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Surface Pro: 'Virtually Unrepairable'
An anonymous reader writes with a link to an article at Wired with some harsh words for Microsoft's new tablet: "The Surface Pro is not a repair-friendly machine. In fact, it's one of the least repairable devices iFixit has seen: In a teardown of Microsoft's tablet-laptop hybrid, the company gave it a rock-bottom score of just one — one! — out of 10 for repairability, lower even than Apple's iPad and the Windows Surface RT."
... waste!!! Manufacturers just want you to buy another to replace yours which is designed to break soon. Manufacturers win with more diversion of economy (e.g. repeat sales). World loses.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
There were many things that said 'This unit contains no user serviceable parts' long before apple came along
"It simply is not designed to be opened or fixed at home, except perhaps by teardown expert"
Hasn't that generally been the case for a few decades now, for lots and lots of things? They are basically bitching that there are lot of screws and glue. It's not a simple device.
Most of them lied about it for liability.
When a small device manufacturer says it, they mean 'not servicable by ANYONE' :)
OK, not really.
For starters, I can't imagine it being easy to make a tablet you can open up and make changes to.
And then every manufacturer would rather you replace the device when it breaks or needs upgrading. And if they can get you locked into their software, even better.
Companies don't really care about consumers rights, and they never will. They're only in it to make profit -- I don't care who the vendor is, they'll all do it.
Microsoft, Apple, and even Google since they're trying to drive everything you do to the things that make them money and make sure you have to keep buying their stuff.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches."
-Aldous Huxley
Of course a consumer society isn't supposed to have anything that can be repaired by a normal human being. If you want anything, you're supposed to cough up your hard-earned cash to your corporate overlords.
I am officially gone from
If they insist on killing the culture of repair, as you put it - they really need to stop throwing shit in the ocean and landfills. It's only sustainable if you actually recycle.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
There's a direct trade-off between thinness/weight and repairability. As it stands the device is already being heavily criticized for being just 0.5" thick and weighing 2 lbs. To get it even at that point, apparently glue had to be used in place of a lot of fasteners that make repairing easy. Now I expect we'll see the same people criticizing it for weight/thickness also criticizing it for not having a removable battery, hard drive, and memory, all of which add weight/thickness. Dell's Latitude 10 comes in fixed and removable battery configurations, the later weighs 0.04 lbs more. Keep in mind while it's not much, the margin between Surface and its closet competitors like iPad are 0.1" thickness and 0.5 lbs, so every bit counts.
So like everything there's a choice. Do you want a core i5 processor or do you want a long battery life? Do you want a super thin machine, or do you want an easy to repair machine?
No USER serviceable parts is a far cry from NO REPAIRS POSSIBLE AT ALL.
A: someone can repair it.
versus
B: NO ONE can repair it.
BIG DIFFERENCE
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Hardware manufacturers have been trying to kill off the repair business for the same reason video game makers are trying to kill off the used game market - every dollar you spend fixing something you already own, is a dollar they don't get.
What blows my mind are the hypocrites here on /. who will wail endlessly about EA and Sony locking a game disk to a particular console (i.e., something that really doesn't matter in the 'big scheme of things'), then subsequently accuse people who complain about hardware makers doing the exact same thing of being "buggy whip makers," even though the trend of planned obsolescence in hardware is far more dangerous to society than anything having to do with a stupid fucking video game.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
And it is high time someone pointed out how stupid that is.
There are a lot of responses here that say "All tablets are like that".
First, Many of those tablets cost $200 (Nexus). It is a lot more acceptable to have a sealed $200 device than a sealed $1000 device, regardless of form factor.
Second, Almost no other computing device is sealed to this extent with an inch wide strip of tar like adhesive that needs a heat-gun to pry apart (who knows how well it will go back together). I take nearly everything apart, but I would mess with this kind of extreme adhesive job, especially on a $1000 device.
