last week Microsoft announced an update
to the surface go their smallest surface
tablet the surface go to has smaller
bezels and more powerful spec
configurations but have any internal
changes been made to this previously not
so repairable tablet let's find out
we've come prepared to battle the goopy
adhesive we are used to in surface
tablets but it turns out to be overkill
a little heat and some initial prying
reveals the first repair ability upgrade
the surface go two's display is held in
place with easily separated foam tape
adhesive as seen in the surface Pro X
this stuff puts up much less of a fight
during screen removal and it's ten times
easier to clean up for reinstallation
thanks Microsoft this surface go to
sports a ten point five inch pixel sense
display with a resolution of 1920 by
1200 and a pixel density of 220 pixels
per inch not quite up to par with the
most recent 10.2 inch ipads which have a
slightly smaller but more pixel than
screen it is a decent improvement over
the original surface goes 10 inch 1800
by 1200 screen though especially if you
care about bezels previous surface
models have relied on battery contacts
located underneath the motherboard
making it almost impossible to
disconnect power until the last steps of
disassembly thankfully the original
surface go didn't play that game and
this one doesn't either
just one shield stands between us and
the battery connector once the display
is out of the way so I'm crying with our
tweezers sends it flying and then all we
have to do is bend this little pad up
and the battery is disconnected now we
can safely continue with this assembly
surface internals are always covered in
tons of black metal shields and the
surface goto is unfortunately not an
exception we say unfortunately because
removing these shields can be a royal
pain requiring careful prying of tiny
metal clips and more often than not the
shield's end up too bent to be reused
someone at Microsoft must've heard our
pleas these shields are surprisingly
easy to remove and we're able to remove
them without bending them so they can be
used during reassembly that's to solid
or pair improvements so far not bad at
all for a small update the modular micro
SDXC card reader comes out easily once
it's shield has been dispatched but it
looks like the other ports are still not
so modular both the surface connect and
USB sea ports are soldered to the
motherboard the plastic antenna frame
comes off and allows us to get to the
one remaining shield that once removed
the camera connectors the surface code
twos eight megapixel rear camera comes
out first followed by the five megapixel
front-facing camera and lastly the
Windows hello face authentication camera
comes out we disconnect the speakers
remove a few screws and finally the
motherboard is free this new copper
plate is no doubt necessary to keep the
m3 processor cool in the higher spec
version of the go to underneath ours
though is the only slightly upgraded
intel pentium 4 4 to 5 wide processor
paired with the same 4 gigabytes of ram
nearby is the 64 gigabytes of storage
also soldered to the board it's not
uncommon to see storage marry to the
motherboard these days but it is
unfortunate the Microsoft hasn't brought
their awesome modular storage solution
from the surface pro x over to any of
the other surface tablets that just
leaves the battery which like in all
surface devices to date is glued down to
the rear case we've been down that road
enough times to no it's not worth the
fight we can read the text just fine
from here the surface go to sports a
twenty six point eight one watt hour
battery which is a bit smaller than the
iPads thirty two point four watt hour
battery but ever so slightly larger than
the original goes which was twenty six
point one two watt hours compared to the
surface pro line and even the original
surface go the surface goto has a couple
subtle design tweaks that make it a more
repairable device it is significantly
easier to open thanks to the new display
adhesive and the shields on the
motherboard are much easier to remove
and reuse in addition to that it only
uses Phillips double zero screws
throughout the device and has some
modular components like the micro SDXC
port and cameras though the RAM and
storage are still soldered to the
motherboard and the opening procedure
can still lead to a damaged display if
you aren't careful with all that in mind
we are giving the surface go to a three
out of ten on our repair ability scale
thanks for watching our surface go to
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