17-inch unibody MacBook Pro gets disassembled, examined
By Donald Melanson 
posted Feb 17th 2009 6:58PM
posted Feb 17th 2009 6:58PM
The battery on the now-shipping 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro may not be removable for average, warranty-abiding users, but that didn't stop the folks at iFixit from removing it and just about everything else that isn't soldered on. As you might expect, however, apart from that over-sized battery, the internals aren't too different from the 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro, although the 17-incher unsurprisingly has a pair of noticeably larger fans to keep everything cool, and iFixit describes the component density as "amazing." Hit up the link below for the complete teardown, and try your best not to imagine a matte black MacBook Pro after catching sight of that battery.
[Via Mac Rumors]
[Via Mac Rumors]
Silicon sex.
This battery looks very much like it could have been made to be user replaceable.
But I guess if it were they couldn't price gouge on service replacements.
because charging the same price as the batteries themselves cost for the MB and MBP15 is definitely gouging man
Well according to the guide it is very replaceable.
I would say that $180 is gouging when most 3rd party replacement batteries for notebooks run closer to $100.
This isnt just your run of the mill battery.
@laxfan0930
That's right, it's an *apple* battery...
You know, because their Li-On batteries are so much different. Oh wait, where was that Silver-Zinc battery?
Apple Techs are god. They are the only ones that can the mighty battery pack. You puny users must bow down and throw money at them if you want a replacement. Save yourself the trouble and just bow down and shell out a few grand more for a new laptop.
...that can _________ the mighty battery...
A) hump
B) see
C) change
D) all of the above
>This battery looks very much like it could have been made to be user replaceable.
Thanks for the opinion, professor.
Here's a bit of information for you: MacBook owners buy their batteries from Apple, regardless. A non-replaceable battery costs Apple more money: they have to pay a technician to replace the battery, and it eliminates the possibility of people buying spare batteries. So why don't you email Steve Jobs and inform him of your great revelation, I'm sure he'd be quite interested to find out that the MacBook Pro battery could actually be made user-replaceable.
I would not call it gouging. I checked Dell's site, and Dell charges about the same for batteries of the same capacity. Since you can get 3rd party batteries cheaper than Dell, is Dell gouging also?
Here's a hint. Almost all 3rd party after market stuff is cheaper than it is from the manufacturer, in every industry. That POS AC Delco radio in your dash will cost $700 from the GM dealer but a much better Alpine will cost $350. That's the way it is.
it costs them more money but it makes them money - it means that no one can produce Li-ion batteries that fit in the MBP and sell them for less than Apple does, and that they get to charge you a service fee that pays the tech's salary as well as giving Apple a profit margin.
The difference is that Dell doesn't design all their products with non replaceable batteries.
Can you see the difference?
@ota
The iPhone, iPods, and 17" MBP are the only products that do not have user replaceable batteries. Everything else is....
engadgetier:
The Nike+ sensor that goes in your shoe doesn't have a user (or professionally for that matter) replaceable battery either.
Many people don't buy the 3 year warranty. Chances are your battery will die after it's out of warranty. Once it's out of warranty, who cares if you replace it yourself, if you can't manage to change it, I'm sure you can find a friend who could... There WILL BE aftermarket batteries available, search ebay for Macbook Air batteries, not that big a deal...
the reason the battery isn't user-replaceable is to keep it thin. Apple said that the mechanics included in making an easily replaceable battery took way too much space.
@Engadgetier
Neither does the MacBook Air.
So let's count up all the non user replaceable batteries that Apple has.
iPod Shuffle: non replaceable
iPod Nano: non replaceable
iPod Classic: non replaceable
iPod Touch: non replaceable
iPhone: non replaceable
MacBook Air: non replaceable
MacBook Pro 17": non replaceable
MacBook: replaceable
MacBook Pro (except 17"): replaceable
So that means only 20% of the products that Apple sells that use batteries are user replaceable. If you factor in each model of the respective products that's still only 29%
So to paraphrase you; "80% of Apples products do not have user replaceable batteries. Everything else is....."
