6 ms·

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Maybe for spoiling the end result? Haha. Having the lowest repairability possible should not be acceptable for such a

I don't know why you're being downvoted. Maybe for spoiling the end result? Haha. Having the lowest repairability possible should not be acceptable for such a high-end machine. Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 got 5/10 (23 October 2019) https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+3+(15-inch)+Teardown/127277 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+3+(...

robin_reala 7y ago
Lowest score at ifixit is actually 0. Somewhat coincidentally, that’s the score the original Surface Laptop got: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+Teardown/92915 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+Tea...
- hu3 7y ago
  Interesting to see that Microsoft improved Surface repairability from 0 to 5 while making it lighter than latest MacBook which scores 1.
htk 7y ago
Why shouldn’t it be acceptable? I for one accept to trade repairability for less footprint/weight. And I also admire my ThinkPad T420 that I thoroughly hacked. Let the market decide what it wants. There’s space for all kinds os laptops and gadgets.
- jmfayard 7y ago
  It's not a free market. Apple has a monopoly on Mac OS alas. Most people don't change their operating system and habits just like that.
  - henryfjordan 7y ago
    You can totally run Windows or Linux on a macbook with some effort. Apple even built Bootcamp to make it easy to dual boot... Or are you saying you should be able to take OSX elsewhere? it's not a "monopoly" that Apple built OSX and only support it on their own hardware. It is not monopolistic to build something supported on one platform and not others.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      I think there were issues with Linux at some point because of the nonstandard NVMe drive that Apple was using. Were those ever fixed?
      - henryfjordan 7y ago
        I'm not sure, I've never tried installing Linux on a Macbook Pro. I know that it is/was possible for certain hardware but also that it was never easy or straight forward. Apple doesn't help but they aren't making their laptops reject unsigned code or anything like they do for the phones. Given that OSX and Linux are so similar under the hood and that standing up a VM is so easy, I've never really seen the point of installing linux except to say you can.
        saagarjha 7y ago
        > Given that OSX and Linux are so similar under the hood and that standing up a VM is so easy Similar in what way?
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        henryfjordan 7y ago
        They both share their roots in Unix. Linux is an open port of Unix whereas OSX is a fork of BSD which is itself also derived from Unix `ls`, `mv`, `cp` and other command line utility functions work relatively similarly across OSX and Linux. OSX has a package manager (brew) that works similarly to Package Managers found on Linux, etc... If you learn to use Linux, switching to OSX is relatively painless compared to Windows (although WSL might have changed that)
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        saagarjha 7y ago
  - eanzenberg 7y ago
    Thing is, "most" people aren't buying desktop OS's to begin with these days. Some do. I run 3 OS's in total for my personal use.
- jraph 7y ago
  In a world where sourcing materials and building computer parts that cannot be recycled has such a high environmental and societal cost, no, I can't find any way of seeing this as acceptable. We should not let the market and consumers preference decide on this. We need informed, resonnable and thoughful decisions. If it leads to laptops a bit more heavy and thick but less wasteful, so be it. Convenience cannot be demanded at any cost. Anyway, repairable is convenient.
  - jotm 7y ago
    I'll take one for the Apple consumers team: fuck the environment.
  - esmi 7y ago
