The folks at iFixit have gotten their hands on Apple’s newest Mac Mini, and have found that despite Apple’s tendency to make their products more difficult to upgrade and repair, the Mac Mini is extremely repairable – and more upgradable than last year’s models!
From the iFixit blog:
For the first time in a long time, we were able to give our plastic opening tools and pentalobe drivers a well-deserved day off. A firm grip and a good twist is all it takes to get into the 2012 Mini. Inside, we found an empty extra SATA connection on the logic board perfect for adding a secondary hard drive, replaceable RAM and hard drive, and modular components — just like in last year’s model. Kudos to the Mini for receiving an excellent 8 out of 10 repairability score, and to Apple keeping it so fix-friendly.
It’s a refreshing change of pace from the 13-inch and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros, which clearly seem to be designed to prevent users from upgrading any of the components – even the SSD! Here are a few more highlights from the teardown:
- No proprietary screws are found within the device.
- You can easily upgrade your RAM and hard drive, as well as add a secondary drive.
- There’s no glue anywhere inside that needs to be removed while disassembling the Mini.