Actually, when this was announced Apple claimed that the battery couldn't be made user replaceable because it was being made out of Lithium Polymer so it could be moulded to fit an awkward space within the laptop. This was supposed to allow them to use space more efficiently and the trade off with the convenience of a user replaceable battery was that the laptop would be smaller.
We can now see that this is was all just a load of crap.
As you'd expect, the battery is just a standard shape and could have been user replaceable if they had engineered the laptop properly.
Typical Apple crap.
@Darren: You're an idiot if you think that it costs Apple to replace these batteries. Not only is the price of the labour built into the price of the replacement battery but they have you in their shop and have an opportunity to sell you more stuff you don't need.
It would seem imposable to tell just by looking at it in that photo. User removable batteries required onboard circuitry and a connector that meets certain standards, and probably other things such as a more durable (thicker) casing, not to mention the laptop battery bay would require similar extra stuff. You'd probably be surprised by the extra usable space you get by not bothering with so much of that stuff.
Personally, I'd prefer the extra battery life. I've never needed to buy a spare battery. I'm sure it's essential for some people, but if that's the case, there are still other options, like buying a 15", or buying something from another company.
@jakem - nope, they never said that. they said that making it built in saves them space, nothing more.
on a general note, the 95 watt hour beast of a battery should really speak for itself but I find myself not too surprised that facts do nothing to deter the trolls and whiners. oh, by and far best and longest lasting battery of any 17" laptop out there.
here is what I am thinking: of all you trolls and whiners, none of you would have actually bought this machine even if Apple caved in to all your demands. you would just find new "demands". Apple knows that and duly ignores you. instead, Apple is listening to the people who are actually spending their money on this thing, i.e., me. Hey maybe that's why they keep making profits year after year.
Thats cool, can i order mine dissasembled?
Only with some assembly required.
Watch the fine print say you can't return it if sent to you in such a state.
Just like the FREE engraving crap.
Looks tight, my Gateway's got much more space in between its components. But my Gateway is also about $2500 cheaper.
And about hundred times shittier.
@Dr. Spaceman
Umm . . . not really, not even in your wildest exaggerations. Well built, well designed and no major performance complaints (well, of course there'll always be complaints). And again . . . almost 4 times cheaper.
Not trolling, just defending my baby.
Noise and heat is the 2 major problem for laptops. Sadly Apple is not good in any of them. Macbooks fans are really noisy, I cant barely ear my clients when we skype.
Your Gateway is probably $300 less than a MacBook, but you get what you pay for. Some people aren't interested in hauling around a laptop that's the thickness and weight of a briefcase.
@Darren
Cheapest 17" Macbook Pro=$2799
Most expensive 17" Gateway laptop=$1299
$2799-$1299=$1500
I'd say it was an over exaggeration on both parts but you're $200 further off than bluesky_v2.01
Gateway: 1.3"-1.70" (H) x 15.75" (W) x 11.75" = 277 in^3
MBP17: 0.95" x 15.47 x 10.51 = 154 in^3
The Gateway is 80% larger than the MBP.
Gateway: 9.05 lbs
MBP17: 6.6 lbs
The Gateway weighs 37% more than the MBP.
Small size & weight are costly things... it's all a tradeoff.
Oh, yeah, awesome. So cheap and "well" designed your Gateway is. Wow.
Hmm ... let's see the checklist for your Gateway:
Aluminium body? No
Hardened Glass Display? No
1920x1200 res? Uhm, no.
BEST Notebook display (is it S-PVA or S-IPS? Not sure)? No
Litium-POLYMER Battery, Not Li-Io? Uhm, No
Lightest 17" Notebook? No
Thinnest 17" Notebook? Hell, no
Slower CPU? Yes
Shitty, bulky, standard, plastic casing wrapped around standard components? Hell, yes.
Mac OS X? No
Shitty OS? Hell, Yes.
Usefull, awesome software suite included? No
Shitty, uselles TRIAL SOFTWARE?? HELL YES
Look:
Whatever suits your need.
You Computer is probably great for you.
And why not. I'd be the last one to tell you otherwise.
I'd never tell you to switch. Whatever suits YOU best.
