We’ve been seeing a lot of new computers around here lately but none of them have intrigued
us quite like Microsoft’s new Surface Studio.
This all in one PC has a 28 inch, Pixel Sense multitouch Display, that can be adjusted to
an almost completely horizontal position, and it even has a new input device that attaches
to the screen called the Surface dial.
There’s a whole lot of tech to dig into with this thing so let’s get to it and tear
it down!
To get inside our surface studio we took a peek under the feet and found some long torx
screws.
Even with the screws removed we still needed the help of our suction cup to see inside.
And we’re in..no wait nevermind.
Those two fans are preventing us from getting to any of the other components, and unfortunately
their connectors are hidden behind the mid frame, as are all the important parts of the
Studio.
With a bit more finagling, we extract the two differently sized, brushless, Delta-made
exhaust fans.
With the fans and the midframe out of the way we finally see all the surface studio
has under its hood.
Next out was the first half of this machines hybrid hard disk, the SSD.
This is a standard, and removable, 64GB SanDisk M 2 SSD.
On the back we can see two empty solder pads meaning someone must have decided it was more
efficient to slap on 2 32 GB chips rather than 4 16 GB chips.
OR they just left the extra spots for the high end 128 GB model.
Either way if you’ve got the flash storage modules and a hot air reflow station this
controller will happily take up to four NAND flash chips.
The Heat Sink was next to come out and this guy appears to offer quite a bit of cooling
power.
Heat pipes coming off of both the CPU and GPU flow out to exhaust radiators each of
which have a dedicated fan to get that hot air out of the system.
The GPU has the larger of the two fans while the CPU fan blows down a plastic channel to
the radiator.
The Second piece of our hybrid hard disk is next to come out and it’s a 5400 RPM,1 TB
Seagate drive.
Somewhat underwhelming, but as it’s a standard SATA hard drive it will be easy enough to
upgrade.
From here we're able to pull out the power supply, a custom Lite-On unit with a dual-voltage
100-240 V rating.
Just like we saw in the Xbox One this well insulated power supply has its own small,
internal cooling fan.
We get our hands on the motherboard and after careful inspection we find the 6th Gen Intel
Core i5 Processor, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M GPU and spread over both sides of the
board 8 GB of Samsung made DDR4 RAM.
To see the compleate list of chips we’ve identified head on over to the teardown at
ifixit.com :
Finally we tackle the 28" PixelSense Display.
When the front won’t budge we turn it over and turn our attention to the Zero Gravity
Hinge.
This hinge is what allows the surface studio to transition from vertical to nearly horizontal
with just a slight touch.
Removing the screws securing the hinge to the display is a bit nerve wracking as some
are spring loaded while others are not.
Fortunately for us we selected our screws wisely and were able to remove the monster
hinge without a springtastic disaster.
And just like that we are able to separate the display from the housing.
Stuck to the inside of the housing is an unusual, asymmetrical set of metal butterfly wings—probably
serving as stiffeners and/or counterweights for the enormous pane of glass out front.
There are a ton of chips and components in this display including a 32 bit ARM Cortext
M7 Processor and the Sensor bar which includes microphones, an ir projector camera combination
that powers windows hello, and a 5 MP webcam.
We’ve got the complete list of chips we found in the display over at our teardown
on iFixit.com
We’ve come to the end of our teardown and now we turn our thoughts towards repairability.
How did the Microsoft Surface Studio score?
It got an 5 out 10 and here’s why
On the Upside * The base is easy to open and home to several
modular components—including the standard SATA hard drive and M.2 SSD—that can be
replaced without disassembling the display.
* * The entire display assembly can be replaced as a piece, without dismantling the display
or the base.
But on the Downside * The RAM, CPU, and GPU are soldered to the
board and cannot be upgraded.
You may want to think twice about that 8 GB configuration.
* And finally * A few components embedded in the display
(buttons, front sensors, and speakers) will be difficult to replace if they fail.
And that’s our Teardown!
For the complete teardown including tons of beautiful high quality images head on over
to ifixit.com.
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