Slashdot Mirror
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."
Nobody repairs tablets.
Sadly more and more devices are like this now. Apple seem to have popularised it and made is acceptable and other companies seem to be continuing the trend.
... 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
well, you fucked that up, I can only hope your love life is better
"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
Really guys, the summary is copied from the first paragraph on the wired article, which has the link to the iFixt teardown, was it that difficult to keep the link? http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+Teardown/12842/
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
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?
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
And Microsoft's tablet is full of glue!
Best Buy will sell you a "Product Replacement Plan" for a price.
When the BB cashier offers a warranty plan, I like to respond by saying I don't think the company will still exist in 2 years... :)
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
To make a tablet that can be easily repairable and upgradable, you are making concessions on the size and weight of the product.
Fact is the majority of consumers couldn't repair their tablet even if it scored '10 of 10'. Given the choice, they would choose the thinner and lighter product every time.
It means you can't repair it unless you leave the holodeck first. Freakin' DRM, I tell ya...
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Face is all red,
Head's got no hair,
Fix Ballmer's laptop, he'll throw you his chair!
Xbox is red, Windows is blue, And Microsoft's tablet is full of glue!
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
The problem is that 'they' don't care about anything beyond next quarter's results.
'They' certainly don't care about your "faggy pinko" (words I'm inserting into 'their' mouths, not mine) concerns like the environment. Someone else will figure it out.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
I've spoken to people at my local TV repair shop, and they expect to be out of business soon. Modern hardware isn't repairable. Even replaceable components aren't: They cited the flyback transformer as an example. A frequent failure in CRT displays, and easily replaceable: A little soldering, but that's all. Except that the newer CRTs (before everything went flat) needed calibrating for the exact value of resistance and inductance of the flyback, to compensate for slight variences between individual components even off the production line, and those calibration values are stored in an EPROM chip which cannot be so easily replaced, in a propritary format for which the manufacturer never released any tools or documentation, accessible usually by entering a secret handshake known only by the manufacturer via either a hidden serial port or the IR control interface. The flyback may be replaceable, but it won't do you any good. It's easier to just buy a whole new TV than to reverse-engineer one enough to repair it.
I think you misunderstood me. What I meant to say, is if they insist on devices being unrepairable and unserviceable, then they need to enforce recycling - else we just waste that much more of the valuable resources that go into them. It's irresponsible not to do so.
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...
Anyone can take something apart. It only counts, though, if they get it back together AND it works again. How can they give that thing a "1" out of "10" if they were not able to make it run again? Wouldn't that be a "zero?" Finally, before anyone can say 'who wants to repair something like this, anyway?' let's just note that it's a $900 dollar device with a 1-year limited warranty. Why wouldn't you want to fix the earphone jack if it gets tweaked and will only play one channel, replace the battery if it dies, or put a new screen in if you drop it and it cracks? Those are all pretty common repairs for devices like this.
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 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!.
It means they take a unit someone else has returned as broken. Wipe it with a rag to get rid of the finger prints and send it to you.
At the hardware company I worked for we would run a batch of tests first, but, yes, that's essentially it. People would buy our hardware from a store, take it home, try it out, decide they didn't like it and return it, and we could no longer then sell it as new. So we'd have to raise the price to everyone in order to pay for people who abused easy return policies.
Some kid managed to kill himself while taking apart an unplugged power supply. I'm not sure how he managed to electrocute himself off a capacitor, but it's definitely possible.
They compare it to the iPad, which is pretty bad to repair... However, as a general purpose computer running a full OS, a fair comparison would also be the MacBook Pro Retina. ...1 out of 10 as well.
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Pro-with-Retina-Display-Teardown/9462/
This is a bad trend with custom screws, glue and all sorts of crap.
Now there's one hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is!
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.
I'm not sure I see the connection between price and acceptable levels of serviceability. Is it that if it's cheap and breaks, you can buy another so it's no big deal; but if it's expensive then you should be able to repair it? I'm sorry, but I'm not sure many people agree with you. The iPad and iPad mini received almost as bad a score (2/10 each), and yet they are wildly successful. It seems that the only people that have a problem with this practice are people like you that like to take things apart.
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).
Again, the aforementioned market-leading iPads are sealed in this way. Whether it's the $300 version or the $900 version the response to a broken iPad is the same for the vast majority of users: send it back for warranty repair. If it's out of warranty, pay to have it fixed. Even something with a 7/10 repairability rating like the Nexus 7 is too complicated for most people.
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.
Aside from the fans, almost every mobile phone and tablet today has a solid state drive and a battery, which are not user replaceable. Fans are unique the Surface, but I've yet to own a laptop where the fan was the first component to give. And yes the Surface is expensive but it doesn't change the reaction to what should be done when something goes wrong: send it back for repairs. Microsoft offers a very reasonable support plan for $99 that covers accidental damage for two years. This is a much more preferable option for the vast majority of people than servicing something like fans and batteries themselves.
My guess is the jolt stopped his heart -- and that it wasn't a teeny weeny 150w ps. I used to reverse solder caps for fun at the workshop. They create quite the BANG when plugged in. Stunk like bad shrimp, though.
132 is even worse.
Those capacitors are large enough to store enough charge to stop your heart.
All he likely did was bridge pos and neg when touching the board and ZAP!
This is pretty much well-known to anyone with electronics experience. If that kid didn't know WTF was up, he shouldn't have been taking that thing apart without proper supervision.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The thinner and lighter the device, the more likely it is that they're going to stiffen things up by gluing components together and turning them into structural elements.