P5 Pentalobe Screwdriver Retina MacBook Pro and Air
$8.99
Laptops New 2018 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro: Everything under the hood. This minor refresh features an eighth-gen Intel processor, more RAM and storage for the same price. If you need service, contact Apple or take your MacBook Air to an Apple Authorized Service Provider. You can find more information about the MacBook Air through online resources, onscreen help, System Profiler, or Apple Hardware Test. Page 54 Apple ( ) About This Mac from the menu bar and then click More Info. AppleCare Service and Support.
Introduction
Apple has been quietly improving their pro-level laptops, making them … quieter. Turns out they’ve improved the clacky keyboards more than they’ve let on—which leaves us wondering, what else is new in here? All we need is a teardown team and several thousand US greenbacks to find out. Grab your best tinkering tools and let’s dig in—we’re tearing down the 13” MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, 2018 edition.
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This teardown is not a repair guide. To repair your MacBook Pro 13' Touch Bar 2018, use our service manual.
Before we put this one under the knife, let's review what we exspec to find:
13.3' LED-backlit IPS Retina display with True Tone, 2560 x 1600 resolution (227 dpi), P3 wide color gamut
2.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 3.8 GHz) with integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655
Apple T2 custom coprocessor
8 GB of 2133 MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM
256 GB PCIe-based SSD
802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0
Four Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports supporting charging, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, USB 3.1 Gen 2
Spoiler alert! As always, we like to start off with a superhero's-eye-view of our victim's internals.
These X-ray images come to you thanks to our ingenious pals at Creative Electron.
Don't worry, we're still going to take it apart. Hold that thought ...
We open up last year's 13' MacBook Pro with Touch Bar for a quick comparison—and if we were to judge a MacBook by its cover, we'd say these were the same machine.
Apple says this butterfly keyboard is a bit quieter, but otherwise unchanged. After banging away at the keys in a side-by-side sound-off, we definitely perceive a lower, less clacky tone, but any difference in decibels is difficult to detect.
Of course, if you saw our early report on the 15' model, you probably already know where this is going. No reading ahead! We're getting to that.
The biggest change so far: a new model number—A1989, and EMC 3214.
X-rays also show the return of the modular headphone jack, and provide a peep at the Thunderbolt hardware—which now runs at full speed on all four ports, thanks in part to the 8th-gen Core processor's four additional PCIe lanes.
Our teardown begins in earnest—we dispatch a sextuplet of pentalobe screws, and dash through what by now is a pretty familiar opening procedure.
At first glance, the internals look very similar to the 13' MacBook Pro from last year ... and the year before that.
At second glance, we decide to go in closer for a third glance.
We disconnect the battery without any drama—it's buttoned down with a T5 Torx screw, so we use one of our blue and black Pro Tech specialty drivers to dispatch it.
At 58.0 Wh, this battery has gotten a significant boost over the 49.2 Wh unit we found in our original 13' Touch Bar teardown.
Turns out that extra 'oomph' comes from a slightly bigger battery—arrayed into six cells this time, instead of five. It's also heavier, weighing in at in at 232.7 g, versus the old battery's 196.7 g.
And yet this MacBook Pro's total weight hasn't changed one iota. We're not sure which parts of this device have been on a diet, but it does look like Apple shaved some mass off the top case.
Despite all that, Apple still rates battery life the same as the prior model. Those extra processor cores don't come for free.
The new-and-improved speakers (on the right) have grown, too—they're longer and narrower, filling all the remaining space, and bumping right up against the logic board thanks to the revised top case design.
In a lone piece of happy repair news: the trackpad is replaceable as ever. Twirl away a few Torx screws, and off it flies.
We get our first taste of some chips under the trackpad (looking virtually unchanged from their first outing back in 2016):
STMicroelectronics STM32F103VB ARM Cortex-M3 MCU
Broadcom BCM5976C1KUFBG Touch Controller
Maxim Integrated MAX11291ENX 24-Bit, 6-Channel Delta-Sigma ADC
Meanwhile, we can't help but notice the earlier model's port to nowhere—which turned out to be for data recovery—is mysteriously absent.
