Microsoft’s second attempt at the Surface Pro has brought plenty of improvements, even if is still on shaky ground. But tearing the thing apart reveals that its shortcomings still extend to its engineering too.
iFixit has torn the new tablet apart and found that little has changed mechanically for this iteration — and that’s not such a good thing if you ever need to get it repaired. Here are some of the highlights (lowlights?):
- The display and battery are glued down with way more adhesive than an iPad.
- The LCD and digitizer glass are fused, so if one goes you’ll have to replaces both.
- It’s held together with more than 90 screws!
- In terms of guts, there’s an SK Hynix 128 GB mSATA SSD, Intel Core i5-4200U Processor and 4GB of Hynix DDR2 RAM.
- The battery is firmly glued in and difficult to replace.
All of which combines to snag the Surface Pro 2 a fairly awful 1 out of 10 on iFixit’s repairability scale. Compared to the iPad’s 2. Jeez, tablets. You can read the full teardown over at iFixit. [iFixit]