really fast
Me: The unecessary 3mm of extra thiness will cause more throttling of the processor under heavy loads
You: But the ports are really fast
Me: These laptops are way more expensive than last years models and have marginal performance gains in processing power and gpu (until the throttling kicks in - which it always does under heavy loads with thin laptops.)
You: But the ports are really fast
Me: Lack of magsafe means if that one time I make a mistake and leave my cable vunerable and the dog trips across it, my laptop probably flys to the kitchen floor and is toast
You: But the ports are really fast
True, but wouldn't you rather have control over your own ssd. Apple does not need to solder the ssd. I'm voting with my wallet here. Maybe you're happy to have your ssd soldered in and be an apple apologist but I'm not
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No, you can get an enclosure for an Apple ssd. You shouldn't need to apologies for Apple...
Is that you Phil?
You've got it all wrong.
SSD's, RAM and Batteries have always been user replaceable and a lot of use want it to stay that way.
Why is this? Because of the user experience. Here are a few reasons:
- Not everyone lives in a city with an Apple store. Being able to replace things themselves gives a better experience.
- When I require a $150 component to be replaced, I do not want a bad experience where the repair cost is 10 times that amount.
- I want control over my data, that is a good experience and having the SSD soldered in takes away my options. Perhaps I am an employee of an organisation that needs to swap out drives before devices are disposed of.
- When a laptop is 5 years old, I can no longer get service for it from Apple. By not soldering, I have a good experience at that point. I have been in this situation before. I have a perfectly good laptop that Apple will not supply a battery for. Apple uses planned obsolescence. Batteries could have standard connectors such that if I need to replace a battery I could swap in any compatible battery, even a newer one. Again bad user experience.
Don't be an Apple apologist. Wouldn't you rather be able to replace the SSD, RAM and Batteries in your devices?
I'm glad that car manufacturers don't weld the wheels on.
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You can argue all you like about how what Apple is doing fits nicely to your needs. But what you cannot do is state that other peoples needs are being met.
Apple certainly could have gone about this in other ways but chose their own path that does not match mine, so I have voted with my wallet. I'm sure Apple will miss the amount of money I have spent over the years.
For example. Yes I will love USB-C in a few years, but in the here and now, my new laptop has 1 USB-C and 2 USB-A. I can have my sandisk ultra fit permanently plugged in to one of the USB-A. This is something that is not possible with USB-C. Apple could easily have left a single USB-A but didn't.
When a company has a monopoly position (or insert what ever word that you think is appropriate instead of monopoly) on their OS and they are the only ones licenced to create hardware for that OS, they have a higher standard to follow to ensure that they meet the needs of their customers.
Just because Johhny has a thin fettish, doesn't mean that we have to suffer. Don't get me wrong, thin laptops are very sexy and desirable, but my ports to my use case are more important.
I't rather have a thicker lighter device with more ports and replaceable parts than a thinner one, and yes weight is not directly equivalent to thickness. I have seen two laptops the same thickness with one being about double the weight of the other.
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Replacing battery, SSD or RAM is hardly hacking and a lot of us want choice.
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Please don't call me stupid. An what a load of crap you write. Just dismissing other people's needs is a bad look.
Its all about user experience not the numbers.
- More port does not equal better ports and you know I did not say that, more ports equals more choice which is a better experience
- SSD is replaceable and how fast is it? I don't know, it is an m2 sata on a dell XPS 15, so I guess you could look it up. But simple fact is it builds my code fast enough, I can alter my pictures fine and edit my video. So yes, a replaceable SSD is a good experience. I think I have seen someone test theirs at 1.8gb/s read speed.
- My HDMI port, probably the latest standard, again you can go look it up, but when I connect my laptop to do a presentation, I have had no issues, I don't need to go looking for a dongle in the room (I don't carry my bag to meetings), so again my user experience is improved and just fine with whatever HDMI port is in there.
- Never run an 5K display? I believe the dell usb-c (thunderbolt 3.1) supports 3 monitors, 2 of them being 4k displays. If I was connecting 2 or 3 displays, I'd probably want to use a docking station so that I only have a single cord to plug in to the laptop. That gives me the experience of a single cable to access keyboard, mouse, screens and storage.
- Kensington lock, cheap laptop, get off your high horse. It gives me an option to lock my laptop, better than not having it. As for cheap laptop, its as good as the MBP if not better in performance.
- TB3, yes I have that too and can get 40Gbps.
- And the kicker user experience, I paid $2000 less than the MBP and less than I paid for my 2012 rMBP 4 years ago.
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Out of curiosity, if someone has a mini dongle for USB-A for connecting a mouse to a laptop.
What would be the equivalent for USB-C?
Looks like it would be unsafe and you would need a dongle on the end or something or I guess you'd move to a bluetooth keyboard and mouse or docking station.
What would be the equivalent for USB-C?
Looks like it would be unsafe and you would need a dongle on the end or something or I guess you'd move to a bluetooth keyboard and mouse or docking station.
No doubt... this makes the decision much easier to just go with the base model. Non-removable SSD in a multi thousand dollar machine that's supposed to last for many years?
It's a sad day for anyone wanting an Apple laptop. I had the $$ waiting for this laptop to replace my 2012 rMBP and couldn't. So switched.
I can see many hard times for Apple apologists on here in the years ahead which is just sad to see.
I just don't recognize Apple anymore.