After the presentation of the Surface Laptop 6 laptop and the Surface Pro 10 tablet, Microsoft spoke about one unobvious feature of the new gadgets. We are talking about increasing the maintainability of gadgets – most of their components can be replaced without contacting a service center.
The components of the new products have QR codes that provide information necessary for repairs – for example, the type of screws and a list of tools needed to unscrew them. According to Surface general manager Nancy Gaskill, the parts you need are easy to find thanks to “clear visual icons and built-in repair instructions.” For example, in Pro 10 you can replace the following components yourself:
- battery
- Frame
- Cameras
- Stand
- Speakers
- Microphone
- SSD with chassis
- Display module
- Cooling system
- Surface Connect port
- Power and volume buttons
- Motherboard with processor and RAM
For the Laptop 6 laptop the list looks like this:
- SSD
- Touch
- Display
- Speakers
- Keyboard
- Battery
- Audio jack
- Body and legs
- Motherboard
- Surface Connect port
- Cooling system
In 2017, iFixit engineers called the Surface Laptop a “glue monster” and gave it a repairability score of zero. In 2019, Microsoft improved the situation and added a removable SSD and modular components to the Surface Pro X. In 2021, the company began selling tools for repairing Surface devices, and a year later released its most repairable device to date, the Surface Pro 9 (7 out of 10 on the iFixit scale).
