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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."
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.
get off my lawn...
Even if it's not user-repairability, IT shops for sufficiently large organizations like being able to fix devices when they're damaged, or at least being able to retrieve user data.
We've basically migrated away from one vendor because they promised us portable computers that were serviceable and that there'd be parts availability. Instead we got portables that used a lot of adhesives, had a lot of integration where ports were on mainboards such that damage to ports would destroy the mainboard, and where parts were available they were extremely expensive and very slow to arrive. As a result we re-evaluated and switched to a different vendor, and in the eval process we disassembled machines and saw just how good claims of repair and reliability were. We ended up with machines with connectors on inexpensive and easily-replaced daughterboards, with modular storage, and with inexpensive replacement plastic housings. It's still expensive if a screen gets smashed, but if someone drops the laptop/convertible-tablet with a USB flash memory stick plugged in we don't necessarily have to replace the whole computer. We can replace a daughter-card with the USB and power input ports for $50, replace the broken bezel surrounding the keyboard for $30, not have to buy a $500 mainboard etc.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
If you use it a lot, the battery will be shot in just a few years, rendering a very expensive device to the landfill.
This is where I become sad. I am in the electronics recycling business and it's sad times to see manufacturers making devices in such a way that they will never be viable for re-use, by design. So much for striving for sustainability. So much sad. This is wrong on so many levels, I really wish people would look at the big picture when considering purchasing one of these abominations. I don't give a flying F how well it works, when you design something so no one can fix it, you are broken and flawed and need to go away.
It's up to the IT departments that buy this shit to make a statement. You're either for sustainability, or you're not. This product is a slap in the face to sustainability.