Stripped down, it's easy to see how few components make up a MacBook Air -- and how carefully-designed each of those thin pieces are. In all, iFixit rates its ease of end-user repair at just 4 out of 10. Although most of the parts are, in theory, easily replaceable, opening the bottom cover is very difficult without the right screwdriver, and many components are proprietary -- meaning you can't just find replacements at your local Fry's. The MacBook Air's diminutive motherboard holds an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, running at 1.4GHz (outlined in red), and NVidia GeForce 320M graphics chip (orange), and 2GB of RAM (yellow). Needless to say, none of these are upgradeable.

Our buddies at iFixit took their screwdrivers to a brand-new, 11-inch MacBook Air, and quickly reduced it to its component parts.

Quickly, that is, once they found a way past Apple's unusual five-point Torx screws, which seem to be designed with one purpose in mind: To keep you out.

Apple uses very unusual five-point screws throughout the MacBook Air, starting with the ones holding the bottom case cover on and extending to the screw used to hold this flash memory board onto the logic board. iFixit's crew had to file down a couple of Phillips screwdrivers to get inside.

That "keep out" mentality extends to the rest of the MacBook Air's interior, it appears, with a host of beautifully designed, carefully engineered parts that are in principle removable, but in practice almost entirely non-upgradeable.

For instance, the 64-GB flash drive that stands in place of a hard drive in this system "would be easily user-replaceable," notes iFixit, if you ignored the Torx screws.

Also, it's a completely custom part, meaning there's no way to order a replacement. Flash drive fried? Your only alternative will be to go through Apple support.

Same goes for the 2 GB of RAM or really any of the other components.

It's an impressive feat of engineering, but, we have to conclude, not one that invites maintenance, upgrades, or hacks and mods by the customer.

For the full disassembly, including details about which parts go where, see iFixit's MacBook Air 11-inch model teardown.

Photos courtesy iFixit.

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