While iFixit tore apart the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display last week and quickly branded it as the least user-serviceable notebook they've ever seen, they still had one big component to get to: The Retina Display itself.
iFixit has followed up last week's teardown of the MacBook Pro with Retina Display with a second pass dedicated exclusively to the luscious new screen. Apple claims it's the best notebook display ever, and the techs certainly seem to agree.
"The Retina display is an engineering marvel," exclaims Miroslav Djuric, iFixit's chief information architect. "Its LCD is essentially the entire display assembly. Rather than sandwich an LCD panel between a back case and a piece of glass in front, Apple used the aluminum case itself as the frame for the LCD panel and used the LCD as the front glass.
"They've managed to pack five times as many pixels as the last model in a display that's actually a fraction of a millimeter thinner," Djuric continues. "And since there's no front glass, glare is much less of an issue."
Unfortunately, such a display comes with a price -- and in this case, it's going to be paid by the end user, if and when it comes time to replace it.
"There's no way to replace just the LCD, since the entire thing is the LCD; so, users with unfortunate accidents will have to replace the complete assembly," iFixit reveals. "The intricacies of opening the display also mean that if anything else should fail inside, that same assembly will still have to be replaced, or the user will have to make do without the component."
Doesn't sound very encouraging, so MacBook Pro with Retina Display owners will want to take care when using their new baby. Be sure to check out the entire iFixit teardown which is now online!
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