The 16-inch MacBook Pro comes with a new ‘lid angle sensor’ which monitors the opening and closing of the laptop and the precise position of the lid. The lid angle sensor was initially missed out by iFixit in their teardown of the 16-inch MacBook Pro but an internal Apple document obtained by MacRumors has confirmed its existence.

The sensor is located on the left-side hinge of the MacBook Pro. A magnet is also embedded in the hinge itself along with an arrow that indicates its polarity.

Apple previously relied on a Hall effect sensor for MacBook Pro to ascertain whether the lid was closed or open and its position. While not detailed, the new lid angle sensor is presumably more accurate than the Hall effect sensor. iFixit claims that the sensor could help Apple in knowing how many times the lid was closed/opened which could help it with the ‘Flexgate’ issue if it ever crops up on the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Apple’s service document does state that the display and the lid angle sensor both must be calibrated for the repair to be completed.

Previous 15-inch MacBook Pro models suffered from flexgate issue in which the display flex cable used to fray after the lid was repeatedly opened/closed. Apple eventually ended up launching a free repair program for the issue.

Our Take

It looks like Apple has gone to great lengths to ensure that its new 16-inch MacBook Pro does not suffer from the same issues as its previous MacBooks. It swapped the unreliable butterfly mechanism keyboard with a scissor keyboard and increased the thickness of the machine for improved thermal performance.