MacBook Pro 13 teardown reveals few innovations between Apple M1 and Apple M2 models
iFixit has disassembled the latest MacBook Pro 13, now available with Apple's M2 chipset. While we praised the device in our review, we disliked that the machine's cooling system could not prevent the Apple M2 from throttling, underlining that Apple needed to improve upon the 2020 model in other areas, not just performance.
As the video below shows, Apple has altered the MacBook Pro 13's heatsink for this year's model, which now has more rounded corners that it did previously. A few other chips on the machine's logic board have changed too, while the single fan no longer has a silver finish. Ultimately, iFixit's video underlines that Apple has made minimal changes from the M1-powered version, itself based on a chassis that Apple had already been selling for years.
Incidentally, iFixit has demonstrated that you can replace the logic board of the MacBook Pro 13 M1 with its successor. However, iFixit and Luke Miani have confirmed that this is not a straightforward swap. Instead, iFixit has shown that you must transplant across the keyboard, trackpad and Touch ID sensor for the 'upgraded' M1-based MacBook Pro 13 to boot. In saying that, Luke Miani noted that the M2 model could boot with the wrong Touch ID sensor installed.
Separately, iFixit criticises Apple's decision to tie the M2 logic board to the keyboard and trackpad, which it deems unnecessary. Also, the website highlights that the entry-level 256 GB edition only features one memory chip, explaining why it offers worse read and write speeds than its predecessor with two 128 GB chips. Apple has not acknowledged why this is the case, although there is speculation that cost and availability issues could be at play here.
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