Motherboards fail more often than you'd imagine, liquid damage being a common cause. The chips may be fine but since they're part of the failed motherboard Apple won't do a thing to recover the data. Unlike removable storage where you can move it to a working machine.
Do you have a source on that? The mac users I know are especially worried about data loss because of the high rate of other failures on their new MBPs. One of my co-workers temporarily lost some of his work because he hadn't pushed his changes to git and his computer had to go back to apple for repair because it wouldn't boot. He got the computer back the next day, so all was well, but it makes you wonder.
On the other hand, when a spilled cup of coffee fails to fry the electronics because the whole thing is sealed up, they'll learn to value the closed chassis.
Which of these events do you think is more likely for the typical user?
This is actually why the fragile keyboard on the latest MacBook Pros is such a problem. It compromises durability in a part of the laptop that is actually very important.
I would agree with you if the chassis was sealed in the USB-C ones, which it isn't. A cup of coffee spill is still as fatal to a MBP as it's ever been. My 2011 ThinkPad X220 has drain holes in the keyboard. These laptops have moisture detectors to void your warranty.
Give me maintainable laptops, not throwaway ones, for the love of...
Yeah, but once your computer is out of warranty, you'll definitely appreciate the ability to replace parts.
I spilled soda pop on my 2008 Macbook's keyboard and fried it. Fortunately, the computer still worked (I ended up carrying a USB keyboard in my bag as I was consulting on site, which was awkward, but at least I could do that without being stuck without a computer for a few days). I ordered a second hand replacement from OWC, and after watching a video, I had the keyboard replaced in less than an hour.
>Yeah, but once your computer is out of warranty, you'll definitely appreciate the ability to replace parts.
On a laptop I don't really think so. An extended warranty runs about 3 years and most Macs I've had have lasted about 5. At that point I would just rather get a new computer anyway than bother sprucing up an old one.
I did have one computer fry in about 3 years because of a logic board issue, which pissed me off royally. But in the grand scheme of things, the money I would have saved by having a user replaceable GPU vs. just upgrading the thing 2 years before I was ready to doesn't amount to very much. If I was very money constrained it would definitely be more of an issue, but that's never really been Apple's target market.
> An extended warranty runs about 3 years and most Macs I've had have lasted about 5. At that point I would just rather get a new computer anyway than bother sprucing up an old one.
Isn’t the point here that it’s no longer so good to replace a 5-year-old Mac?
My MacBook Air is about 5 years old now, and yes, the USB ports and some keys on the keyboard are becoming unreliable, and the power cable has frayed despite a protector, but none of the current models are tempting enough to make me want to upgrade the way I used to.
>> On a laptop I don't really think so. An extended warranty runs about 3 years and most Macs I've had have lasted about 5. At that point I would just rather get a new computer anyway than bother sprucing up an old one.
That depends on whether you got a laptop with a real processor or a low power processor. A 2011 15" MBP with a quad core i7 holds up pretty well even today in terms of CPU performance.
Data you haven’t backed up is data you don’t want. Regardless of whether the SSD is replaceable or soldered on, if data loss is your problem you should have been backing up.
This happened to me and I was rather disappointed. I had backups but Apple didn’t even offer to try and recover data at any cost, or allow me to keep the parts with my data still on them.