Which macs are user-serviceable?

PowerMacs, especially the G4's are very user-serviceable. The more "all in one" you get the more difficult it get, but the new iMac seems very accesible to me.

Go to www.macsales.com and watch the installation videos. I think you will see the myth that Macs are not serviceable is untrue.

 

With enough patience, you can do crazy things to the hardware on a Mac.

The iBooks are quite a bit harder to pull apart than others... but thats true of most laptops. Just the iBook (G3s especially) are amazingly hard. Not impossible-- just amazingly hard.

 

Well all are ust depends on the difficulty level

But the iMac G5 and the PM G4 + G5 seems to be very easy

 

Though macs are user serviceable. The cost of apple repair parts are ungodly.

 

Well it depends which part...RAM, hard drives and optical drives you can get anywhere for cheaper.


Took me 5 minutes to add RAM and a 2nd hard drive to my PowerMac G5. Very easy

 

Everything inside the box is industry-standard, except for the motherboard. Replacing one of those will cost you dearly. Power supply too I suppose. But then, the same would be true for any of the OEM PC manufacturers.

 

And the processor, but in PowerMac G3s and G4s, you could add in the upgrade chip. Nothing available like that for PMG5s, eMacs, iMacs, ect

 

After the PowerMac, just about everthing else has all major components lumped into a few parts.

If the HD/optical breaks on anything -- takes time to replace it, and can be done with most any machine.

But if a CPU/video card/etc. breaks on anything but a PowerMac -- unless you are really good with a soldering iron, it's not a user serviceable part.

It's basically just a bunch of assembly planes/modules.

Even the new PowerMac G5s require special software to calibrate a new CPU module.

The LCD panels on the PowerBook 15/17 are glued together, so it's all one expensive module. While in a PB12 or iBook you can take the panel apart and repair it.

All depends on the machine...