MacBook Air 13" Mid 2011 Teardown
Teardown
Teardowns provide a look inside a device and should not be used as disassembly instructions.
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July 21 brought us a bountiful harvest of Apple produce! Today, Apple released updates to the 11" and 13" MacBook Airs, as well as an updated Mac mini.
Although today is an exciting day for consumers, it is a sad day for consumer repair. Apple decided that the "svelte and sexy" MacBook Air would replace the "simple and serviceable" white plastic MacBook (for consumers at least-- the white plastic MacBook is still available for educational use). While this means that your book-bags will be significantly lighter, it will also mean that you won't be upgrading or servicing your computer anytime soon.
Join us today as we take a look inside this game-changing piece of equipment.
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Step 1
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Example: Logic Board
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Here we have Apple's freshest fruit: the updated MacBook Air!
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The drool-worthy specs of the 13" Air include:
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Core i5 or Core i7 Processors
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128 or 256 GB Flash Memory
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4 GB DDR3 SDRAM
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Intel HD 3000 Graphics with 384 MB RAM (shared with system RAM)
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Thunderbolt Port and SD slot
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The dimensions on this MacBook Air are exactly the same, so if you need to cut some cake, you should be okay.
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Step 2
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Luckily, this MacBook Air uses the same pentalobe screws as the previous generation on the lower case.
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In fact, from the outside, there is not very much to differentiate this model from the previous one.
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Looks like we'll just have to open it up!
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It should be noted that this generation of Airs did not ship with an OS install stick. As of Lion, Macs ship with a Internet Recovery feature in firmware that will re-download and install the OS, even with a corrupt system drive.
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Step 4
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Just like in the mid-2010 MacBook Air, the SSD is not soldered to the logic board. Thankfully this means you can upgrade the SSD for more storage, but you're still out of luck if you need extra RAM.
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Seeing as how the RAM is not user-serviceable, it might be worth it to buy the nicer model from the get-go (all models except the base 11" come with 4GB).
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Step 5
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The battery is held in place by a few Torx screws.
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Although this battery is rated the same as last year's model, it has a different model number: A1405. Last year's 13" battery was model A1377
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With a battery like this, the 13" MacBook Air will last for up to 7 hours of constant web use, or up to 30 days in standby.
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We'll have to wait to check for battery compatibility between the two generations.
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Step 7
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The main chips on the mini-PCIe wireless card include:
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Broadcom BCM4322 Intensi-fi® Single-Chip 802.11n Wi-Fi Transceiver
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Broadcom BCM20702 Single-Chip Bluetooth 4.0 Processor with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support
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BLE chips hold many advantages over classic Bluetooth including 128 bit AES security, 6 ms latency (classic Bluetooth is 100 ms), and less power consumption.
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It's interesting that there's a spot for stamping the revision and serial number, but that Apple chose not to stamp a unique number on it.
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Step 8
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Removing the fan. Very exciting!
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Judging by the nice oil slick beneath the fan shaft, Apple was concerned about fan lubrication.
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Other than a larger plate to accommodate the bigger die of the Core i5 processor, the heat sink looks nearly identical to the one used on the Core 2 Duo Airs of last year. We'll do some testing to see if temperatures are any higher in this machine.
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