Third. It isn't even about repairs. If this was pure reliable solid state, it wouldn't be a big deal, those parts could run for decades. But this has two fans, meaning they will accumulate dust/have bearing failures, and in few years need replacing/cleaning, it has batteries with short finite life that will fail in few years, the SSD is small size and has an OS with propensity to write a lot to it (swap files) etc, and has a significant chance of failure. These should be considered serviceable components, because chances are significant that one or more of them will need service in a few years. Having them sealed, non-serviceable in $1000 device is unacceptable (IMO).
It's also worth mentioning that "No User Serviceable Parts Inside" is frequently code for 'There's AC power at local grid voltage and/or a beefy inverter in here, don't fuck with this unless you know enough to know that this warning isn't meant for you'.
It's much less common to see the warning on devices powered by external DC supplies, especially now that cold cathode backlights seem to be giving way to LEDs. Such devices are frequently less likely to actually be user-serviceable in any useful way(given that AC PSUs are, by necessity, frequently built from pretty chunky components that you don't even need sharp eyes to rework, while low-voltage DC gear seems to get smaller every year); but that specific phrase mostly seems to show up when there is a shocking surprise available inside.
We all understand that Apple has convinced people they always have to have the most shiny new thing, and so batteries don't have time to wear out.
For the rest of us, though, many parts of devices need replaced (batteries, cables, cases, etc.) long before the useful life of the device is up.
It can be repaired, it's just difficult to get inside due to the strong epoxy and 90+ screws all around. And for the Apple haters, I see lots of repair shops repairing iPhones and such.
The problem is, the companies don't want you to repair it. They want you to buy a new one, hence why it's difficult to repair. This is the throwaway generation, it's all disposable. The trash piles up, but nobody notices until it's in their backyard and their water starts tasting like epoxy and baby diapers.
Even Cars are are so tight under the hood these days, a lot of mechanics I know don't go near them. Have you even tried to reach through all that shit to change a spark plug? Good luck getting your hand out of the wires and metal without a lost thumb.
Bottom line, modern products are shit with pretty packaging so the youngsters think it's good. When it breaks, (Usually within 1 year) no big deal, mom and dad will get a new one. Just throw it over there in the trash and lets take a trip down to the mall. What a shitty world, but hey, there's money to be made in them their hills!.
A sealed case isn't a huge deal in the case of the iPad or decent Android tablets, since there are no moving parts, no particularly hot-running components, and a top quality battery that should last for several years.
But the Surface Pro isn't like that. It's a notebook, complete with full OS, SSD, fans, and a powerful CPU, crammed into a tablet form factor.
What happens when that SSD starts failing from the heavy IO load of desktop software? Or one of the fans blows a bearing?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Go for it, hot shot. Replace that custom ASIC. I'm sure Digikey will have it.
Replace that micro with the part number ground off. I'm sure Digikey will have that too, with the custom firmware already flashed too!
Expect Microsoft to make it much easier to get at the SSD in future revisions. Not for the benefit of customers, for the benefit of their repairs department.
Apple made the same mistake years ago with their laptops. You had to remove the motherboard just to replace the HDD, and the HDD was the part most likely to fail. Later models made the HDD much easier to get at, along with RAM and the power socket (until it was replaced by magsafe).
The Surface Pro is too expensive to just throw away, MS will want to fix them to cover warranty claims (which are a minimum of 2 years in Europe).
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The HDD was a spinning disk. The SSD aren't. Are they still the most likely to fail component?
The only moving parts and likely failure mode I see would be a problem with the fans and/or the vents getting clogged.
If they used high quality fans they shouldn't be an issue; as they are FAR less sensitive than hard drives.
Going to be interesting to see. Kind of funny though to see everyone fall over themselves about the 'perfection' of the ipad being a seamless glass/metal tablet... and then make a big deal out of the Surface Pro not being repairable when emulating the same design.
The ipad isn't exactly DIY repairable either.
And I think in most cases 'broken screen' is going to be number one failure, and that's not usually going to be covered by warranty and will usually merit replacing the device any way.