Most MacBooks are easy to trivial to open and replace the battery, at the very least. Many also have easily replaced storage and WiFi cards, though RAM is going the soldered route. They also don't require removal of the display for anything, unless you actually want to replace the display (or possibly the camera).

Macbooks are MUCH easier to work on than this.

Counterpoint: there are MacBooks that actually can be opened and closed without damage that scored only a 1 on iFixit. See: Retina MacBook 2017 Teardown

Good example. John. Seems to be a pretty consistent scoring method. It was marginally more openable (as you say, without damage), but still has soldered components and lots of glue for some parts.

Macbooks are actually quite repairable (but not upgradable) and have obviously been designed with serviceability and longevity in mind.

However ... they are also obviously designed to be only repairable by "authorized technicians", with all sorts of barriers to keep the unwashed masses from accessing their internals.

It gets a zero because it's not fixable.

@John Chadwick: That MacBook is definitely not zero-worthy. You can open the case and swap the motherboard with just screwdrivers. Yes, the battery is glued to the case, but this still means you can replace a battery (even if you’re going to have to buy a replacement case-half to go with it.) Comapred with this Surface where you can’t do anything at all without causing permanent damage.

The only comment in the thread with both relevance, truth, and forward thinking.

From where I sit there's nothing wrong with that but then again I'm not bitter about my lack of success in life, either.

Completely false. It's just a fact that laptops assembled this way are less expensive than those using other methods to achieve similar levels of thinness, rigidity, and durability. At the same cost, a fully repairable laptop is thicker, more likely to be damaged by flexure, and has a cheaper feel.

It's also a fact that laptops lose the vast majority of their consumer value after a few years anyway, so it's a false economy to think of paying a higher price up front in pursuit of greater value years later. For most customers, that's a bad deal.

Out in the real world, consumers have owned multiple generations of products that are less upgradeable and less maintainable, but also smaller, lighter, and less expensive. They have shown they prefer this new way of building machines.

If you don't like it, that's fine, but don't imagine that you're better informed than or morally superior to other consumers or the corporate decision-makers who aren't putting your desires above those of other people.

Peter G. I would agree with you on this if it wasn't for the fact that the surface laptop is a very high cost laptop - in the same range as the MacBook Pro and Dell XPS ranges. Both of those other computers have comparable (most would say better) build quality and far greater serviceability without compromising on design and portability. Personal success is not defined by the choice buy poor quality products simply because you can afford to replace them. If that were the case the super rich would buy their clothes at Target.

The Alcantara material is just plastic (polyester and pu). Not sure you'd want to heat that too much.

On the video where they used heat it melted the keyboard.

Actually Alcantara is completely fire proof. Apply all the heat and/or fire you want to it, it won't melt or catch on fire.

That's why it's so popular to use in cars and on furniture.

The flipside to that admirable quality, though, is that it is also non-recyclable.

75C of even heat along the Outer edge for a minute or so. Should be easier to split the fabric cover and plastic from the aluminum bottom shell.

The iOpener does just that. Heats glue.

I think a score of zero is a good indicator to that answer. :P If there was ANY way to fix it, it would get a 1. Alas...

Probably involves the following tools:

Saudering gun

Hammer

Chisel

There is no pretty way to disassemble these parts for even recycling, I'd imagine.

@ The Legacy. Soldering Gun :)

Illegal? Seriously? Yikes. Maybe in California.

Illegal now how stupid is that!!!!!!

How ignorant, that’s like buying an automobile and the dealer telling you that you can’t ever look under the hood or ever try and fix any little thing on it!!!! STUPID!

Free upgrade to windows 10 pro is available for the surface laptop until the end of the year

I bet this is sarcasm.

This is not necessarily sarcasm. A brazen attitude is insinuated by the deployment of an even less repairable and upgradeable device.

Basically, Microsoft is showing that it cares even less what people think about fixing or repairing its devices by putting their name on this product.

Microsoft surely shows more courage than Apple does. Get it? They have gone all the way where Macbooks score only as low as a 1.

Over the last 15 years I've had just five laptops or tablets. I have extended the useful life of each and every one of those by performing hardware updates and repairs on them. For the past 5-6 years, the advancement of computer tech has been slow enough that devices would actually be perfectly usable for years if they survive long enough. And that survival could be helped if manufacturers wouldn't screw us over for profits. Of course Microsoft and friends would like me to just stuff my laptop in the garbage if it breaks down but that's bad for both my wallet and the environment.

Some people like to value what they spend, or don't want to spend 600USD every year or so when you can fix your good shape laptop with a new hard drive, new RAM, new screen, new keyboard, new charger or new battery, each one for way less than 50USD at most. There's no reason to spend on buying something new when you can fix and save a few bucks, also to preserve the environment, you don't know where your old laptop is going. Hope people in need use them for better uses than rotting in the trash.

