Thursday, November 21, 2024
Archived Post

iFixIt tears down the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar; here’s what they found

The gang at iFixIt, which tears apart devices to examine their innards, has torn down the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (look for my review soon). Teardown highlight include:

  • Just like its little brother, the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Tool Barfeatures a plugged-up connector to nowhere. Based on a previous teardown, iFixIt speculates that Apple included an access port for the integrated SSD. Not a bad idea when it’s impossible to physically salvage your data out of a damaged machine.
  • Compared to the merely supersized trackpad in the 13-inch MBP, the 15-inch trackpad is a figurative Big Gulp. Apple threw in an extra Broadcom touch controller IC to handle all of that extra touchable glass.
  • Just like its smaller brothers, most of the 15-inch MBP’s speaker grille holes are cosmetic and don’t go all the way through. 
  • Just like its smaller Touch Bar-wielding friend, the 15-inch MBP doesn’t have a removable SSD or upgradeable RAM. Also just like it, the battery is very solidly glued down, greatly inhibiting repair and recycling. This earned the 15-inch MBP the same score as the 13-inch model—a 1/10 on the iFixIt repairability scale.
Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.