Mac Studio teardown reveals one feature you might be able to upgrade

What you need to know

• Apple's new Mac Studio was released this week.
• We've got our first teardown, giving us a look inside the new device.
• Max Tech's teardown reveals the new device could be user-upgradeable for SSD.

A new teardown of the Apple Mac Studio has given us our first look inside the new device, a glimpse at the M1 Ultra Apple silicon chip, and the exciting prospect that the Mac Studio's SSD could be user-upgradeable.

A new video from Max Tech confirms that early concerns it was impossible to get inside the Mac Studio are actually misplaced, as four screws covered by the device's rubber ring on its base can be loosened to give a user access. From Max Tech:

Early findings reveal that while Apple officially says that the SSD storage of the Mac Studio is not user-accessible, there does seem to be some prospect that brave users could do unofficial storage upgrades to add more solid-state storage. Of course, because Apple silicon's processing, GPU, and RAM are all contained within the same SoC, there's no scope to boost any of these after purchasing.

Of course, just breaking open a Mac Studio like this is enough to void your Apple warranty, let alone adding unofficial third-party components. But some enthusiasts will welcome the news, especially considering that the top 8TB SSD option for the Mac Studio is an extra $2,200. The door hasn't been closed for Apple to offer in-house storage upgrades as it has done with some previous devices, however again this is unlikely to be as economical as the DIY route.

The teardown also gives us our first look at Apple's brand new M1 Ultra chip, which makes an AMD Ryzen processor look hilariously small in a side-by-side comparison.

Apple's Mac Studio is the company's latest desktop computer, boasting absolutely incredible power thanks to Apple silicon in a nifty desktop form factor that has the same footprint as Apple's Mac mini.