    You can’t dump a laptop in a blue bin but you can recycle it. You can also resell or get a trade-in credit from Apple. https://www.apple.com/recycling/nationalservices/ https://www.apple.com/recycling/nationalservices/
    - jraph 7y ago
      Isn't this bullshit? Apple Forces Recyclers to Shred All iPhones and MacBooks - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-ip... Anyway, the best waste is the one that does not exist, recycling should be last resort since it's often far from perfect and costly too. So we should reduce the amount of things we need to recycle in the first place. As for computer parts, I cannot see how it can be efficient. Reusing working stuff is good though, obviously.
      - esmi 7y ago
        The article is from 2017 and references data from 2016 and 2012. In 2018 Apple announced it stepped up its recycling efforts but I don’t know how things have changed and I haven’t read the full environmental report. Apple forces recyclers to shred because they determined those devices are not fit for resale and they don’t want recyclers reselling them, like they said they would in the article. This happens to 1/3 of trade-ins, see link below. https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/
- passive 7y ago
  Nothing wrong with your argument theoretically, but the Surface with a 5/10 score is 3.4 lbs, while this 1/10 Macbook is 4.3 lbs.
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  > Why shouldn’t it be acceptable? I for one accept to trade repairability for less footprint/weight. I mean, this seems like a good enough reason to me[1]. > Let the market decide what it wants. Discussing pros and cons of a product is part of how the market figures out value. Competitors seem to be able to maintain a lightweight form factor without completely sacrificing repairability. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXDrIvShZKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXDrIvShZKU
- fifnir 7y ago
  “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” -Henry Ford
- fimdomeio 7y ago
  I can give you a good reason. Last time my mac had a problem and I went to an authorized company that fixes macs the report they gave me was: "There's a problem with the logic board, we need to replace it, but we can't assure you that will fix it, if problem persists we will replace the other components until it works, you'll have to keep paying." I asked what was the exact nature of the problem. The answer was "Electrical", whatever that means. I think it was the worst repair experience I ever had. I would have ended up paying half to two thirds the price of the mac probably because of a broken tiny component somewhere. Also I'm not allowed to keep broken components for later personal inspection (apparently apple does not allow it).
swebs 7y ago
>Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 I'd take lower repairability over a spyware OS any day of the week.
- jraph 7y ago
  False dichotomy. Both are bad things and should be boycotted anyway. Install FreeDOS on a desktop and move on. Edit: and, as the next commenter says...:
- saagarjha 7y ago
  You can run Linux on it…
eanzenberg 7y ago
>> Having the lowest repairability possible should not be acceptable for such a high-end machine. That's just like, your opinion dude. Take a look at the logic board. Given the thinness of the device, every piece of it is designed and stuck in place. Nothing here is plug/play. If modularity is important to someone, and thinness is not, then they're free to look elsewhere for a machine.
paulddraper 7y ago
> Having the lowest repairability possible should not be acceptable for such a high-end machine. Just wait until you see cell phones.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  At least my cell phone has expandable storage. Edit: I thought this was implied, but to clarify I meant "expandable without increasing the footprint of the device".
  - mendelmaleh 7y ago
    Any computer with usb ports has 'expandable storage'.

