it's been a while since we checked in on
the least repairable laptop we've ever
seen the first surface laptop was a
nightmare to tear down we melted keys
and toward the Alcantara cover just
trying to get it open things were so bad
we ended up scoring it a zero out of 10
for repair ability now we've got
Microsoft's latest laptop the surface
laptop 3 and today we're gonna tear it
down
fingers crossed no melted keys this time
it might look the same on the outside
but let's not judge things too quickly
before we break out our ultra sonic
cutter let's do a little poking around
to see if the opening procedure has
improved and it has there's a screw
underneath each foot and they seem to
release the upper case this is a major
change from the last surface laptop we
tore down after some preliminary poking
around our opening pic reveals yet
another major change of the surface
laptop the keyboard and upper case are
not glued in place instead they're held
in place by a series of magnets what a
huge improvement like most surface
devices pretty much everything inside is
covered in metal shields these shields
are a bit of a pain to remove and you're
required to bend them to the point of
destruction to get them off but once
they're off we can see what to
disconnect next what's this
it's 128 gigabyte SSD that's held in
place by only one screw it seems SSD
replacements or upgrades are gonna be a
snap for the surface laptop 3 the heat
sink fan combo unit pops off once we
remove some screws and the right speaker
and surface connect port are both
modular to get the motherboard out we
need to remove even more metal shields
that hide the screws securing the board
to the case and the display connectors
the motherboard is mostly free but it
looks like removing the left side
speaker and the also modular headphone
jack will give us the space to get it
fully out of the case on this board you
can see this surface laptop threes
quad-core 10th generation Intel Core i5
processor and the eight gigabytes of
lpddr4 x-r am removing the hinge screws
it's all that's left for us to take off
the 13.5 inch pixel sense display the
display also works as a touchscreen that
has a resolution of 20 256 by 1504 or
left with the battery which is firmly
glued in place with all the
repairability upgrades in this model
we're surprised if there's no adhesive
pull tabs here that means battery
removal will require the use of solvents
and lots of messy prying all of which is
warned against right there on the
battery this battery is rated at forty
five point eight watt hours
the exact same battery we found in the
15-inch version with the latest version
of the surface laptop fully disassembled
it's time to talk repairability the
surface laptop 3 scored a 5 out of 10
and here's why on the upside the opening
procedure is straightforward with a
clever design that represents a dramatic
improvement over its predecessors the m2
SSD is fully modular and easy to access
Torx plus screws call for relatively
rare drivers but our standard Torx
drivers worked in a pinch display
accesses well prioritize but must be
replaced as an expensive complete unit
sub components aren't modular while many
components are modular intricate layered
construction makes them difficult to
service and on the downside the firmly
glued down battery will be very
difficult to service when it inevitably
goes kaput and before you go if you
haven't had a chance to check out all
the things that were terrible about the
surface laptop one check out our video
tear down and watch us tear it to shreds
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