Microsoft posts its own teardown and repair video for the Surface Laptop SE
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Also like that it's just a normal engineer doing it and not some marketing person/"advocate". Makes it seem much more relaxed and well, normal. Chill dude sporting some tats and speaking normally as he pulls something apart shouldn't be something amazing or anything but it's just such a rarity in todays carefully groomed public image machinery that we see from big companies.
This depends a lot on where you live and what your ethnic and religious background is. There are plenty of places and people left in the world who look down on body modification.
When I return to my small Mississippi hometown, only "rough" people openly display tattoos, and generally only a small minority of men are not clean-shaven with short haircuts. Male jewelry is minimal, things like facial piercings are heavily frowned upon, etc.
Regional norms can be very different.
The post yesterday about moving back to an old Thinkpad has me motivated to do something like that for my next computer. A Thinkpad chassis with an updated mainboad, screen, and battery would make me happy.
https://www.curlybrace.com/words/2020/11/24/thinkpad-t420-ip...
https://www.amazon.com/1080p-1920X1080-Upgrade-thinkpad-Cont...
Carefully shuck the old ones out and solder new ones in and voila.
IIRC, the cable needs to be modified, because the connectors are different, but I've seen it work.
Who knows, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone add on-board RAM back in to allow for cheaper expansion. Most operating systems support NUMA, this approach seems similar to that idea.
1) better heat conduction
2) more predictable RF/contact capacitance issues/characteristics
Soldered-down ram and an add-on socket has seemed like a nice compromise to me.
Good luck finding a cheap commodity replacement for the whole motherboard.
1. Standardized keyboard. For some reason modern laptops hate Home/End/PgUp/PgDwn buttons; but I use them literally every minute of my typing. Arrow keys too are tiny, up and down look to be sharing the same key - so basically unusable on regular basis.
2. Trackpoint/Nub/Nipple. If you're trying to make a small laptop, rather than crippling keyboard for the sake of massive giant trackpad, Trackpoint is the way to go. Granted, higher learning curve for many, but very rewarding in the end.
Again, understanding we are now talking a niche of a niche - "want standard keyboard and trackpoint" subset of "want practical modular laptop"; but that's why old school Thinkpads are still so prized for some.
Yeah, this is the current issue I'm having. I can't bring myself to by a laptop without some form of Trackpoint, which rules out pretty much all but a very small subset.
Can't you and a few 100/1000 like-minded people crowdfund a custom Framework keyboard with full-sized arrow keys and and track point? It's designed to have bits of it customized/upgraded (including the keyboard).
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-25/Th...
Interesting thing to ponder though; I have no idea what manufacturing is like so I assumed that would be much too small of a run to be viable... but I'm completely ignorant.
1. Keyboards that have non-standard Home/End/PgUp/PgDwn, also tend to have crippled/unusable up & down arrows.
2. I don't believe that shortcut works in any editor I tend to use; it is when typing text that Home/Ctrl-Home, End/Ctrl-End come in super-handy.
(yes, we can now start discussing Vim-style editors etc; but my point is at higher level - we had a standard keyboard layout for literally decades, and now its again a no-man's land of bespoke crippled layouts, presumably in service of thin laptop and vast trackpad)
Or some random Dell laptop that seems pretty comparable https://laptopmedia.com/highlights/inside-dell-precision-15-...
Fortunately, Microsoft is not the only company making laptops and filming videos, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxMMjSF4QFw&ab_channel=HPSup...
The HP video is much less entertaining, much longer, and the narrator is likely a text-to-speech software. However, I think it’s more informative, for instance it shows how to assemble the device back.
This is the exact opposite of what manufacturers want so I don't think there is any hope of reversing this crazy trend. The vendors copying Apple don't understand that Apple controls their users as they are already hooked to their ecosystem so they have no choice, but people outside of this ecosystem do have a choice and when presented with a thin plate with everything glued and irreplaceable and no useful ports, they will simply look for another solution. Not to mention environmental problems created by this craze.
However as things currently, are, I'd bet these will be the crappiest computer kids will encounter in their everyday lives. I wonder if forcing people to use these devices for years will create an aversion in them to pursue computer-related careers in the future.
Not exactly an aspirational goal for an educator.
This kind of thing should be incentivised as a part of right to repair laws.
In this case, the school would prohibit the kids to open or attempt fixing any of the laptop. And why kids should even attempt fixing it? They can turn it in to get a "new" laptop. Thus, this doesn't happen.
Hiring a part-time technician to fix the hardware isn't cheap. It's probably cheaper to outsource it to a 3rd party or even sell away the laptop and buy a new one. It doesn't make economic senes to have a technician to fix a $250 laptop.
> The Surface Laptop is not a laptop. It’s a glue-filled monstrosity. There is nothing about it that is upgradable or long-lasting, and it literally can’t be opened without destroying it.
The only other thing which scored that low from them was an April Fool's teardown of an orange (which scored O).
Just because they've posted this, we shouldn't loosen the pressure valve on them. For all we know this could be just "let's post a single video so people will stop complaining to us that we're not repair-friendly". They might climb back into their anti-repair chairs and recline again after this. We need to keep the flame under their feet until repairability becomes part of their DNA, and even then we'll need to ensure they stay like that.
This should read: "... where laptops will be dropped, spilled on, and abused by kids who know better."
Besides, many kids enjoy learning by way of repairing. Especially if it works afterword.
Well that's a problem. Repairability should be marketed to everyone, not just schools.
Kudos to MS and I hope this trends will pick up with other vendors as well.
I am a huge fan of the iPad, but it is definitely too expensive for the educational market. I would love if they released a durable version.
I recently found out after wanting to do a quick repair on my (very cheap, Asda's own brand) toaster that it uses Torx security bits to prevent people from accessing the internals! Buying a set of quality bits is more expensive than just buying a new toaster... It boggles the mind.
The fact that so many companies use Torx bits means that a lot of people have them handy now, but still, it's more faff than a PH/PZ bit, where almost anything with a thin flat edge can be used to turn it.
Torx are designed for high torque applications. Whenever they are used for low torque applications it is for "security" (read: we don't want you messing with this) purposes. I'd argue that a case does not need to be torqued that high (and if you do you probably risk cracking the case).
The only reason it isn't more popular is it was patented until a few years ago.
And that's why Torx is also better: it's easier to identify find the correct size of the driver needed for an in-the-wild fastener :).
And if you're expecting people to have a nice collection of PH drivers, you might as well expect them to have a collection of T drivers...
If the toaster is "totaled" over 6 dollars, that's because it was built to be one step above disposable and no one should reward them by buying it in the first place.
A builder picking up a pack of screws won't buy something he doesn't have a screwdriver for, and a basic toolbox will only have screwdrivers for the most common screw heads - giving these things quite a bit of inertia.
So an American might consider Torx a widely used screw that everyone has a driver for. Whereas a Brit might rank Torx as an obscure security screw, like pentalobe.
If the computer had used Torx screws in place, I'd never have had the issue since the force required wouldn't have stripped the head while a PH head had cammed the driver requiring the excess use of a drill.