JAN 2022 MAXIMUMPC 53
BACKGROUND
It’s Apple again, but the new MacBook Pro with its M1-derived
uberchip. It’s a monster performer, but will it come apart?MAJOR TECH SPECS- M 1 Pro (APL 110 3) SoC with 10-core CPU, 16 -core GPU
- 1 6GB LPDDR5 RAM (200GB/s bandwidth) and 25 6GB SSD
- 1 6.2-inch ( 3456 x 2234 pixels) Liquid Retina XDR LCD display,
1,60 0 nits peak, mini-LED backlight - 100 Wh battery, 140 W USB-C PSU with MagSafe 3
- Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW
- 3 x Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, SDXC card, high-impedance
headphone jack - Force Touch trackpad, 108 0p FaceTime HD camera
KEY FINDINGS- Just look at those ports. With so many places to plug things in
and so many dongles scorned, Jony Ive must be rolling in his ....
Ferrari. MagSafe also makes a triumphant return to the
MacBook, despite its iPhone moonlighting—good news for all
the clumsy cord-kickers, the pet owners, and almost everyone.
But we didn’t come here to ogle the design. They say true
beauty is on the inside, so let’s see if it’s true. - Can you hear angelic music, or is it just us? Sure, the rear case
is still secured by pentalobe screws, but there’s no adhesive
this far in—and the clips are even less terrifyingly tight.
Compared with the 2019 1 5-inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro, these
models make even better use of interior space. Speakers and
batteries fill every cranny, without sacrificing a robust-looking
cooling assembly. Differences between the 14 -inch and 16 -inch
models are rare: rear cover clips, chip arrangements, and
hinge bracket shapes. - The four outer battery cells all sport subtle but noticeable pull
tabs, aka stretch-release adhesive. Pull these things to stretch
out the adhesive, and, in theory, whatever’s attached to it falls
right out. Even better, it appears this battery isn’t trapped under
the logic board. That could enable battery swaps without
removing all the brains first. But we don’t see any pull tabs on
the two center cells, and they refuse to budge. Are we
screwed—or, worse, glued? This stumps us, until we had the
brilliant idea to remove the trackpad. There are pull strips
under the remaining battery cells, accessed through cutouts in
the chassis, beneath the trackpad. - The logic board—and accompanying heatsink and fans—are
beefy, and this isn’t even the M1 Max model. The M 1 Pro is
flanked by two memory modules (four on the M1 Max), soldered
to the SoC for maximum bandwidth. These memory modules
make up Apple’s ‘unified’ memory, meaning they can be shared
between the CPU and GPU, dramatically increasing the pool
that both can draw from. What does all this fancy-pants
unification mean for repairability? Everything is on the board.
Future-upgradeable RAM? Nope. Better shell out as much as
you can afford up-front. Future-upgradeable storage:
technically possible, but highly impractical. - Repairability Score: 4 out of 10 ( 10 is easiest to repair). Apple’s
M1 tech is rocking the industry, but its repairability isn’t
advancing as quickly. Still, this design represents a move in the
right direction. The battery replacement procedure is
improved. May we never again relive the nightmare of surgically
removing cemented-in batteries from a “Pro” laptop. We’ve
also griped about soldered memory in the past. We still don’t
love it, but it’s hard to argue with the performance and battery
life advances. The biggest blight? Soldered-down, non-
removable storage—a major barrier for repairability,
upgradeability, security, data recovery, and overall flexibility.
Forget about RAM
and SSD upgrades.
It’s all soldered on