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Surface Pro: 'Virtually Unrepairable'

Posted by timothy on from the you-break-it-keep-the-pieces dept.

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."

5 of 418 comments (clear)

  1. Enter the modern world of ... by Skapare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... 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.

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    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    1. Re:Enter the modern world of ... by bws111 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Every clip, connector, screw, etc that is needed to make something 'repairable' adds weight, bulk, and cost. People have clearly demonstrated that weight, size, and cost win out over repairability when making their purchasing decisions. You can't lay it all (or even most of it) at the feet of the manufacturers.

  2. Re:It's the future... by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

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    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  3. $1000 tablets don't deserve a free ride on this. by guidryp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

  4. Re:Yawn. by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

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    How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?