The Microsoft Surface Pro went on sale last week and the team at gadget repair platform iFixit has already pulledd it apart. This reveals that the Microsoft tablet/hybrid is less repairable than the Apple iPad.
According to the company Microsoft chose to glue down any component that could be glued down, making the device extremely difficult to repair or possibly upgrade.
The Examination & Score
iFixit scored the Surface Pro with an incredibly low 1 out of 10. They found that simply attempting to open the gadget offered a high probability of cutting through one of the displays four cables.
The breakdown also found that the devices battery and display were covered with adhesive making both options hard to replace.
A quick examination also found that the Microsoft Surface Pro features an incredible 90 screws throughout the device’s interior. That number of small screws is extremely high for the device type being examined.
In Favour of the Hybrid Tablet
It should be noted that Microsoft has attempted to shove in as much power as possible on the full Windows 8 OS-based device. The company’s low scores however was based on what iFixit found to be unnecessary steps, such as gluing in the battery. iFixit calls the glued battery a “planned obsolescence” which is “completely unnecessary.”
In comparison the Apple iPad scored just a 2 out of 10 on the repairability scale. Apple’s score actually went down hill after the company attempted to shove more technology into a smaller space.
Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet beat out the Apple iPad but also offered lower-end features compared to the Microsoft Surface Pro.
Upgradeable?
In the meantime the Surface Pro is touted as a full Windows 8 hybrid/tablet and some users might be surprised to learn how hard an upgrade would be to conduct. Users looking for more than 4GB of RAM down the road might want to wait for the next version of Microsoft’s tablet to arrive. To be fair this amount of RAM should be more than sufficient for most business users and even accommodate video conferencing.
Microsoft Surface Pro, Yes or No?
Having said all of that though if you pay the asking price you may well want to extend the life of your device through an upgrade. With that in mind, do you think tablets and hybrids should be more consumer friendly in terms of repairability?
Acknowledegment to: http://techbeat.com/2013/02/microsoft-surface-less-repairable-than-ipad/