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Comment by moystard | Hacker News Reader

That's not the only point mentioned in this article. You are forgetting about two aspects:

- Environment: Gluing glass and aluminum most probably forbid recycling both of them, that's just a waste. - Cost of repairing: While with previous models, any of us could replace some part of his laptops easily (to repair as well as to upgrade), that won't be possible anymore. That means that it will cost tons of money to customers (Apple Care becomes mandatory), and that the ecological impact will be even greater, see 1.

I am currently thinking about changing my current MBP June 2009, and as the author of the article states, I have to make a choice, and that choice will probably participate to drawing the future of laptops.

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The glue is designed to come apart, especially when heated. I'd understand you if they used expoxy resin or something like that, but that's not the case. Also, Apple has an incentive to make them recyclable since they offer a free recycling programme.

My biggest concern is the RAM, both because I've had RAM failures before which now becomes a motherboard swap, and because I'd rather max out the RAM later when it's cheap.

Yeah it's always has been cheaper to buy the ram separately from Apple who seriously overcharges for it. I guess they just closed that "loophole" in their scheme.

I'm concerned about the battery. Those things don't last as long as they are claimed. I have a new one in my late 2008 MacBook pro right now.

They also reduced to the price of 16GB of RAM from $800 to $200.

Apple has in the past charged outrageous prices for RAM upgrades, but lately has come more in line with aftermarket prices if you factor in what you might consider an installation or "convenience" fee.

Have your RAM failures been with the RAM Apple includes, or with third-party RAM you installed yourself? If it was the latter, that's almost an argument for Apple's decision.

Just an FYI here: heating epoxy (sufficiently) will overcure it and make it removable (it'll puff up like popcorn, and becomes very brittle and weak). I can't swear to the current state of the art, but using epoxy as a conformal coating to exclude environmental influences and thermally stabilize a populated circuit board was pretty standard military/aerospace practice in my day, and one could use standard soldering tools to drill down to the components for replacement/repair.

Yeah, I really enjoyed being the electrical officer on a ship, deployed to nowhere, the frequency converter broke, we opened it, and the affected board was covered in charred goo.

CASREP 98032 SUBJ: REQUEST $30K BOARD TO REPLACE 30CENT CAPACITOR.

Yes, Captain, the cost of a day's fuel for a 30 cent capacitor. And we will spend $80,000 to air drop that board in a $5000 box from a $50M airplane into the ocean and recover it in a RHIB at non-zero risk to human life. For a 30 cent capacitor. Thank Raytheon.

Gluing glass and aluminum most probably forbid recycling both of them, that's just a waste.

I doubt that's an insurmountable technical hurdle. Apple should take the machines back at the Apple store, though, and they should handle the separation.

Apple has a very good and easy to use recycling program. They send you a shipping label, you walk into any FedEx and mail it to them. Simples. These days they even give you a gift card if the machine has any value.

The Apple stores accept smaller Apple products for recycling like batteries and iPods. I suspect they don't accept the larger items due to local laws on toxic waste management.

So really there isn't any excuse not to recycle your Apple product at EOL if you so desire.

You have to weigh the results of separating the glass vs. the problems with throwing away the glass. If the process leaves 5 gallons of toxic water and requires $5 of solvent, is it more economical or more environmentally sound to use the process or just throw away the screen?

The material recycling value is very, very small in any case. A beer can as 15g of aluminum, and the MBP has maybe 300g. So the same aluminum as 20 cans of beer. The respective economic value is orders of magnitude different.

Mea culpa for the recycling part then. I think the upgrade point is still huge:

The MBP 2009 that I mention in my previous post has been upgraded twice (RAM and HD). That has allowed me to keep it for three years and in my opinion has justified spending that amount of money in a laptop (2000 euros at that time). I don't know if I would put the same amount if I knew I could not upgrade it.

I don't know if the European Apple-tax makes this tenable, but I just sell my MBP on EBay every year or two. A 16-month old MBP 13.3" is selling for about 70% of its original price on EBay. If you do this three times in four years, you'll have paid about as much as the original price of the machine, for about as long as you were going to keep the machine anyway, but will get little upgrades over time as Apple upgrades that model #.

Plus the labour cost of setting up each new machine and transferring your gear, plus the labour costs of posting and selling the old unit.

Increasingly disposable electronics aren't any great positive for the environment, but they are hardly high up on the list of negatives.

The old MBP line still exists, if anything this new MBP is like a new line. However, as this article describes, how well this new MBP ships will probably somewhat determine the future of the original line.

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