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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."
is that a "thing"?
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
Bestbuy offers the i7, 16g, 512GB SSD for $2199.
Assuming the battery will last 2 years, that's 91.62/mo. with no extras or failures.
That's 200 soft tacos, or 5 cases of cheap beer. Every month, for 2 years.
I've owned a few surfaces so far. Handy tablets for taking a shit, but the AC adapters are all so horribly designed that they fail within a month or 2. A few warranted replacements before that expired. I eventually went with the cheapo Chinese off brand and its solid and 10% the price.
Within 6 months the magnetic keyboard attachment point for the expensive keyboard stopped working 9 out of 10 times it was attached, and it began missing keys. I never use it anyway, so never got it fixed.
Pro 2 had the exact same problems as the 1, AND the internal SSD went shithouse RIGHT after the warranty expired.
I'll never buy another Surface. They require repairs that simply cannot be done.
But like a I said, great for taking a shit.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
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.
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?
I wouldn't. My reaction to this would be no different if Apple did it: I won't buy it, and I'll recommend against others buying it.
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.
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.