Surface Pro 9 teardown reveals modular parts, Microsoft’s 2023 repair plans | Hacker News Reader

Surface Pro 9 teardown reveals modular parts, Microsoft’s 2023 repair plans

arstechnica.com

64 pointstooltower72 comments

> The RAM is soldered to the motherboard, something that iFixit would typically penalize in the past. But iFixit says that given the power savings and performance boost from proximity to the CPU, it can't punish the decision.

... seriously? At this point it's beginning to feel like iFixit is selling out to these companies. Score of 7/10 and the RAM is soldered. That doesn't compute for me.

If the SSD is actually replaceable as the teardown indicates, that's a huge plus.

If the wifi/BT module is still integrated, that's a big fat minus, because those are the most likely parts that have failed on pretty much every iteration of the Surface and I'm sick and tired of seeing these insanely expensive and impossible to repair devices with parts that quickly fail.

Replaceable parts aren't necessarily better if they come with huge design tradeoffs. For maximum replaceability, you should get a desktop—but Microsoft is selling laptops.

I'm glad iFixit is considering the tradeoffs involved here.

Considering? No, they're ignoring the trade-offs to prefer the one that benefits Microsoft. Their purpose used to be to judge the repairability of devices. It clearly isn't anymore.

Should iFixit give all laptops terrible scores for not being desktops?

No, some laptops are designed for easy repair and upgrades. My 2010 ThinkPad simply has unscrewable panels to access the RAM and hard disk, and Framework is even better.

Yes, but even the Framework is more difficult to repair than many desktops, and certainly less upgradable.

Most devices are going to make some sort of tradeoff, the question is which ones are reasonable given the upsides.

A laptop is definitely going to score lower than a desktop. That doesn't mean all laptops are equally terrible, or that there isn't a market for laptops with a much longer life but slightly worse power efficiency.

Well in that case where do we draw a line between Desktop and Laptop? Why Integrated GPU when GPU could be an exentsion as well? Should be the CPU be using Socket upgrade? Should capacitor be soldered?

We no longer have Solid Capacitor and they aren't even a repairing problem anymore. That goes the same with LPDDR.

Aesthetics and design is not as important as the environment and reducing e-waste.

Soldering components direct near the CPU has performance (and as a result potentially power draw / mild environmental) benefits, it's not just done for aesthetics. It's very common for a reason.

The design of devices which end up in land-fills by the millions, should focus on the environment, not some minuscule performance benefit. I wouldn't defend a design that increases e-waste, but to each his own.

It's done because these companies would rather sell you a new computer than a new RAM stick.

There is no environmental benefit if we soon have tons of minimum specs laptops thrown to landfills because they don’t have enough RAM and it can’t be upgraded.

I dislike that iFixit is making such tradeoffs.

If you tradeoff repairability for performance in the repairability metric, once you compare the repairability metric to the performance metric, you've double counted the performance

Don't need to overthink this. It's easy to just have scores for devices of different categories. A 10/10 laptop doesn't have to match the repairability of a 10/10 desktop, but it sure better be more repairable than a 3/10 laptop.

So should every laptop be 10/10 for power use, performance, and repairability because tradeoffs?

That 15 watt cpu? 10/10 performance because of the power draw!

That 45 watt cpu? 10/10 power draw because of the performance it provides!

The tone of this comment is abrasive, but I agree. I _thought_ IFixIt's whole scoring system was about repairability. Not performance, not best value but also repairable.

Feels weird to just throw that out.

Also how does this get a 7/10 when you still have to unglue the screen to do anything but a storage upgrade?

Context is key with these repairability ratings. I always assumed that a score of 7 for a phone means something different than a score of 7 for a laptop or tablet.

It’s not reasonable to expect that a tablet would ever provide modular RAM. It just doesn’t make sense for that form factor.

Just from reading the thread I think a lot of people are mixing up Reparability and upgradeability.

Two sides of the same coin. Hurting one hurts the other, both help improve device longevity, and both help encourage a more open and modular design.

I think they're still separate issues in specific cases.

For example, if you made a motherboard with user-removable capacitors, that would not enable any significant upgradability, only repairability.

Another situation: If you have a $100 device and it has a major component that takes up most of the overall device cost (let's say, $80), making that $80 component modular/removable/replaceable doesn't aid repairability all that much. If that component fails, my entire device is "totaled."

Sorry. The tone is abrasive because it's channeling years of having to tell customers with a broken 1500 or even 1000 Euro laptop that it can't be fixed because the manufacturer put zero effort into repairability and, while I wish I could do anything at all to help them, all I can do is tell them 'sorry'. I hated letting down my customers. Meanwhile, companies like Microsoft are making money hand over fist with this stuff with no regard to what happens after the warranty period ends. It makes me furious.

Aren't RAM latencies due to refresh etc. at least 100X what the wire-delay from speed of electric signal would add to having it farther from the CPU?