Given this MacBook's non-removable storage, Apple must have a new recovery method?
Update: They didn't—until they did.
Apple was careful to mention its latest third-gen keyboard in its press release. The added quietness seems a bit underwhelming to our ears, and we suspect there's something more going on.
After three years of key-cap removal, we're able to pop this lid open without damaging the delicate clips, and boy are we rewarded.
As you may have heard, there's a brand new silicone barrier under here.
Apple says this new addition is purely for soundproofing, but it bears a suspicious resemblance to their 2016 ingress-proofing patent—one that might help prevent the keyboard failures we keep hearing about.
This bears further analysis. We'll have a deeper dive on the keyboard situation later in the week. Stay tuned!
Time to liberate that logic board and look around!
As usual, a relatively modest-looking heat sink handles cooling for the CPU and integrated graphics. Another par for the course: Apple's typical glut of thermal paste.
And our first peep of silicon reveals: the touted T2!
Seen previously in the iMac Pro, Apple's custom T2 chip has taken over an impressive number of functions—but, we still expect to find a lot of other silicon on this board. Let's check it out!
Here's a familiar mustache full of chips:
8th-generation Intel Core i5-8259U CPU with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655
Apple T2 APL1027 339S00533 coprocessor, layered over 1 GB Micron D9VLN LPDDR4
Toshiba TSB 3226 J86404 TWNA1 (likely 2x 64 GB flash memory, 128 GB total on this side)
4x SKhynix H9CCNNNBJTAL 16 Gb LPDDR3 2133 MHz (8 GB total)
Intel JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Controller
Apple/Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) 339S00428 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module
338S00267-A0 (likely Apple PMIC)
And we flip it around for some bonus silicon:
2x Toshiba TSB 3226 J86404 TWNA1 64 GB flash memory, for 128 GB on this side and 256 GB total)
2x Texas Instruments CD3215C00 83CFZST
Cirrus Logic CS42L83A Audio Codec
Intersil 95828A HRTZ X813HNK
2x NXP 6142F
Texas Instruments TPS51980A synchronous buck controller
NXP 80V18 secure NFC module
And for our dessert course we have: a brand new USB-C power adapter!
The A/C adapter included with this 13' MacBook Pro does indeed sport the new model number A1947 (vs. A1718, bottom), so it's time to bust out the ultrasonic cutter and go to town.
After clawing painfully through more layers and rubberized filler than we've ever seen in one of these things, we finally free the internals.
Opening the previous adapter (on the left) was a walk in the park compared to this unit, but it does look like this model benefits from redesigned internals, some additional shielding, and lots of impact-resistant foam rubber.
That said, Apple has also swapped the aluminum USB-C port for a plastic one ...
Here's what's left after the 2018 MacBook Pro gave up its secrets, including:
A bigger battery that squeezed the speakers into a narrower form factor.
A keyboard decked out with a thin silicone barrier, which could be for sound baffling, but matches Apple ingress-proofing patents.
And a seemingly unchanged thermal management system, despite the extra power under the hood.
Teardown Update: we wanted to drill a bit deeper into the new keyboard, so we did some testing and then gave it another teardown all to itself. Check it out!
And if we missed something, check out our teardowns of the 2016 and 2017 models—you may well find it there!
- The trackpad can be removed without first removing the battery.
- The processor, RAM, and flash memory are soldered to the logic board. Repairs and upgrades will be impractical at best.
- The top case assembly, which includes the keyboard, battery, and speakers, is glued together—making all those components impractical to replace separately.
- The Touch ID sensor doubles as the power switch, and is paired with the T2 chip on the logic board. Fixing a broken power switch may require help from Apple, or a new logic board.
Final Thoughts
Repairability Score
(10 is easiest to repair)
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Editor's note, Nov. 16: Originally published Nov. 6, this review has been updated with final benchmark and battery life scores, as well as a review rating.
