here at ifixit headquarters we are proud
of the fact that most of our team is
still using
2012 unibody macbook pros these tanks
have held up incredibly well over the
years
and for the most part they are still
perfect workstations but for those of us
working extensively with photoshop or
compiling code
the 2012 pros are starting to show their
age that means it's time to find a new
machine for a good chunk of the ifixit
office
before we jump in and tell you exactly
what we're upgrading to though
let's take a very quick look at the 2012
pro to see just why it's so close to our
hearts
under the lower cover you have immediate
access to the battery connector and
two sewed slots for upgrading memory for
storage we've swapped the original hard
drives with ssds which is another easy
upgrade
and we've even got a modular wireless
card
in addition to all this modularity these
macbook pros have easy to remove
batteries
fans displays and even a modular
keyboard that last one is a bit of a
pain to swap but at least it's possible
for a new laptop we're hoping to find
something equally as repairable as these
2012 pros but with a modern processor
and feature set
and ideally some sort of integrated
graphics most importantly
we want to find another laptop that will
last us nine or ten years like these did
it's a shame apple doesn't make them
like this anymore so let's look at our
candidates the first one in a surprise
to no one is the dell xps 15.
we gave it an 8 out of 10 in our
teardown last year so we know it's
repairable
we can spec it with up to a 4k display
and a geforce gtx 1650 ti
and for a 15 inch laptop it's pretty
dang thin and light
the drawbacks dell went the app away and
only put
usb c ports on this thing card reader is
appreciated but
a usba port would be more appreciated
apart from that this is a little big for
my liking
i'm constantly bouncing between my house
around the corner from the office the
three photo stations we have here and
the video studio
so this is kind of a lot to haul around
and while the 10th gen 6 core processor
is powerful it also sucks a lot of power
so battery life isn't as great as i want
it to be
next we had to try something from razer
with apple automatically eliminated from
this competition for repairability
reasons
razer is probably the next best thing we
can get when it comes to build quality
and fit and finish
this is last year's base edition razer
blade a 15 inch gaming laptop
this one has a 4k oled display an nvidia
2070 max
q and the same six core 10th gen intel
processor from the dell xps 15.
it also has a great array of ports a
fancy rgb keyboard
very important for office work and it's
repairable to boot
under the hood you'll notice we have two
sodium slots
an upgradable nvme drive and wireless
card
modular fans and speakers and a tiny 65
watt hour battery that's only screwed
down
but it's not perfect it's considerably
bulkier than the dell xps
battery life was nowhere near what we
need and razer only makes a few skews of
the blade so to get the bright color
accurate display we need we have to pay
for other specs that we don't
finally our last contender the new hp
envy 14.
the nv14 is a little lean on ports
compared to the razer but it has the
essentials
two usba one usbc and a full-size hdmi
it's also just lean in general
considering the power it wields
this thing only weighs three pounds
there's unfortunately only one display
spec
but it's good enough especially after
calibration
inside the envy is packing a four core
11th gen intel processor
and an nvidia gtx 1650 ti that four core
processor is great for power efficiency
but it's not all rainbows on the inside
you'll see the board is pretty much
dominated by fans and heat sinks
these are modular but unfortunately do
not leave enough room for even a single
stick of socketed ram
we do still get an upgradeable nvme
drive easy battery and speaker
replacement
and other general hp repair friendliness
like labeled screw sockets
but ultimately there's no arguing that
this machine is the least repairable of
the three
[Music]
so which one did we choose by popular
vote
the dell xps 15. its balance of power
size and repairability was by far the
favorite here at ifixit
the winner in my heart will always be
the envy 14 though and thankfully we get
to choose
did we miss an awesome repairable laptop
let us know in the comments but don't
suggest an m1 macbook
i'll be taking this and i'll see you
next time
you