But your BULLSHIT is unbareable.
Just STFU if you don't the differences and leave ME and MY CHOICE alone.
I don't fucking care about your choice, your Gateway thingy that suits YOU, either.
Fucking trolls.
(Sorry for the language in the end, but I can't bare this nerd trolling anymore.)
This is as stupid and pointless as the 911 Turbo vs the Nissan GT-R debate... It's a badge and brand thing.
*sigh* so beautiful
Agree, I'll join your shade of grey of the lowest rank for liking Apple on engadget. And I'm a Windows Micro$shit developer!
The aluminum looks better than matte black.
I personally like black aluminum. can't we all just get along?
Looks cool, can't wait for this (type of) battery to get ported to the up and coming Macbook Air.
This is definitely an engineering/design work of art. And yes, I own both PCs and Macs.
What makes the internals so much better than other 17" models from other companies?
Really it looks like others I have seen. And the battery I would have to assume that if another company wanted to build a battery like that they could and then charge what they do.
In fact Dell, and HP already have super long battery! They can last 8+ hours as well. Everyone just thinks Apple is the king of design and new tech, but really it's just marketing and making everyone think they were the first or are the best etc.
Man im still impressed by the logic board, cramming all that power in such a small size.
@Adam
Stop hating...this is quite marvelous. I'm sure Dell can make the same thing but have it be twice the thickness.
Oddly enough yes its neat how they managed to pack it in all box, though I dont get the fuss. The density is far from special, take a look at a Sony X505 from 6 years ago, it does pretty much the same. Nowadays pretty much every mayor producer has something in his line which is slim and light. Any other Vaio/Lenovo/Envy/Toshiba has something more or less the same. Maybe not all have a 17 incher but this is far from new. It always surprises me how much attention something ordinary gets while for me it only surprises only so few don´t get it why Apple refuses to buildin a replacable laptop. Apples look good, but for any business person a non-replacable battery renders this device useless. Not to mention that most of my software probably won´t work either but that´s something Parallel could fix.
@Adam
Tell you what, you find another 17" laptop with a similar specification and dimensions, then we'll talk about this being "nothing special". In the meantime I tend to agree that this is a wonderful piece of engineering.
I love hearing folks arguing about which is better, PCs or Macs. When I was a kid my friend and I spent countless hours arguing which was better: cats or dogs. The answer is ______ .
Bottom line: computers are a blast. I have both as well, and I switch between my MacBook Pro 17 inch and my PCs all day. It would be nice to have a linux machine humming away here too...
Funny they make it look so nice on the inside, yet you "aren't allowed" to open it...
Why do they bother on something they don't want you to see?
Yes, you are very much allowed to open it. That's how you upgrade the memory & hard drive. It's also how I upgraded the wireless in my MBP. Where did you get your information?
Well, I don't know this generation, but last one you replaced that stuff from under the keyboard...
And isn't this this model that everyone was complaining that it doesn't have a removable battery? Isn't that the battery being removed in the picture?
And if that's how you put in the RAM, why is this Engadget worthy? Why would they feature an article that is just about opening a laptop which anyone can do themselves and are expected to if that's how to put in a new HDD....
Oh and my reason...
"...not be removable for average, warranty-abiding users, but that didn't stop the folks at iFixit from removing it and just about everything else that isn't soldered on."
If you think all they did was open it up, you didn't read the article.
All I said was that it's odd that they make something like the inside pretty and someone decides that I don't know where I get my info.
But they're not supposed to take it apart. It's against the rules. Not only does all of the iMagic dust get contaminated, it also doesn't look near so pretty.
(And they are very pretty, you can't deny that)
I heart Mac.
I am Mac.
LIAR! It's even MORE pretty. I think the whole thing should be transparent so you can see the insides!
You're stupid, Sean.
Hehe, I love your avatar.
Wow :D I often forget how much effort is put into the design of a Mac :) Perfect!
About the same as it takes to design any other laptop. I would take a pretty good guess that the dual screened lenovo was harder than this.
I'm a PC and that is absolutely beautiful!
how do you disassemble a unibody? it must not be one piece then. hrrmph
No, it's one piece. They use lasers to carve out a single block of aluminum, then little elves assemble the computer by passing components through the DVD slot.
