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You Can't Open the Microsoft Surface Laptop Without Literally Destroying It (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Microsoft's latest Surface Laptop may have earned glowing reviews from certain sections of the tech press, but don't tell that to iFixit. The company, which provides repair tools and manuals for popular gadgets like the iPhone and PlayStation, has handed the Surface Laptop a score of 0 out of 10 in terms of user repairability, stating definitively that the laptop "is not meant to be opened or repaired; you can't get inside without inflicting a lot of damage." iFixit's detailed teardown illustrates just how difficult it is to open the Surface. For starters, there are no screws, proprietary or otherwise, on the outside of the laptop. Instead, the laptop is literally welded together using a type of "plastic soldering" that is rare to see in consumer electronics. Anyone hoping to get inside the "beautifully designed and crafted" computer will have to pry it open with a knife or dedicated pick in order to defeat Microsoft's plastic welding. Whether or not it's actually worth going through the trouble of defeating said welding is another matter, given that the "glue-filled monstrosity," as iFixit dubs the laptop, has none of the user-upgradeable parts you'd want to see in a PC, like memory or storage.
"It literally can't be opened without destroying it," the repair company concludes. "If we could give it a -1 out of 10, we would," iFixit said in an emailed statement on Friday. "It's a Russian nesting doll from hell with everything hidden under adhesive and plastic spot welds. It is physically impossible to nondestructively open this device."
"It literally can't be opened without destroying it," the repair company concludes. "If we could give it a -1 out of 10, we would," iFixit said in an emailed statement on Friday. "It's a Russian nesting doll from hell with everything hidden under adhesive and plastic spot welds. It is physically impossible to nondestructively open this device."
I suspect most people reading a headline stating "you can't open laptop X without destroying it" will not interpret that as meaning "open the case for repair or upgrade".
I open my laptop all the time... it's the only way to type on the keyboard and view the screen.
#DeleteChrome
I doubt that Microsoft has created something that's unhackable, and since once a vulnerability is discovered it can usually be exploited through some automated process, it won't take l33t h4xx0rs to make use of stolen devices once an automated tool is in the wild.
My complaint about any device whose storage is soldered on is that if there's a physical fault, it may not be possible to retrieve the contents. And while the goal is for a "cloud" system, where the contents are backed-up, I neither trust the reliability of the network nor the security of the storage provider to ensure that my stuff is both backed-up and remains exclusively mine.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Irreparably damaged == destroyed
They are describing a situation where if you open this laptop it will never go back together as a laptop again.
That would, in fact, be "literally" destroyed for any reasonable interpretation of the word.
Consumers need to know this and punish device makers like this by not buying it and telling them WHY. If you use it a lot, the battery will be shot in just a few years, rendering a very expensive device to the landfill. It is one thing to not have a "user replaceable battery", and another thing to make it difficult, but quite another universe to make it impossible to replace the battery.
First manufacturers lock things down to prevent people from installing their own OS or trying to "unlock" it so that at least they can root it so they can get full control over what they bought. And now this?
good first step.
Just like having a TPM and Intel's management engine, right?
OMFG!!!
If Apple did this, there would be nothing but screeching and moaning from the death of a thousand ACs, as they fell over themselves in a big internet pile, trying to one-up each other about how HORRIBLE it was, and "Typical Apple" and "See? No Third-Party Repairs NOW", blah, blah, blah.
Tell me you wouldn't.
1. People looove their assigned gear. They will bitch and moan to no end if their ten year old laptop with missing keys gets replaced. Users like the familiar.
2. People quitting because they don't like their company laptop. What insane, entitled world did that thought come from? That's far, far off the deep end.
Well, that sort of puts the Right to Repair arguments to rest. No doubt people will still whine about apple but this takes it to a new level.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It also means the NSA can add hardware at the factory and nobody will ever know.
Not to say that it is unhackable, but denying physical access is a good first step.
But then it runs Windows. Now your uncrackable hardware will let in every virus there is.
I recommend against buying any phone that doesn't allow you to own it.
Unfortunately, that currently includes all Apple phones.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The number of people who actually upgrade their laptops or open them up can be measured in parts per million.
It's not just end users though, this also affects professional 3rd party repair shops. What could be a relatively simple fix for minor water damage becomes an expensive "send it back to Microsoft to replace" because it's impossible to open the thing.
It's anti-consumer and it's anti-competitive; Having a monopoly on repairs can only be bad for the consumer.
this also affects professional 3rd party repair shops
So don't recommend a product to a customer because of some other unrelated business who is quite likely never to get business from the customer in the first place? Seriously what next, don't buy cars because the farriers will go out of business?
It's anti-consumer
It is nothing of the sort. This is very much the exact opposite, a company listening to exactly what consumers wanted: unlimited power, paper thin, and with style. There's a reason Surface, Macbooks, and all the many clones of the designs of both of them do far better in sales than traditional square "you can open this by removing these 30 screws" models, outside of business settings where this stuff is valued of course.
We asked for this. We did so through sales figures promoting products with certain design features. We did so through repair figures showing that few people bought after market batteries. We did so through reviews and through complaints (right here on Slashdot, the biggest complaint about the SP3/4 was not that it was hard to repair but that it wasn't a laptop that could support the weight of the screen on the base).
and it's anti-competitive;
Not giving a shit about 3rd party companies that offer a service that shouldn't be needed is not anti-competitive. Unless companies like Caterpillar are anti-competitive too with their shock proof crush proof water proof everything proof phone design.
Having a monopoly on repairs can only be bad for the consumer.
MS doesn't have a monopoly on repairs. They simply produced a design that is hard to re-close once opened. A repair shop is more than welcome to go out and buy the necessary tools, they aren't proprietary. There's no well controlled pentalobe screws here. It's just hard to open, and that in itself doesn't give MS a monopoly on anything.
My recommendations depend on the requirements of the end user, not some side industry that the end user shouldn't have to use regardless of what he buys.