@lippi I don't believe a word you say about extending the life of laptops and tablets over the last 15yrs. Other than maybe a ram or hd upgrade, there's nothing to upgrade

@buck.ten4 In 2002 I got a Compaq Presario 700. WIth a RAM upgrade from the original 128MB to 386MB I used that one until in 2006 I switched to some Fujitsu Amilo. On that I also upgraded the RAM from 512MB to 1GB but that's minor, since at one point, the power connector broke on it. A rather common failure that would have rendered it completely useless if I hadn't been able to repair it by soldering a new connector on the motherboard. I then bought a Compaq Mini 730 netbook in 2009 and upgraded the hard drive to an SSD and changed the 1GB stick of RAM to a 2GB one. In 2011 I bought a HP Probook 4330 with a Sandy Bridge i3 on it. This is still in daily use after six years and a HDD -> SSD upgrade and 4GB to 8GB RAM upgrade. Last year I received for free a Sony Vaio from 2013 that was thrown away because of intermittent power failures. It turned out not to be too hard to fix. Which one of these cases is unbelievable?

@buck.ten4: "Other than maybe a ram or hd upgrade, the two most useful upgrades to a computer, there's nothing to upgrade." There, FTFY.

Buck.104 my father purchased a budget laptop from a supermarket in about 2008/9, it barely functioned on the web when new with its 2gb ram and celeron processor heck it couldn't even handle streaming video. Luckily it had a socketed processor so I found a low end core2 duo chip on eBay for less than a fiver and I already had a few ram sticks from other laptop upgrades so bumped it to to the max of 4gb. even of the time it was never going to set any standards but at least the laptop could then be comfortably used for another 4 years.

Often the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth component can be replaced (if it fails for some reason) or upgraded as well. Heck, my old Dell E1505 has a replaceable CPU, although I appreciate that's a rarity nowadays. And honestly, storage and RAM takes you a long, long way.

It's true that many things can now be plugged in, though - one reason that the lack of USB-C here is a shame.

Fair question. If you look closely at the teardown, you’ll note that the HomePod actually does have several components that can be accessed and serviced non-destructively (main board, touch controls, outer mesh, etc.). I can’t think of a single component on the Surface Laptop that you can access non-destructively. As an aside, an expensive laptop vs. a smart speaker makes for a rather apples-to-oranges comparison in terms of repairability. The HomePod is designed to sit on a shelf, has no internal battery, and the glued-together construction is arguably needed to counter all the vibration you get from pumping out high-volume audio. Contrast that against a mobile device like a laptop, where during its lifetime you’d expect to encounter issues like a worn battery, storage failure, keyboard issues, possibly a cracked display or liquid damage, etc.—all of which require at least some concessions to repairability. The Surface Laptop is as solid of a zero as I have ever seen.

This teardown is over two years old, so it’s possible the design has been improved. Did you have to break a bunch of plastic welds? Have you tried reassembling it? Our experience was a solid zero, but I’d be happy to hear if yours was better. As for parts, your guess is as good as mine. If all else fails, maybe a broken/for parts/salvage unit from eBay.

For the plastic rivets did you replace them or just use an adhesive? I couldn't tell from the video if they were welded to a plastic strip beneath running along the edge of the frame or if there was a back side to the rivet.

Did they just have a round head with short shank?

I'll be doing the repair next month so any tips on reassembly would be helpful!

Thanks

You might have more luck over on the Answers community of the Surface Book page. Happy fixing!

Hi Oleg! I am hoping to recover my data from the SSD (presuming it is not the SSD that has failed). Could you give a bit more detail on how to do this? I have the motherboard out but don't know how to proceed next.

For the plastic rivets did you replace them or just use an adhesive? I couldn't tell from the video if they were welded to a plastic strip beneath running along the edge of the frame or if there was a back side to the rivet.

Did they just have a round head with short shank?

I'll be doing the repair next month so any tips on reassembly would be helpful!

thanks

For the plastic rivets did you replace them or just use an adhesive? I couldn't tell from the video if they were welded to a plastic strip beneath running along the edge of the frame or if there was a back side to the rivet.

Did they just have a round head with short shank?

I'll be doing the repair next month so any tips on reassembly would be helpful! thanks

May we see YOUR guide please?

The plastic rivets are integral with the keybord -the keyboard cover (alcantra outside, black plastic on the inside) plastic includes the rivetted/dotted parts which go across the holes in the metal edge on the keyboard. Eventually, these plastic rivets/dots are attached the lower /base metal housing using the same thermal/electronic tape or similar adhesive all across. I had someone else open it and they broke the rivets to open it but if was doing it myself again, i would work so as to save the rivets and open where they are attached via the adhesive tape.