New MacBook Air Gets Torn Down – Upgrading is off the Table
New MacBook Air Gets Torn Down – Upgrading is off the Table
Posted 10/23/2010 at 1:24pm
| by Justin Kerr
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We are guessing you read Maximum PC because, like us, you love tearing apart machines to perform your own upgrades or simply do your own repairs. If this description fits you then the new MacBook air would probably be a bad choice if you were on the market for a new ultraportable. Sure its slim, light, and not a bad deal when you consider the amount of built in flash storage, but the machine seems to have been designed from the ground up to be a pain in the butt to disassemble.
Teardown experts from iFixit are reporting that Apple is using 5-point Security Torx screws to try and keep curious souls from venturing under the aluminum unibody. Mechanically inclined individuals with access to a grinder might be able to mutilate a Phillips head screwdriver to do the trick, but it’s certainly an annoying obstacle.
Regardless of your opinion of OSX, it's worth heading over to iFixit to checkout the full teardown of the new Macbook Air. Any way you look at it, Apple has done a pretty impressive job of cramming that much hardware into a pretty small frame.
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domo
October 25, 2010 at 7:09am
OSX is amazing. Windows is a poor man's OSX. Hope you enjoy your viruses DOOOOSH BAGS! Ballmer 4 life!
Thursday
October 24, 2010 at 8:11pm
Security Torx have a hole in the middle. The post this creates on the screw prevents a flat head (or standard torx bit) from fitting in the screw.
Thursday
October 24, 2010 at 8:12pm
I'm sure we can get some regular readers to foot the bill for one of this guys cocktail dresses if you think you can get Gordon to wear it...
Spencer Taylor
October 24, 2010 at 2:45pm
There is no doubt that the new Air is work of art. However, with the amount of time and effort put into the design and battery, Apple cannot justify using a Core 2 Duo and 2GB of memory for a grand - before the Apple warranty! How could they not make this at least an i3? No Blu-ray? Forget it. Stupid at any price.
Bender2000
October 25, 2010 at 7:34am
$1400 for the Sony VAIO X makes the Air look like a blue light special. The Sony has only a single core Atom! I guess you could upgrade it if you had any money left...
armada439
October 24, 2010 at 2:27pm
Us "mechanically inclined" people already have complete torx sets
carnivorousslushee23
October 23, 2010 at 8:49pm
I'd take an Asus 1215N over this any day. They're $485 on Amazon, and have pretty comparable performance. My brother's gotten 8 hours out of the battery at a time: word processing and web browsing with the screen at 50%. Plus Ion and Optimus. Win.
Bender2000
October 25, 2010 at 7:31am
How can you compare a netbook with an Atom CPU to any laptop? Core2 CPUs blow Atom out of the water, even the dual core Atom. That was true 2 years ago, and Atom hasn't done anything to change it.
NanoTech
October 23, 2010 at 4:22pm
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/DURATOOL-BS-11T-/22-9795
11 piece set of five-point security bits for $15.99. I'm sure you could find them at any local hardware store as well. I wouldn't go as far as calling that a pain in the ass. The real question is who in the right mind would spend $999.00 for an outdated 1.4GHz Processor and a lousy 2GB of RAM on a 11inch screen. I know it's designed for portability and all but still.
YoshiHNS
October 24, 2010 at 7:24am
Who would spend that kind of money on outdated hardware? Perhaps people who absolutely must have a super thin laptop with no immediate need for speed or storage. Probably had to mod that cpu so they could get some usable amount of the battery life. Heat would probably have been an issue as well.
nsvander
October 23, 2010 at 3:51pm
Please like that is a security feature, its called a secure torx plus. I have a complete set sitting in my tool box at work, they are not new, been around for almost 15+ years. That would not stop me one bit.
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