Wow, those insides look as nice as the outside...
If it were so easy to construct one of these ... in 15 or 17 inch, how come nobody's constructing a less than inch thick, light-weight laptop like these?
Because the other manufacturers are too busy putting in useful things like battery doors.
I agree. I'm no Mac fan but I'm pretty neutral. You can't deny that the people at Apple really know what they're doing
@telepheedian
Given a choice between a user replaceable battery or a physically smaller and lighter machine, I have to be honest and say that the dimensions are more important to me. I don't expect this is the same for everyone but for those that it is not then, as you imply, there are other manufacturers to choose from. Put another way, you can't keep everyone happy.
I agree with crescentdavid*
i didn't think of the black macbook until you mentioned it at the end ha ha.
If this gets popular, I swear this whole Mac niche has gone too far...
PC kicks Mac ass...and again because I forgot it earlier.
That's where a lot of people get it wrong and Apple people don't want to admit:
A Mac is a type of PC.
Looks nice, but I don't understand the battery I can't change without using a screwdriver.
I don't see what the big deal is about user replaceable batteries. I have had (in the past, I'm admittedly a Mac guy now) 2 Dells, a Compaq, and a Gateway Tablet. I NEVER changed out a battery. And I travel for a living, flying 3-4 times a month. I've had a MacBook Pro for a little over 2 years, and the battery latch has never been flipped. The way I see it, most people never swap batteries, and most don't carry second batteries. If they did, then Apple (in all their marketing genius) would see spare batteries as a much bigger sales opportunity than replacing a built-in battery every couple of years. People use their laptops, then plug them in. Some laptops never leave a desk.
Some of the complaining about the non-replaceable batteries do need them, but I'd guess they are in the vast minority. But people using multiple batteries and uber-travelers probably aren't going to lug around a 17" laptop, no matter how thin it is.
And (a little off topic, but harkening back to the marketing dominance of Apple over MS...) What's the deal with this "Life Without Walls" campaign? It sucks. If I don't have any walls, I have no use for Windows...
You're correct Jimmy.
1) I have a laptop and work in an environment where many people go out on business trips and I don't know of any one pissing their pants over a lack of a 2nd battery. In fact, I've never heard any one bring up the issue. In all fairness however the only time I saw people do the 2nd battery thing was 10 years ago, in the 90s. It's 2009 now, this is a non-issue.
2) This new Apple battery lasts for 5 years. FIVE years, that's half a decade folks. Who keeps their laptops for that long? By the time this battery needs replacement, the WHOLE laptop will be so outdated as to warrant buying a new one.
3) The charge lasts 8 hours. What kind of extreme/rare circumstances would one need to be to not be able to find a socket and use his/her charger?
Yep. Exactly.
Facts have never stopped the trolls from trolling though.
I'm in the same boat. I have had 2 Apple laptops with the option of replacing the batteries myself but have never done so (mostly due to the additional cost and weight) so a laptop where the battery lasts twice as long will be great and I won't have any issues with not being able to replace it myself. If the battery only lasted 3-hours or less then I can see why people would have a problem but, for me, this is all good and a fuss over nothing.
Wheres the eSATA? (although the FW800 is better than most..)
I consider the lack of memory card slots to be a more pressing issue for this type of computer than eSATA but for both issues you can use the ExpressCard slot. A dedicated port would be nice but it's not a major issue. I'm more concerned that we've lost a FireWire port since I use both on my current MBP and daisy-chaining is not an option.
For all you 'tards that bitch about this battery, watch this video and learn a little:
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/17inch-battery/
1. Apple custom-engineered this battery: advanced chemical elements, extremely dense
2. Lasts 3 TIMES the lifespan of the average battery:
a. Up to 1000 charges vs 300 charges
b. 5 years life vs 3 years life
3. Lasts 8 hrs on a single charge (like very few others)
Not a run of the mill generic battery purchased from a 3rd party manufacturer, unlike most other laptops.
Exactly.
But this is a NERD site.
