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Apple's line of laptops for professional and power users. To date, the MacBook Pro line includes 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17-inch variants, with major revisions defined by Pre-unibody(Original), unibody, Retina display, Touch Bar, and SOC (system-on-a-chip) designs.

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Looking to purchase a high performance REPAIRABLE MacBook Pro

Hello. We are looking to purchase a 15" MacBook Pro that will handle new gen. games. We could buy a new Retina model but I've heard that they are difficult to repair, or even replace the battery.

Having spent a few hours researching the topic it appears that the last of the non-retina models was a mid 2012 machine. An i7 version could be OK for us. It seems they aren't available to purchase new anymore? We could find a used version and upgrade the memory and add a SSD if necessary. They only have an Ivy bridge processor, and don't have a HDMI port, but I can't see any other impediments to our needs .... And it would obviously be cheaper than a brand new Retina model.

I would be interested in any comments. I'm posting this here since I support the ifixit idea that electronics should be readily repairable.

(We currently have an early 2011 13" i5 MacBook Pro. We have upgraded to 16 Gb of RAM, and replaced the optical drive with a SSD. However the lack of graphics capabilities means it doesn't meet our needs. We have replaced the battery once, and the new battery is at around 500 cycles. I have read that the battery of the Retina machines is glued in place and its replacement risks damage to the trackpad. That seems bizarre, since I would have thought that most computers would need a new battery within their lifetime)

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Personally, I agree older 15" models are more expandable and repairable. The downside here is the display and the CPU power of the newest models have there pull, besides there lighter weight.

The question here is how much power do you really need? And do you need the better display?

Our company has decided to stick with the older models until hopefully Apple makes a model that offers what we need for our field engineers. In fact we have migrated back to the older models (buying used systems) as much as we can due to the reparability.

We were also troubled with the newer iMac 'Thin series' and now are replacing the few we did get and the wearing out units with Mac Pro's. As it turns out that ended up to be a better direction for us!

Now if Apple would only come out with a real Pro's laptop. Renaming the retina models as MacBooks ;-} for which they are, and making the ideal MacBook Pro for the Pro market.

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Thanks for your comment. That makes sense, and pretty much what I was thinking

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