The specialist in repair guides iFixit has disassembled the M1 MacBook Air and M1 MacBook Pro revealing the differences and similarities between the models, as well as similarities with the iPad.
The biggest difference is in the fan, which is missing in the M1 MacBook Air. Instead, Apple built in an aluminium heat spreader that draws heat away to the flatter, cooler end, where it can radiate away. iFixIt notes that the iPad doesn’t have a fan, musing as to whether the “thermal arrangement is truly enough to meet the M1’s needs”.Earlier this year there were issues related to the fan in the MacBook Air: with reports of overheating and a noisy fan.
Otherwise the innards are practically the same as the predecessor from earlier in 2020.
There are hardly any differences between the M1 MacBook Pro and its 13in predecessor. As a result the reparability has not changed despite the switch to M1.
iFixit discusses how the SoC, with its modules for the shared memory, is reminiscent of the internal architecture of the iPad: Apple learns from the best, in this case from itself.
As for the M1 Mac mini, YouTuber Brendon Geekabit unscrewed the Mac mini and was amazed to see how empty the case is. Apart from the circuit board with the M1 SoC, soldered memory and SSD as well as the fan, the case is empty. The Mac mini is still as big as it was when it had to house a DVD drive and a hard drive with moving parts.
This article originally appeared on Macwelt. Translation by Karen Haslam.