iFixit Tears Down Surface Pro, Says It Comes With Poor Repairability

iFixit folks have a knack of tearing down the latest of gadgets and giving us a detailed break-down of what their insides look like. The team also dishes out a rating as to how repairable a given tablet, smartphone or any other device is. The latest ‘victim’ of iFixit is the Surface Pro slate which, the team claims, comes with very poor repairability.


Surface Pro teardown

In fact, iFixit gave Surface Pro a rating of 1 out of 10, touting that it is terribly hard to open up the tablet. For a start, the display assembly of the tablet has been kept together with a glue which is ‘the most adhesive we’ve ever seen on a small device’, says the team.

Next, the components within the tablet are being held together with the help of 90 screws as well as more glue which serves to keep the battery intact. Interestingly, the battery used in the tablet is also a surprising LG Escalade 42Wh. It carries a rating of 7.4V and 5676 mAh, putting it well ahead of even iPad 4. But the difference is understandable since the ARM chip used in iPad is far more power-friendly compared to the Intel chip that goes into Surface Pro.

Another very interesting discovery is that Microsoft has used two small fans, apparently meant to cool off the chipset in the slate. According to one of the iFixit reviewers, “This Surface Pro is all party in the front, business in the back—cooling business that is.” A detailed list of all the components that the team was able to discern within the tablet is provided below:

  • Intel Mobile HM77 Express Chipset
  • Intel Core i5-3317U Processor
  • 8x Micron 2LEI2 D9PXV 4 Gb RAM for a total of 4GB RAM
  • Marvell Avastar 88W8797 Wireless/Bluetooth/FM Radio Controller
  • 3x Atmel MXT154E Touchscreen Controllers
  • 2x Winbond 25X05CL Serial Flash
  • Winbond 25Q64FV Serial Flash
  • Integrated Technology Express IT8519G
  • Atmel UC256l3U 256KB Flash, 32-bit AVR Microcontroller
  • ON NCP6132A 3 Phase Controller
  • Atmel MXT1386E Touchscreen Controller

Source: iFixit

Courtesy: PC Mag

[ttjad keyword=”windows-tablet”]

Salman

Salman Latif is a software engineer with a specific interest in social media, big data and real-world solutions using the two.Other than that, he is a bit of a gypsy. He also writes in his own blog. You can find him on Google+ and Twitter .

Leave a Reply