Ethan Zuo

Wow, it’s kind of a mystery as to how repairable current Surface products are until you open them. On one end of the spectrum, we have the Surface Pro X and Surface laptop 3, and on the other hand, we have…this.

I don’t get why adhesive pull tabs aren’t used here. This things more expensive than most desktops and laptops, and people shouldnn’t have to toss it just because the battery gets old.

I love how they know it looks like a bean.

On an related note, this would make the most expensive pot of baked beans ever.

I wish more phones had resealable rubber gaskets so they would still be ingress-resistant even if one needed to service the display or battery, and you wouldn’t have to change the adhesive every time.

Wow, I didn’t even know smart rings existed. I also think that it’d be much easier to service if the titanium shell came off in two halves so nothing would have to be bent to service the electronics.

I wish HP would put I/O ports on a separate board like they used to. I don’t want to use a soldering iron on a failed port that’s soldered to the motherboard.

The top of the teardown explicitly says it’s not a service guide. iFixit does have separate guides on Switch repair.

Nice teardown! Looks like a DIY Nintendo Switch with the phone on, even down to the joystick/main button locations.

A big part of the Surface’s thermal solution is the aluminum backshell. If they added thermal pads between the back of the CPU and PMIC area of the PCB and the case, it would definitely be a nice touch.

Imagine folding it to close it but you accidentally fold it the wrong way.