PowerBook 15" and 12" Disassembly

questamor writes "The ever gadget-driven among us are at it again, with a Japanese site disassembling a brand new 15" PowerBook. Of interest is dual blowers. Quite a good deal packed into that sleek Al case. An older photo article on the same site details a 12" takeapart. That's stunning for barely an inch thick. Kudos to Apple's designers for a machine that looks as well designed in as out, and to the guys willing to unscrew the screws on a machine barely 5 days into warranty."

Comments

Re:Why buys Macs?

[feldsteins]

I think a big part of it is you have to hold the thing in your hands. Otherwise you can't really understand how deliciously Apple's computers - especially their laptops - are engineered. Other laptops in comparison feel like plastic pizza boxes with the heft of a concrete mason block and sport all the fit-and-finish of a 3rd-grade science project completed the night before.

Then there's OS X. Having a Unix OS specifically engineered to integrate perfeclty with your hardware is a huge thing. Once you get used to that it's very hard to go back. Hell, I still get giddy over the idea that I can run Office and Photoshop and other commercial apps on Unix at all.

Also on the software front there's Apple's end-to-end multimedia solutions: iMovie, iTunes, iDVD, etc. They make similar applications look like cheap knock-offs. And in some cases they are.

Re:Why buys Macs?

[GauteL]

At the entry price of the iBook the comparable PC-laptops struggle to provide anything close to the unified feeling of the thing, it's durability, it's looks, battery life and noise.

The entry PC-laptops advertise around 2 hours battery life. The entry iBook has almost 4 hours.

The decision is definitely not "already made for you".

Bear in mind that not all people care most for raw power in their laptop. I for instance love having a 12" notebook with almost 4 hours battery. The fact that it doesn't run the latest games or compile things as fast as a P4 is irrelevant for me.

And, when I talk about noise, I can tell you that the iBook when on battery literally makes no noise at all. You have to put your ear to it to be able to hear something at all.

All in all it is a great little notebook. It might not be for everyone, but it does cater for a quite large niche.

taking them apart.

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking Apart the 12" and the 15 isnt as much of a bear as one might thing. Granted, its always exciting when someone does it at home and posts a site about it in japanese. However, the machines have been available in the U.S. for a while, and people have been breaking them for a while. What does this mean? All of us Portable Certified Techs that work for Apple Specialists have been taking the damned things apart for months. They're gorgeous on the outside, but a pain to crack open.
Figure this.

There's tons of screws, none of them magnetized, all of them small. Its like keeping track of ants.

The top case is flexible so there's the possibility of bending it or damaging it when removing or reinstalling it.

The innards arent really designed from a repair perspective. On the 12" powerbook, the retainer tabs for the optical drive are UNDER the logic board. So, to remove the cd-r, you much gut the machine.

There are about a dozen tiny phillips head screws that hold the keyboard in place on the 17" they are stamped metal, not polished and finished like all the other screws on the box. the bottom of the top case is unfinished as well. SO, the screws get turned into place by a machine, and then are almost unremovable after the fact. You go after them with a small phillips and they strip like butter. then you have to bust out the screw extractor and waste 20 minutes, only to have the one next to it do the same thing.

when the systems first shipped, the rubber feet were not classified as a seperate part. They were part of the bottom case. SO, if you lost your rubber feet, you would have had to order a new bottom case. Luckily, they fixed that

So, now that I'm done ranting, you all know what I found wrong with the new powerbooks. if anyone wants photos, I might be enticed to post them on www.modyourmac.com, but someone is still gonna have to ask.

Re:gee i think we reassembled them the wrong way a

[SKorvus]

Actually, that's a new 15"; the 17 is much wider.

On the right is a Photoshopped old 15 (note the two-tone case edge and black keyboard) to make it the size of a 12.

The owner of the site specializes in making "vhacks": photoshopped dream Macs.