I bought Apple's WORST MacBook

I went down a rabbit hole trying to find and restore the ultimate 12-inch MacBook from 2017. What started as nostalgia for Apple's thinnest laptop quickly turned into an expensive lesson in battery replacement, logic board swapping and why sometimes you should just buy a new computer. The journey was painful...and not really worth it. :(

Chapter Titles:
0:00 Intro
1:57 Unboxing
4:22 Unboxing (again)
6:25 First Impressions
10:12 Battery Upgrade
13:37 Disaster
16:26 Success...?

[sanchitsuggala]

The 12 inch MacBook with an M series chip would be so much fun now

[Ronoris]

its such a shame the butterfly keyboard was faulty, I feel like the typing experience was so good, like popping bubbles

[Blast]

Honestly, Apple should reintroduce the 12 in MacBook because now with Apple Silicon, you won’t have the performance loss that you would have had with intel and you don’t have to make it as thin as possible, it would be an actual Apple laptop I would want because I would like a small laptop

[nickwort]

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person who had a Mac with a butterfly keyboard that never had a single issue. I used that thing hard for like 7 years somehow

[matthewmspace]

That Butterfly keyboard was so awful. But thankfully the free replacement program let me send so many computers to Apple for a free repair. I’m in IT, so when a Mac failed and I needed to start a repair, I’d use the chat function and say it was the keyboard, even if it was the motherboard. Worked every time. Probably saved tens of thousands of dollars.

[TheMichael]

I bet you broke the display cable when you were removing it from the chasie

[ej_tech]

These are infamous for thermal throttling. I did the thermal mod on mine and it can now maintain its all-core max speed...of 2.6 GHz. I still love this little thing.

[AstonGryffynn]

M4 laptop with this design language and working keyboard would've been pretty nice.

[RustyOnTECH]

I have one of these, nearly immaculate 2017 model in gold. I upgraded the logic board to the top spec i7 / 16GB / 512GB and got the battery replaced by Apple at vast expense (because only Apple batteries have the full spec capacity due to the layering. After-markets always had a lower capacity than the original batteries). I also added the thermal pad upgrade. I love it. The keyboard sucks, the battery life is mediocre and the performance is pretty dire. But it's just soooo sexy. And light. And sexy.

[TechwithTonyUK]

I still own mine that i got in 2017(space grey, i3, 256, 8GB), it still works great for media consumption and simple tasks, it's super light, the screen is great and the speakers are fantastic too.. I even bought a second one recently in great condition for less than £150 (silver, i3, 8GB, 256, 92% battery health). They are hated more than they deserve, i used mine to run a business and edit photos on. They are great!!

[mprabuw]

my daughter (10 yo) really love her 2016 12 inch macbook and doesn't want her to get replaced. It's a rose gold and light. Bought it for around $250 in 2019. And I bought her a replacement of a new M1 macbook air at the time (2021). She just doesn't want it. She still using the 12 inch macbook until now for school (still in an elementary). She played games on it as well (mostly Roblox). The last time I checked it has 1100+ charge cycle. The keyboard is still functioning very well. I bought a keyboard protector for her. So that may help for not a single problem on the butterfly keyboard. She said she slept on it once (put her head on top of it while sleeping). And the display still functioning very well. Not cracked. It's very sturdy! Good for school work. small, light, very portable!

[DodoGaming]

Austin, I loved your videos since i was 7, Thx for inspiring me

[princeplotena]

I like how despite all the new tech advancements we've had in the last 10 years, and despite the fact an M1 Macbook Air can be bought for so cheap, we still yearn for the 2017 Macbook 12.

[brp]

I LOVE my 12 inch Macbook. I bought it a few months ago because I needed something that was portable. I currently use a 15 inch Macbook Pro, 2018 Mac Mini as my "home server" iPad Mini 6 and a M2 Mac Mini. I just needed a laptop to browse the internet, watch videos and use it as a "TV" on my coffee table when I want to watch multiple shows. After watching this I will NEVER take it apart.

[angbaki]

every youtuber still explore this 12incher every now and then, it is an actual charming form factor and I wouldnt mind having it modernized even with an A16 chip and mobile OS like a better Chromebook (hopefully even with an iPad screen)
Austin, I saw another teardown of this (I forgot which video), his issue was with the aux port chip, must've been grounded or something. It was easily swapped and it worked eventually. There were also some cooling mods out there, by sticking a copper thermal pad

[John-k]

17:47 The battery being at 102%, that makes me wonder if the current battery is larger capacity battery than the old one, and the percentage indicator was set specifically for the max capacity of the old battery being 100%, so now you have 102% with the new battery.

[frogslayer]

I can't believe the hell you put yourself through for this video lol. I love it!

[Shadxow]

The first time I did a battery repair on this machine I noticed the same issue Austin had. I then looked around and turns out after replacing the battery it’s recommended to plug into the machine using a 5W power brick until it turns on and then you can use the regular power brick it comes with or a higher wattage one. Any repairs after that on the battery that I did following that guide have all been successful. Such a weird design still don’t understand why

[VincentPascoe]

I've never had an Apple product not fail, overheat, crash, or just be painfully slow for me. Maybe I'm the lighting rod that every iPhone, iWatch, iPhone fails around me or maybe none have them have ever been good.

[starplatinum]

9:16 That audio transition from the speaker to the background music was cleannn