Updated

Mere days after the newly refreshed MacBook Pro with Retina Display launched, the intrepid tinkerers over at iFixit have manage to strip one down to the barest of bare bones. Their conclusion: the Retina Display and other high-quality components inside the notebook may look and perform like heaven, but you're going to have a devil of a time trying to repair a MacBook Pro without expert help. The site gives the laptop a Repairability Score of 1, the lowest rating possible.

Why the poor score? To begin with, Apple loaded the new MacBook Pro up with proprietary screws, which makes it difficult to access the notebook's inner components; you'll need a special pentalobe screw driver just to get in. The SSD is yet another proprietary part that can't be replaced as-is. Nor can the RAM, as it's soldered directly to the laptop's logic board, which Apple also does with the MacBook Air.

Other questionable design choices have the potential of making minor malfunctioning molehills into costly mountains. The MacBook Pro's battery is glued to the case, which makes replacing it very, very difficult for the average user. "The battery also covers the trackpad cable, which tremendously increases the chance that the user will shear the cable in the battery removal process," the iFixit team reports.

The display assembly is another concern; if anything breaks inside of it, you'll have to replace the entire thing -- expensive Retina LCD Screen included, as it's fused with the assembly.

All that being said, iFixit did confirm that the MacBook Pro with Retina display packs some serious firepower component-wise. Visit the site to see the notebook taken apart piece by expensive piece.

Image credit: iFixit.com