iFixit Tears Down the Surface Pro, Finds it Nearly Impossible to Repair

The gadget gurus at iFixit have already gotten their hands on Microsoft’s new Surface Pro, and promptly proceeded to do what they do best: tear it apart! While there are some good aspects to the Surface Pro’s design, such as the fact that it uses a standard mSATA SSD and a modular battery that isn’t soldered in, overall they found that the device is nearly impossible to repair on your own.

iFixit:

We are starting to miss the old Surface, as we find a metric duckload of adhesive holding the screen in place. A metric duckload is not to be confused with an imperial duckload. We tried every method we could think of to free the screen, including cutting the adhesive, to no avail. This Pro requires a pro method. Thankfully, we have one: we call it the Heat-It-Up-and-Poke-It-Til-It-Does-What-We-Want method. Luckily, we have the required heat gun and guitar picks ready.

The good news is that, despite being extremely difficult to open, the Surface Pro is packed with premium hardware on the inside. Nevertheless, all things taken into account, the Surface Pro was awarded a repairability score of just 1 out of 10. That’s a lower score than even Apple’s iPad!

J. Glenn Künzler

Glenn is Managing Editor at MacTrast, and has been using a Mac since he bought his first MacBook Pro in 2006. He lives in a small town in Utah, enjoys bacon more than you can possibly imagine, and is severely addicted to pie.