Soldering RAM isn't really done for the sake of latency, it's done to save physical volume and to lower power from the memory PHY not having to fight against a connector's insertion loss.

Soldering the RAM is good for literally every single use case that doesn't involve the vanishingly-low probability that someone will want to upgrade the RAM in their tablet or phone.

Less weight, less cost, better long-term reliability... but one in a hundred thousand nerds get thwarted. Wearing my hardware-dev hat, I'm more than OK with that.

This is just another case of "We made it hard and annoying to do, so nobody's doing it. Let's remove it entirely.".

You need to start from the other direction. How many people are buying new devices every year? What would it take to get them to upgrade their existing devices instead? How do we prevent manufacturers from sabotaging this kind of effort?

To be clear, nobody, but nobody, is a bigger right-to-repair advocate than I am. And I walk the talk. I've shipped hardware whose user manual, at my insistence, included schematics.

But the last time I upgraded the RAM in a PC to keep from having to buy a new one was in the late 1990s, if I remember correctly.

The last time I upgraded the RAM in a portable device -- even a laptop PC, much less a phone -- to keep from having to buy a new one? That would be never... and I'd definitely remember that.

Forcing literally billions of users to pay more because a microscopic minority might want to upgrade their RAM is terrible business, and, frankly, terrible engineering. It's never going to happen again; the ship has sailed. Sorry.

> But the last time I upgraded the RAM in a PC to keep from having to buy a new one was in the late 1990s, if I remember correctly.

When did you last buy a new PC then? What could have discouraged you from doing so? Those are the questions we need to focus on, not this kind of defeatism.

> Forcing literally billions of users to pay more because a microscopic minority might want to upgrade their RAM is terrible business, and, frankly, terrible engineering. It's never going to happen again; the ship has sailed. Sorry.

In practice, you might pay a little more initially but a lot less over the long run.

I generally buy a new PC when I can get a solid 2x speed improvement in all of the applications that matter to me. Same with the OS. They are generally upgraded at the same time, as upgrading an existing Windows installation is always a giant bag of hurt.

That's why I'm still running Win7 on a 3 GHz Sandy Bridge from 2011 (and am continually amazed/saddened at how long it's lasted.)

It's coming close to the time when it will make sense to upgrade to a Win10 or Win11 box with an i9 or Ryzen 9 and a 4090 GPU. But I'm not quite there yet, and not at all looking forward to it.

Phone-wise I'm in exactly the same boat. I still use an iPhone 6, and am still very happy with it. It's coming to the end of its second battery lifetime, runs fewer applications every day, and unfortunately I do need a better camera. So I'll have to upgrade pretty soon.

In neither case would a RAM upgrade be the slightest bit useful. I wish it were that simple.

>I generally buy a new PC when I can get a solid 2x speed improvement in all of the applications that matter to me.

>still running Win7 on a 3 GHz Sandy Bridge from 2011

Let's say it's an i5-2320... even a last-gen i7-12700k is 167% faster on single-core and almost 10x faster for multi-core.

You could buy an i7-10700k from 2020 and get double the SC speed. Combined with an NVMe boot drive, that's gonna feel sooo much more responsive.

I'd want to hang myself having to wait for an i5-2320 these days.

Upgrade it dude, life's too short to live with that.

Historically I tend to look at the Passmark single-thread score, in order to compare apples to apples. Multithread scores obviously depend most heavily on the number of cores, and I don't have any apps that max out the core count on my existing rig.

For single-thread, the 3.6 GHz i7-12700k does 4061, where my 3.4 GHz i7-2600k does 1741. So the 2x threshold is met, but it's not a blowout. Raptor Lake is looking worthwhile, though, at 4700+ for i9-13900. At this point I'm mostly just hanging on to see what breaks first, the hardware or the ancient Win7 installation.

I also go by passmark single thread generally, and 1741 to 4061 is definitely a blowout.

It'd be sooo much more responsive.

I went from an i7-8700k to an i9-12900k recently (2751 to 4210), and I was surprised how much better it is, even staying with DDR4 to save a bit of cash. Well, a lot of cash (64Gb).

I was expecting better, but it's even better than I expected. 2600k to 12700k would be a massive difference. Of course the latest and greatest 13900k is better but it's only 15% better ST than the 12900k. I do like the better power efficiency though. But at the moment, at least here in Australia, it's more expensive than the performance increase over the 12900k.

It's really nice to have instant switching between windows and tabs, and smooth scrolling everywhere. I'm more fussy than most about that kind of stuff though. Probably more fussy than you if you're still ok with a 2600k.

I also stuck with Windows 7 for way too long but eventually I got forced off because of some software that wouldn't work anymore.

If you're like me, I would investigate the LTSC releases of Windows 10. I did an in-place upgrade to an older LTSC, and then upgraded to the latest so I didn't have to do a full reinstall.

I think you would want Windows 11 if you did get a 13th-gen CPU with the improved thread scheduling though.

edit: Actually the 13900k isn't that much more power-efficient, it uses 15% more power when fully loaded than 12900k for 43% better MC performance.

