It makes me wonder, does Apple have some insane patent on unibody construction? The pre-Retina unibody MacBook Pros were easily upgradable and very solid. They had a ton of room in the chassis, and hell, the first year of them the battery was toollessly removable. Aside from the keyboard and the screen, it was all latches and a few common Phillips #00's.
Why have no manufacturers copied this obviously great construction technique? It's not like a Framework is wildly cheaper than a MacBook, we're already paying a premium, so the costs of subtractive CNC can't be it.
I think the costs of milling a solid piece of aluminum that precisely and in those quantities can be “it”.
https://youtu.be/lJx6cF-H__I
I am not an expert, but it seems to be an engineering achievement, given that no one else does it. I doubt milling methods are patent protected, but rather Apple can use its volume and vertical integration to drive costs down and spend more on the chassis than other laptop designers.
Apple is #4 in laptop sales. Lenovo, Dell and HP each have at least as much volume. Apple also has higher margins than those companies, implying that any cost savings they make on other components aren't making it into the price anyway.
It's probably just that it costs a little more to do it and most customers wouldn't pay a premium to have it.
>Apple is #4 in laptop sales. Lenovo, Dell and HP each have at least as much volume.
True but they divide their sales among several models. Gaming models, 2-in-1s, 13" to 17" and so on. Apple not only has fewer models they often keep the same case design between generations which also benefits economies of scale.