Apple's MacBook Air has gotten a much-needed reboot, keeping the name, but changing just about everything else, both outside and in. That means a new 8th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU, more RAM and SSD options, a high-res Retina display, and the move to USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports. And while it's still called the MacBook Air, this new version might as well be called the 'MacBook Pro Lite,' because that's essentially what it is.
For most of its 10-plus year life, the classic MacBook Air was the default laptop for pretty much everyone, from college students to creative types to startup entrepreneurs. For many years, I called it the single most universally useful laptop you could buy.
But over the years, the competition moved to higher-res displays, thin screen bezels, bigger touchpads, regular component upgrades, and thinner and lighter bodies.
While this reimagined MacBook Air fixes almost all of the previous design's issues, it adds a couple of its own. It's a much better fit with the rest of the current Mac design sensibility: Larger than the 12-inch MacBook, smaller than the 13-inch Pro, and much different from the classic Air, which Apple is still selling, at least for now.
That means the long-standing design, with its thick screen bezels, smallish touchpad, deep keys and multiple ports is gone. If anything, the new Air looks and feels like a half-step between the 12-inch MacBook and the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Its price has jumped up to join the rest of the MacBooks as well. For most of its life, the Air was $999. Not cheap, but a reasonably achievable luxury, especially for a rock-solid laptop that could last years.
The new starting price is $1,199 (£1,199, AU$1,849), which is a tough blow for generations raised on the idea of getting that first MacBook for under a grand. Right now, it's only $100 less than the 12-inch MacBook or 13-inch basic MacBook Pro, so there's some price-versus-features math to do.
My cheat sheet for that is as follows. Compared to the new MacBook Air:
- The MacBook Pro is more expensive, more powerful and less portable.
- The 12-inch MacBook is more expensive, less powerful and more portable.
With each laptop excelling in a different area, and only $100 separating their base models, there won't be one correct answer for everyone. That said, this new Air is the safe middle ground between the two extremes.
Body double
Picking one up, it immediately feels lighter and smaller than the current Air, which I'm intimately familiar with. At 2.7 pounds (1.25 kilograms) and about 15 millimeters thick, it's actually fairly average when it comes to 13-inch laptops. Some similar systems get down under 10mm, but at the expense of battery, features and processing power. As it is, the new MacBook Air is firmly in the mainstream of slim laptops, but not leading the pack.
One bit of catch-up is in the screen design, which cuts the thick bezel border surrounding it by about half and adds an edge-to-edge glass overlay. It's a sharper, more modern look, and a long overdue upgrade.
Like the current Pro and 12-inch MacBook, the new Air still feels like a tank, with its one-piece aluminum construction (now 100-percent recycled aluminum, according to Apple). That's one of the reasons MacBooks, both Air and Pro, have been able to command premium prices for so long -- because you're making an investment in a product that will hopefully last for many years.
2018 Apple Mac Book Air 13 Inch Manual Download
It's all about the keyboard
As the only MacBook with a traditional island-style keyboard, the MacBook Air was one refuge from those who disliked the super flat butterfly mechanism keyboards in newer MacBooks. Now the Air is firmly in the same camp as the other models. Some may lament the loss of the older style of keyboard, but I think the butterfly keyboard has never been as troublesome as people imagine, and I've certainly dealt with more difficult keyboards in more expensive products.
In this new Air, you get the latest version of the butterfly keyboard, with a new membrane underneath to help keep dust from gumming up the keys. To our knowledge, the Air and the Touch Bar versions of the Pro have this version, whereas other MacBooks have a previous version.
It takes a period of adjustment to get used to the subtle tactile feedback, but once you do get used to it, it's fine for even long-form typing. But yes, you may never grow to love it.
The payoff is that the new Air also includes a much bigger touchpad, of the same Force Touch style as on other MacBooks. That means it doesn't have a diving-board hinge on the back, and instead uses four corner sensors to register clicks, allowing the body to be thinner.
2018 Apple Mac Book Air 13 Inch Manual Tv
Will die-hards take this change hard? They might, but that old keyboard was never as great as you remember.