First MacBook Neo teardown praises ‘absolutely amazing’ repairability
Summary created by Smart Answers AI
In summary:
- Macworld reports that the new MacBook Neo received exceptional praise for its repairability during initial teardown analysis.
- The device features easily removable components, including speakers and battery, with minimal adhesive, in stark contrast to previous Apple products.
- This represents a significant change for Apple, making the MacBook Neo a highly accessible and user-friendly laptop option.
Our review calls it the perfect gateway for Mac. But if that’s not enough to make you appreciate the surprisingly affordable MacBook Neo, the device’s first teardown revealed another factor in its favor: repairability.
A new video from Australian YouTube channel TECH RE-NU shows what the presenter describes as a “speedrun teardown” of the MacBook Neo, from unscrewing the bottom plate to removing the trackpad. Without appearing rushed in any way, the presenter achieves this in record time, while praising how the Neo’s simple construction lends itself to easy disassembly and repair.
When the speakers come out, they comment on the lack of sticker tabs. The battery lifts off easily (once the 18 screws are removed) and there is no sticky adhesive. The audio jack is “nice and modular.” And even though there is “a little” adhesive on the trackpad, the presenter says it’s not the end of the world. Overall, this is a very positive assessment.
“We did this in less than 100 minutes,” they say, while a caption points out that it was actually six. “Which is absolutely incredible for an Apple laptop. I can’t say we’ve ever had a Mac as serviceable or as modular as this.”
“It’s just a very simple, elegant design. Apple has cut costs, [it’s] I upgraded to simplicity, which simply means a truly serviceable and very easy to open laptop.
As the presenter notes, Apple designers haven’t always been so kind to repairers.
Last year, the iPhone 16e was criticized by iFixit for the “terrible design” of its USB-C port, although other elements were received more favorably. A few years earlier, the same site gave the iPhone 15 Pro Max a repairability rating of just 4 out of 10 and complained about the company’s “continued restriction of repair freedoms through its restrictive parts matching system.” And that’s before we even get into the “excruciating gauntlet of obstacles” presented by Apple’s self-repair program.
The problem, in general, is that Apple receives revenue if you get your devices repaired at an Apple Store or an accredited partner, so the company has an incentive to control the process. On the other hand, public praise of a product’s repairability can only help sales, so perhaps the Neo will herald the start of a new Apple strategy in more ways than one.
