Mid 2012 MacBook Pro Teardown
While its sibling with the Retina display may have stolen all the press, today’s MacBook Pro is nothing to scoff at. It’s way more repairable, upgradeable, and hackable than its sleeker, 0.24″-thinner, one pound-lighter sibling. This isn’t much of a surprise to anyone, and neither is the very respectable 7/10 repairability score (compared to 1/10 for the MacBook Pro with Retina Display). Internally the machine is pretty much the same as the last year’s model.
Yet one question still bugs us: could Apple make a super-sleek laptop like the MacBook Pro with Retina Display and still preserve the repairability of the machine?
The answer—and we hope you agree—is yes.
Comparison highlights between the two machines below. The regular MacBook Pro is always cited first, compared to the MacBook Pro with Retina Display:
- Use of regular vs. proprietary screws. This is a no-brainer in our books—there’s absolutely no benefit from using a proprietary pentalobe screw type in any electronic device, aside from keeping users out of it.
- The battery is exactly the same capacity as last year’s model: 77.5 Wh at 10.95 V. It’s the same size as well, a solid 13.8 mm in thickness. The MacBook Pro with Retina Display’s battery varies in thickness from 5.25 mm to 8.60 mm depending on which cell you measure, and it has a plastic frame around some of the cells. Although the discrepancy is large between the two battery thicknesses, the Retina MacBook Pro’s battery is spread out over a much larger surface area. It would’ve taken some engineering, but Apple could expand the frame in the Retina MacBook Pro to encompass the whole battery, and allow it to come out as a singular, non-glued unit.
- Here’s a big difference: the regular MacBook Pro 2.5″ SATA hard drive is 9.45 mm thick, compared to 3.16 mm for the SSD found in the Retina Display MacBook Pro. But the SSD is one of the few things that is actually removable from the Retina version, and Apple could use a non-proprietary mSATA connector so folks could replace the drive with an off-the-shelf unit.
- While the individual RAM modules are thin (~3.15 mm), the “stacked” RAM slots in the regular MacBook Pro are a whopping 9.15 mm thick. Yet the entire Retina MacBook Pro is only 18 mm thick, and allocating half of that dimension to RAM slots would be a big sacrifice. But, an individual RAM slot is only 4.27 mm thick; if the design of the logic board featured the RAM slots side by side (like older MacBooks), folks could still replace their RAM for years to come.
- While the regular MacBook Pro display may not be Retinalicious, a cracked LCD will still be the most expensive repair (aside from the logic board) on this machine. Thankfully, users can replace just the LCD instead of the entire assembly. Incorporating a removable LCD into the MacBook Pro with Retina display would increase the thickness by less than a millimeter, while still preserving the awesome Retina resolution.
- We love the optical drive in the regular MacBook Pro because we appreciate the additional space given by adding a second hard drive (using one of our SATA enclosures). A significant portion of the weight savings in the Retina MacBook Pro comes from Apple’s removal of the optical drive. While the lack of an optical drive won’t be major imposition for many, the inability to inexpensively add a secondary, high capacity spinning drive is definitely a significant loss in terms of upgradability.
In case you’ve missed the original MacBook Pro with Retina Display teardown, you can find it here.
Comments
where can i find the screw organizer as in the top photo ?
You can get the magnetic project mat on iFixit: http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Magnetic-Project-Mat/IF145-167
Kudos for iFixit, the only clever analysis of MBP mid 2012 release I saw.
(I guess everyone else is just getting paid by Apple)
Could you tell us if the fans on this macbook are the same as the 2011′s or are they asymmetrical?
Any idea what the max RAM is in the 2012 MBP? The 2011 model supposedly max’d out at 2x4GB but I read would accomodate 2x8GB. are these models the same?
Crucial confirms that the 2012 MBP will support 2×8 GB.
The fans are not asymmetrical.
I don’t think Apple could place RAM slots side by side given the very tight trace restrictions imposed by modern RAM at these speeds.
I’m surprised that an electronics site like this wouldn’t think of such details. Can someone write the unbiased version where such things are considered, please?
The article claims that Apple could use standard mSATA drives in their laptops, however the very latest mSATA SSDs just out on the market top out at 256GB.
Apple, however, is selling 512GB in a standard configuration and even 768GB as an option.
Maybe Apple simply couldn’t use standard parts at these capacities?
Anyone know why there’s no larger mSATAs?
The article claims that Apple could use standard mSATA drives in their laptops, however the very latest mSATA SSDs just out on the market top out at 256GB.
Apple, however, is selling 512GB in a standard configuration and even 768GB as an option.
Maybe Apple simply couldn’t use standard parts at those capacities?
Anyone know why there’s no larger mSATAs on the market?
So.. can I upgrade the HDD to SSD in MBP 2012 the same way as in MBP 2011?
“sibling with the Retina display may have stolen all the press, today’s MacBook Pro” – I’m confused – which is which? Aren’t we talking about one computer here?
“Yet one question still bugs us: could Apple make a super-sleek laptop like the MacBook Pro with Retina Display and still preserve the repairability of the machine? The answer—and we hope you agree—is yes.” But you also say “compared to 1/10 for the MacBook Pro with Retina Display”.
So I’m confused as to which machine you are talking about. I’ve no objection to your findings, I’m not a fanboi but it doesn’t seem clear to me which machine is which.
I’d like to do a few things with the regular MacBook Pro.
1. Add just 1 module of 8GB RAM and put it into just one RAM slot i.e. remove the 2x4GB RAM and use just 1x8GB RAM. Right now I don’t need 16GB (2x8GB) and I want the option to later add 8GB more RAM without throwing away 2x4GB RAM DIMMs. Is this possible ?
I intend use a Kingston 8 GB. DDR3-1600 HYPER-X (KHX1600C9D3T1K2/8GX)
2. Add an SSD 128GB drive. Well, I’d take out the optical DVD-Drive and put in the SSD instead.
Can I then boot MacOSX from the SSD 128GB drive ?
Or do I need to swap the HDD into the optical drive slot and put the SSD drive into the HDD slot ?
I understand that I would first need to boot from HDD, and then install MacOSX onto the SSD.
But my question is if I can boot from the SSD if it’s physically put in place of the optical DVD, or do I need to swap the position of the SSD with the HDD.
I intend to use a Crucial m4 128GB SSD SATA III.
well, I might just order the regular MacBook Pro with SSD 128, and then replace the optical DVD drive with a larger HDD.
Would this be more simple ?
Is it possible to use a regular MacBook Pro with just 1x8GB DIMM ?
Tried the optical bay SATA enclosure and the sata hd wouldn’t fit to the connector, couldn’t get the last bit in to make it fully connect, I didn’t wanna use much force either in case I’d break it. So now I wonder if it was the HD or the enclosure connection.. I’ll try another HD later on.
On the website it says that apple tv can do simple things like stream video, photos, and music wirelessly but not anything like playing games. That is only for iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone… I think it’s with an hdmi cable but I don’t know what is called. macbook pro http://goo.gl/xEWh7
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