robin_reala 7y ago

Lowest score at ifixit is actually 0. Somewhat coincidentally, that’s the score the original Surface Laptop got: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+Teardown/92915 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+Tea...

hu3 7y ago
Interesting to see that Microsoft improved Surface repairability from 0 to 5 while making it lighter than latest MacBook which scores 1.

htk 7y ago

Why shouldn’t it be acceptable? I for one accept to trade repairability for less footprint/weight. And I also admire my ThinkPad T420 that I thoroughly hacked. Let the market decide what it wants. There’s space for all kinds os laptops and gadgets.

jmfayard 7y ago
It's not a free market. Apple has a monopoly on Mac OS alas. Most people don't change their operating system and habits just like that.
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  You can totally run Windows or Linux on a macbook with some effort. Apple even built Bootcamp to make it easy to dual boot... Or are you saying you should be able to take OSX elsewhere? it's not a "monopoly" that Apple built OSX and only support it on their own hardware. It is not monopolistic to build something supported on one platform and not others.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    I think there were issues with Linux at some point because of the nonstandard NVMe drive that Apple was using. Were those ever fixed?
    - henryfjordan 7y ago
      I'm not sure, I've never tried installing Linux on a Macbook Pro. I know that it is/was possible for certain hardware but also that it was never easy or straight forward. Apple doesn't help but they aren't making their laptops reject unsigned code or anything like they do for the phones. Given that OSX and Linux are so similar under the hood and that standing up a VM is so easy, I've never really seen the point of installing linux except to say you can.
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        > Given that OSX and Linux are so similar under the hood and that standing up a VM is so easy Similar in what way?
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        henryfjordan 7y ago
        They both share their roots in Unix. Linux is an open port of Unix whereas OSX is a fork of BSD which is itself also derived from Unix `ls`, `mv`, `cp` and other command line utility functions work relatively similarly across OSX and Linux. OSX has a package manager (brew) that works similarly to Package Managers found on Linux, etc... If you learn to use Linux, switching to OSX is relatively painless compared to Windows (although WSL might have changed that)
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        saagarjha 7y ago
- eanzenberg 7y ago
  Thing is, "most" people aren't buying desktop OS's to begin with these days. Some do. I run 3 OS's in total for my personal use.
jraph 7y ago
In a world where sourcing materials and building computer parts that cannot be recycled has such a high environmental and societal cost, no, I can't find any way of seeing this as acceptable. We should not let the market and consumers preference decide on this. We need informed, resonnable and thoughful decisions. If it leads to laptops a bit more heavy and thick but less wasteful, so be it. Convenience cannot be demanded at any cost. Anyway, repairable is convenient.
- jotm 7y ago
  I'll take one for the Apple consumers team: fuck the environment.
- esmi 7y ago
  You can’t dump a laptop in a blue bin but you can recycle it. You can also resell or get a trade-in credit from Apple. https://www.apple.com/recycling/nationalservices/ https://www.apple.com/recycling/nationalservices/
  - jraph 7y ago
    Isn't this bullshit? Apple Forces Recyclers to Shred All iPhones and MacBooks - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-ip... Anyway, the best waste is the one that does not exist, recycling should be last resort since it's often far from perfect and costly too. So we should reduce the amount of things we need to recycle in the first place. As for computer parts, I cannot see how it can be efficient. Reusing working stuff is good though, obviously.
    - esmi 7y ago
      The article is from 2017 and references data from 2016 and 2012. In 2018 Apple announced it stepped up its recycling efforts but I don’t know how things have changed and I haven’t read the full environmental report. Apple forces recyclers to shred because they determined those devices are not fit for resale and they don’t want recyclers reselling them, like they said they would in the article. This happens to 1/3 of trade-ins, see link below. https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/
passive 7y ago
Nothing wrong with your argument theoretically, but the Surface with a 5/10 score is 3.4 lbs, while this 1/10 Macbook is 4.3 lbs.
heavyset_go 7y ago
> Why shouldn’t it be acceptable? I for one accept to trade repairability for less footprint/weight. I mean, this seems like a good enough reason to me[1]. > Let the market decide what it wants. Discussing pros and cons of a product is part of how the market figures out value. Competitors seem to be able to maintain a lightweight form factor without completely sacrificing repairability. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXDrIvShZKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXDrIvShZKU
fifnir 7y ago
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” -Henry Ford
fimdomeio 7y ago
I can give you a good reason. Last time my mac had a problem and I went to an authorized company that fixes macs the report they gave me was: "There's a problem with the logic board, we need to replace it, but we can't assure you that will fix it, if problem persists we will replace the other components until it works, you'll have to keep paying." I asked what was the exact nature of the problem. The answer was "Electrical", whatever that means. I think it was the worst repair experience I ever had. I would have ended up paying half to two thirds the price of the mac probably because of a broken tiny component somewhere. Also I'm not allowed to keep broken components for later personal inspection (apparently apple does not allow it).

swebs 7y ago

>Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 I'd take lower repairability over a spyware OS any day of the week.

jraph 7y ago
False dichotomy. Both are bad things and should be boycotted anyway. Install FreeDOS on a desktop and move on. Edit: and, as the next commenter says...:
saagarjha 7y ago
You can run Linux on it…

eanzenberg 7y ago

>> Having the lowest repairability possible should not be acceptable for such a high-end machine. That's just like, your opinion dude. Take a look at the logic board. Given the thinness of the device, every piece of it is designed and stuck in place. Nothing here is plug/play. If modularity is important to someone, and thinness is not, then they're free to look elsewhere for a machine.

paulddraper 7y ago

> Having the lowest repairability possible should not be acceptable for such a high-end machine. Just wait until you see cell phones.

Rebelgecko 7y ago
At least my cell phone has expandable storage. Edit: I thought this was implied, but to clarify I meant "expandable without increasing the footprint of the device".
- mendelmaleh 7y ago
  Any computer with usb ports has 'expandable storage'.