iFixit has dissected Microsoft Surface to get a look at its innards and found it only slightly easier to dissemble than many of the latest Apple gadgets, which haven’t exactly been a picnic to take apart.
Among the findings are some modular components like a camera, speakers, and a 7.4V 31.5Wh battery that are pretty simple to remove intact. Bork your speakers? You’re going to be OK. But other parts were more difficult to take out, like the rear display and the keyboard connector, which was impossible to access without first taking out the display, which apparently took a long time and a lot of tinkering involving a heat gun to peel off. Careful with the screen when you’re carting this tablet around too — iFixit found that the LCD and the glass covering it are fused together, which makes replacement pretty pricey.
Additionally, iFixit discovered a NVIDIA 1.4 GHz Tegra 3 Processor and NAND flash storage from Samsung. And while Surface was simpler for iFixit to tear down than a lot of recent gadgets from Apple, it’s still pretty difficult — and pricey — to repair, so handle with care. [iFixit]