[News] Microsoft’s Surface Pro’s repairs won’t be easy to fix

If you had an internal problem with your Surface Pro, it would be harder to repair than a regular laptop. A recent tear-down of Microsoft’s Surface Pro hybrid PC by iFixit, shows that fixing the device would not be an easy task.

iFixit rated the Surface Pro’s repairability score with a 1 out of 10, meaning it’s one of the most difficult devices to repair! Meanwhile, the Surface Windows RT earned a slightly better score than the Pro with 4 out of 10.

The very first step of a tear-down, which is trying to pry open the device, was definitely a challenge. iFixit had spent over an hour trying to figure out how to get inside, which is a first for the company as they have never had to spend more than 30-45 minutes trying to pry open a device! They [iFixit] eventually decided on using a heat gun and guitar picks to get the device open and then found out the display was glued together with a tar-like substance.

After managing to open the device up, iFixit managed to get more headaches! Apparently there are 29 screws holding the motherboard in place, and in total, the Microsoft Surface Pro has more than 90 screws in-built inside!

A warning on the Surface’s 42 Wh battery says not to mess with it in any way, and not to remove it from back cover. It was also heavily glued to the back cover of the device. iFixit said

“This kind of planned obsolesce is completely unnecessary.”

But the Surface Pro’s SSD (Solid State Drive) is much easier to remove. So if you have the 64GB model and wanted to upgrade to even more storage, you may be able to upgrade. But the real problem to that solution is getting inside the device in the first place! iFixit also warns that unless you can perform the opening of the device flawlessly, you would probably “break one of the four cables surrounding the display area.”

So think twice before wanting to perform “surgery” on this hybrid PC – Microsoft Surface Pro.

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