This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop early final month aslope the stripped down Windows ten S. At the time, the Surface Laptop seemed like any other thin-and-light PC Microsoft has pushed. It was a lilliputian under-powered and more than expensive than the contest, just it was fashionable with a fabric-covered frame and almost impossibly thin chassis. Well, it turns out that design comes with some major drawbacks if anything ever breaks.

According to iFixit, the Surface Laptop isn't repairable at all. In fact, it got a 0 out of 10 for repairability and was labeled a "mucilage-filled monstrosity." Ouch. That'due south never happened before. The lowers scores previously were a 1 out of 10 for all previous iterations of the Surface Pro and the 2022 HTC One Android smartphone.

It'southward clear that Microsoft never intended for the Surface Laptop to be repaired considering information technology's a completely sealed device. There aren't even whatsoever screws to take out, so iFixit had to slice the fabric comprehend open to peel it away from the metal chassis. That'south never going back together. The inner metal shield is also devoid of screws, relying instead upon spot welds and glue. Once again, this is probably not going to be reassembled.

The metal shield comes off with the keyboard and trackpad. Under that is where the meat of the machine lives. The top half of the chassis contains the motherboard and associated hardware, and the lesser half has the lithium-ion battery cells. The motherboard unsurprisingly contains the SSD and RAM, which are soldered in place. And then, no upgrades here.

surface

Only after taking the motherboard completely out of the case can y'all admission the bombardment. Replacing a defective or worn out battery is 1 of the well-nigh common repairs on laptops, but information technology's actually not viable hither. Fifty-fifty if the instance could exist opened without destroying it, you lot take to take everything out to access the bombardment. You lot're likely to break more things in the procedure.

Seeing as they needed to destroy the laptop to take information technology apart, the Surface Laptop actually deserves that 0 out of x rating. iFixit fifty-fifty questions whether Microsoft has a process to repair the Surface Book in the event someone gets a defective unit of measurement. It's likely they'll just bandy the computer for a working one and recycle the old one regardless of what's wrong.

The lack of repairability as well limits the device'south lifespan. When something breaks, fifty-fifty something that would be easy to set up in another device, you might too just throw information technology out.