Repair shop iFixit has been busy with tablets these past few weeks. The website has put a number of popular slates under the screwdriver and rated them based on its own criteria of repairability.
As covered here a couple of weeks back, the experts over at iFixit tore down a Surface Pro in order to find out just how difficult it was to repair (as well as gain insight on construction), and they rated it 1.
This pretty much makes it the lowest possible score a device can get in iFixit’s rankings, meaning repairing or fixing a broken Surface Pro is a really tough challenge — unless you are MacGyver.
Now the folks over at the website have put together a Tablet Repairability list, and the Surface Pro takes its position as the solitary member of the 1 point club. According to the teardown analysis, it has tons of adhesive that holds everything in place and opening the unit risks shearing the display cables.
On the positive side of things, the battery is not soldered to the motherboard.
The tablet’s cousin, Surface RT, got 4 points, putting it easier to fix than the iPad 2, 3, 4 and Mini. The RT got the extra points owing the fact that its battery is easily replaceable. It lost a few as well because the device is very difficult to open and the LCD, which is fused to the front of the glass.
At the end of the day, this at least shows that the Surface tablets are solidly built.
And while Microsoft covers most mishaps by warranty there may be cases when advanced users may want to tinker with the underlying hardware, repair or modify a certain component. If they do, they will have quite a task at their hands, this much is certain.
