iFixit rips apart the new 11-inch MacBook Air, Review

Less than a day after the new 11-inch MacBook Air hit stores, iFixit has already dissected it. The well-known test site gave the new MacBook Air a 4/10 rating for repairability, with 10 being the easiest to repair.

There are two main obstacles to comment on for any user trying to do their own repairs on the MacBook Air. First of all, the screws involved in disassembling the MacBook Air are T5 Torx screws on the inside and five-prong security Torx screws on the outside, so you need to have those two types of screwdrivers or be prepared to use one of flat tip like the guys at iFixit did.

iFixit indicates that once the screws are removed, access to the MacBook Air is relatively easy, but the second hurdle is more insidious for DIYers: The MacBook Air has the phrase "No user-serviceable parts" to a new level. Nothing inside the new MacBook Air is "off the shelf" (not subject). RAM is built into the motherboard, the six-cell battery is in an odd configuration, and the flash memory that the MacBook Air uses instead of a hard drive is proprietary.

KEEP READING the rest after the jump.

Maintenance issues aside, the interior of the MacBook Air is quite impressive as a whole. Once disassembled, there are just over a dozen important pieces, and it is clear that not a single cubic inch of space was wasted.

However, the multi-cell battery design looks a bit odd compared to the built-in batteries in the MacBook Pro lineup, and it will be interesting to see the impact this has on battery reliability if any.

Source: tuaw.com