Video - Apple's new Polycarbonite MacBook, strip-searched

Seth Weintraub
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October 20, 2009
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Engadget posts a link to iFixit's MacBook teardown.  They get some information which is not in Apple's specs.  Some of the highlights of the new Polycarbonate MacBook below:

  • The bottom (lower case) is actually aluminum with rubberized coating injection-molded onto one side
  • It has the same CPU and GPU as the base model MacBook Pro
  • Obviously, the MacBook is now made of plastic Unibody (we'd like to se ehow strong that really is) You obviously have a new rounded edge design.  Along with that goes a new "built-in" battery that has a lot more life (7 hours) than the previous models (5 hours).  This is done with only 23% more battery meaning there is a lot of energy efficiency in this thing.
  • Curiously, no SD card slot like the iMacs and MacBook Pros.  Also no IR port for a remote - the only shipping Mac without one.  Bluetooth+3rd party remotes or USB IR is available however.
  • MacBook loses the traditional MagSafe power adapter and gains a MacBook Air-like bent adapter.
  • The MacBook loses a Firewire port and combines the mic and audio out ports. It also loses Mini-DVI in favor of the Mini DisplayPort adapter
  • The MacBook gains a full sized multi-touch touchpad, similar to the Pro models except the glass is white instead of silver.
  • This new MacBook weighs in at 4.7 lbs. That's .3 lbs less than the old plastic MacBook, but .2 lbs more than the 13" Unibody MacBook Pro.
  • It has a pretty amazing new heat sync (below) that spans the length of the computer.

Oh, an no more fake screws!

Much more at iFixit

Comments (14)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 20, 2009 - 9:22pm

The structural use of aluminum is interesting...

elminno (not verified) | October 20, 2009 - 10:15pm

Seriously, no IR on a consumer laptop? WTF?

TheJuggla17 (not verified) | October 20, 2009 - 10:25pm

The lack of Firewire completely killed a purchase for me. Apple created Firewire and they should embrace it on all their computer products.

~fin~

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 2:48am

Forget FireWire... soon it will be all about Light Peak. I think for a consumer, it is best not to invest in FireWire anymore. Better not buy FireWire-harddisks and other stuff anymore. Use USB, that will be around for some time, and Light Peak will be the new thing.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 5:58am

Right, and how long will it be before these devices hit the market?

Should I just toss my existing Firewire stuff now? Should everyone wait to purchase products that currently have Firewire and not Light Peak?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 8:00am

I've got many FW devices as well. The most notable firewire product is my camera, which uses firewire for its video. It doesn't have an USB option, and even if it did, I've never gotten any good results with that. You really want to load DV over firewire if you have a traditional tape camera that doesn't create DV files on a volume for you which you can just copy however you want them to. Besides, the USB option on some of those cameras need drivers.

Audio breakin/outs - also all firewire. Those were pretty cheap too, for $100 you had something really nice for stereo input and output, more than enough for the amateur to record stuff. As with all firewire devices, none need drivers to work.

My external drives are all firewire, I simply am not happy with USBs performance and reliability - and of course all Macs have firewire, so why even think about it... right? Well, not anymore :(

So no, FW ain't surpassed by anything right now, actually, for the things mentioned nothing comes close to it. And yeah, lightwave sounds pretty damn awesome, but it ain't here and by the time the devices using it are mainstream and cheap you're 6 years further.

Oh well, at least the iMac and cheap MacBook Pro still have it. But... will they keep it on those?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 12:55am

ne wheat sync?? new heat sink?

stencil (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 7:22am

Good call, thanks. For some reason I just couldn't interpret that particular bit of gibberish.

Dan Birchall (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 1:01am

People who buy the cheapest available laptop are probably going to buy devices that use USB, which are cheaper than ones that use firewire. Makes sense to me.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 4:39am

No, it doesn't, really. What about when your cheap consumer ruins their OS install and brings it to a service tech, who now has to remove the hard drive and hook it up to an enclosure because he can't boot in FireWire Target Disk Mode?

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 6:04am

you can boot from an external USB and disk util the HD without removing it. Target disk mode is not the only way.
plus the HD removal is very quick in these machines.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 6:34am

Actually, the Mac Pro doesn't ship with an IR port either/.

topherfangio | October 21, 2009 - 6:59am

How expensive/hard would it have been to put an IR port behind the aluminum enclosure? There are holes everywhere. Surely, they could have sacrificed ONE to make my life easier. I'm just glad I have a wireless router and an iPhone so I can use an application (which is better anyway, but still).

iThink, iMac, therefore iAm

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | October 21, 2009 - 9:29am

Their stock is up to $205 today, compare their 1 year or 5 year charts to ASUS, HP, DELL, MSFT........ I think they know what they are doing ;)

Rob