All those ranting nerds get proven wrong EVERY single time by THE CUSTOMERS.
Yes. Because Apple is a non-profit, non-biased source when it comes to Apple Macintosh products.
@ Harrison:
Since there's nothing else you can say you resort to sarcasm. Is that really the best you can do? Tsk tsk.
If you're saying the Apple video is a lie, then show proof. You're guilty of trolling otherwise.
BTW, the statements about the battery are also listed in the MBP's tech specs page, so it's not just marketing chatter.
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html
Any details on the matte screen yet? My copy of MacWorld UK seemed to imply that the screen was simply the display from the previous model and therefore probably did not have the same increase in the displayed colour gamut as the new glossy one. Anyone able to confirm that?
with all the bad mouthing I hear about Mac, I say, why the fuck do they have 30 billion in the bank. I mean, am I missing something? The auto industry in America is going back o Washington to beg for just that amount. Pathetic.
Apple is one of the best American companies we have. We should take pride that we have the Mercedes benz of the computer world and I will support Apple for as long as I can.
Ohh 30 billion now instead of 24 Billion, its simple really it's called a 40% markup and people who are willing to pay it, and iPods of course.
Yes what an engineering marvel, what density, and who brought it to you ? NVIDIA OF COURSE.
Exactly the same chipset that features in other laptops but with a EFI chip instead of BIOS.
Why when are iTards going to wake up to the fact that Apple's hardware partners (Motorola, IBM, Intel and now Nvidia) design the motherboards (yes i said it) that go into all their computers, have a look at the last generation intel insides, all reference design chipsets, Apple design the shiny exteriors so yes well done Apple.
Since when is Nvidia in the laptop battery industry?
1) Did you see Apple's website and/or video? You did not. If you had, you would've learned that it is actually Apple who engineers their own batteries for their laptops. Increasing battery density was one of their achievements, hence part of the reason why this battery lasts longer.
2) Apple's hardware partners design the chipsets that go into Apple's own engineered motherboards. They do NOT make the motherboards for Apple. I hope you're capable of making the distinction.
3) Apple designs many of its own chipsets. It has done so since its inception. (PA Semi was Apple's latest move in the hardware/chipset arena.) That gives Apple the ability to add specialized hardware of its own design to its Mac products and fully exploit that potential with tight software integration. Thus, specialized processors and chipsets allow Apple to differentiate its product line from the run-of-the mill PCs.
I just proved you wrong and that makes you the iTard.
I would sell my dead mother for one of these but then if i actually had to pay for it I'd think
Macbook Pro 17" 2.5 C2D Nvidia 9600GT/9400 4GB Ram 320GB HDD DVD-RW = £1949
Acer Aspire Gemstone 18.6" 2.4 C2D Nvida 9700GT 4GB Ram 320GB HDD DVD-RW/BD-ROM= £1078
I could buy 2 extra batteries for the Acer and still have £850 in my pocket.
A laptop with a bigger screen, a blu-ray drive and better gaming graphics, that will still dual boot Windows & OS X
So yes I do think Apple machines are very attractive but rather overpriced
I don't find the design to be extraordinary. The continual shrinking of ICs and hard drives (from magnetic platters to SSDD) explains the compact construction of this 17 inch MacBook rather than any design innovation.
Couple things: if the claim is that you can get 7-8 hours on this laptop, under what load? Surfing the web? Playing a game? Tracking some music? Or just leaving it sitting there (as I suspect)
The Battery could have been easily designed to be user replaceable, they didn't explicitly because they profit from battery replacements. Don't be fooled.
As Dell does successfully, they could ship a battery (or have you pick it up at the Apple store) to the end user to have him/her replace it. I'm assuming here that an average MAC users possess the electronics IQ to replace a battery.
I do remember buying an extra battery for my powerbook G3. I used it once. The original still works, but I have had 4 (apple) laptops since all of which are still in service with one of my staff.
The PC laptops I have bought (about the same number) I would prefer to forget as they are so horrible.
I still have a mark 1 ipod and have not had to change its battery, so I am not bovvered by the latest developments.
(From my iPHONE 3G)
Cheers
The Captain