Amen on the trackpad and keyboard alignment issue - for many other "Pro" laptops (looking at you Lenovo) is horrible. Is 10-key desired so much for these laptops that the alignment of the trackpad is off? Who signed off on this design atrocity? [1]

I tried to use a coworker's Lenovo the other day and the offset keyboard drove me batty. I couldn't imagine trying to use that one on a lap-pad.

[1] http://www.toptenreviews.com/computers/gaming/best-gaming-la...

Not gonna happen. If you could just buy replaceable parts, they'd lose a lot of money on hardware sales, even if a lot of the replaceable parts were sold by them. Both planned and perceived obsolescence is good for their business, for their revenue stream.

I think the soldering in of parts has more to do with craving thinness than trying to create obsolescence.

If you look at the laptop on iFixit, you will notice that Apple is simply going the same road than the iPhone. Very small hardware, large screen, large battery.

If you compare the iPhone with what existed at the time, doing your own custom very integrated and very compact logic board, allowed a massive screen and a massive battery. That was a game changer.

They are just trying the same trick, only I'm not sure (to be polite) that it brings any real competitive advantage. Sure a thin, ultralight and still powerful laptop would be appealing. But the MBP is just not that smaller or light compared to the competition or even the previous generation. Especially not the 15in version.

It is just a lot of sacrifice for a perceived marginal improvement over the competition. Nobody would be complaining if the 15in MBP weighted 1.5 pound and still lasted 10 hour with a quadcore i7.