MacBook Pro 17″ Unibody SuperDrive area change
:: Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 @ 5:58:35 pm
:: Tags: Computers
I have finally replaced my 3 year-old MacBook Pro 15″ with a MacBook Pro 17″ unibody. When opening the machine up to replace the hard disk, I noticed that the area around the SuperDrive looks different than it does in earlier disassembly photos.
Take a look at Step 12 in this disassembly page, and compare it to the photos of my machine.
Here’s the SuperDrive area from the old disassembly page:
from iFixIt MacBook Pro 17″ unibody disassembly page
Here’s mine, below. Notice the new black box, which is actually screwed onto the SuperDrive housing. I unplugged the cable and moved it from the groove it was set into, which is why it wanders off the screen.
the SuperDrive area in my MacBook Pro 17″ unibody
I pulled the cable out a bit for this photo
The little black box is attached to the SuperDrive housing by tiny Phillips screws, and would be easy to remove, for those of you (us) thinking about putting two drives into the machine.
UPDATE: Step 11 of the MacBook Pro 17″ unibody disassembly page states:
It’s very nice that Apple moved this out of the display assembly (where it is located in the MacBook Unibody and 15″ MacBook Pro Unibody). No longer does a Unibody owner need to replace their entire display assembly ($$$) when their Bluetooth goes out.It’s very nice that Apple moved this out of the display assembly (where it is located in the MacBook Unibody and 15″ MacBook Pro Unibody). No longer does a Unibody owner need to replace their entire display assembly ($$$) when their Bluetooth goes out.
It looks like the black box is the Bluetooth board.
Journal RSS 
Hopefully, you got the newer versions which supports 8GB instead 6GB.
See http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/2.....BookPro8GB
Those are beautiful. There’s a cool video on the Apple site w/Jonathan Ive waxing about this new ‘puter and showing the milling process for the unibody. Very cool. Apple rocks at design.
Replacement cost on the unibody is high so they are beautiful until you need a replacement.
So you had 15″ previously and the HD screen won out over the additional weight/hassle of lugging to thing around day to day then?
Robert — yes, that’s right. The HD screen and longer battery life were worth the extra pound.
As for replacement cost, they are no more expensive than the older models were. Same replacement cost.
Re: Replacement cost.
What I mean is that the actual parts like the case are generally more expensive because you have to buy one piece in one go and not two top and bottom like with previous models.