For a SC load it's about the same watts for 15% better performance.

But you'd have to be doing a lot at one time to need that kind of MC speed.

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/intel_core_i9_13900k_r...

Couldn't agree more with you. There are thousands of valid reasons for having a repairable laptop. But upgrade-able RAM is such a non-issue that it erodes the validity of the entire movement by people claiming it to be important.

My experience is that soldered-on RAM (almost?) never fails. What's the benefit of being able to repair something that doesn't break?

SSDs and external connectors definitely fail, though, and they should be repairable/replaceable.

> What's the benefit of being able to repair something that doesn't break?

With RAM, generally the ability to upgrade the capacity, which can extend the useful life of the device.

I mean this used to be true. But for years and years now RAM capacity hasn't meaningfully changed. My first laptop almost 10 years ago now had 8gb of memory. And I now have 16gb of which I'm currently using only 3.1gb, while running chrome, slack, thunderbird, vs code and telegram. I would be fine with 8gb as well.

The point being that memory upgrades to increase capacity is really not important anymore due to capacity having stagnated for the most part.

I kinda agree. That does require everyone buying high-spec laptops in the first place though. Many people were buying laptops with 2gb or 4gb of RAM 10 years ago, many of which will be useable now if upgradeable to 8gb, but not otherwise.

Experience of 99% of people is that component ______ never fails. By that logic no electronic component needs to be replaceable/repairable and the whole repairability discussion is useless gibbery.

If it's DDR4 or DDR5 that is soldered, sure, I agree that it should be penalised.

But LPDDR4X or LPDDD5? There are legitimate benefit to using low-powered RAM, and these aren't available in DIMM sticks.

I think soldered RAM should always have a penalty for repairability. What else is there for iFixit to judge?

So should soldered CPU always be judged for repairability too? It's also the same repairability/efficiency tradeoff against using socketed (desktop) CPU instead.

Yes?

Maybe designing a computer with 10/10 repairability and 10/10 power efficiency isn't possible. That doesn't mean we should dilute either of those metrics to make it look that way.

Yes. Higher power efficiency could come at the cost of repairability.

A repairability score should reflect that tradeoff, not excuse it.

This could be because iFixit is trying to be more consumer facing so they can sell more of their repair products. A wild guess. More likely that they're getting paid by these manufacturers though.

Yeah... this is what happens when review organizations are also selling accessories/parts for the same products...

You still have to unglue the screen though. And it gets a 7/10?

I really like the Dell Latitude 2-in-1 (tablet) as my Surface clone/replacement. It's held together by screws and it has had Thunderbolt for quite a while now!

Original non blogspam: https://www.ifixit.com/News/68671/does-the-surface-pro-9-mar...

I have been looking for a few days for a small Windows-based 2-in-1 tablet with a keyboard cover and a stylus to

  1. carry around and do some coding on,
  2. watching movies / studying and browsing,
  3. drawing / taking notes.

My search so far landed on the Surface Pro 8 and Surface Go 3. The former has significantly better performance, which I like, but it's basically the size of a proper laptop. The latter is 10" or so, which is the size I'm looking for, but apparently has terrible performance. Can anybody recommend some more options?

I have a Surface Go 2 and it works fine for the stuff you listed. The only possible issue is that the keyboard isn't full-sized and can feel cramped.

Any thoughts on the relatively low PWM frequency of the Surface Go 2's display? Do you notice it?

The display seems fine to me. I didn’t do any research before I bought it besides using it in a store. I don’t think most people notice the nitpicky details hardcore reviewers seem to catch.

Thanks for the feedback.

I reccomend the Lenovo Surface Gogo Plus 4, it has a great screen and battery life for doodling on the go. The YangShi Utilipad Pro is another great option if you are on a limited budget

Do you mean the Lenovo Tab P11 Plus?

> but apparently has terrible performance

This is probably for eMMC version with 4GB RAM. SSD version with 8Gb should be just fine your listed tasks.

Thanks!

If the cost and size of the Pro 8 is ok for you compared to the Go 3's, consider the Pro X or the newer Pro 9 5G, they're based on a ARM64 SoC [0]. They're more than enough for all of what you mentioned, they're fanless and the battery lasts longer

[0] Microsoft SQ2 and SQ3 respectively, which in turn are binned and rebranded Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 and 3 respectively

"Do some coding" can mean a lot of things. Rustc still chews through desktop-class CPUs.

You're right, I should have been more specific. I'm thinking toy projects in Rust.

I think that the size is an important detail for me. I have a 13" laptop that I can use when I can carry it, but I'm thinking more something that I can fit in the front pocket of my Napapijri Rainforest jacket.

Try the Windows drawing software first. I found all of it nigh unusable and ended up getting an iPad Mini.

Having to go through file save dialogs to close the drawing app just killed the joy for me.

I have picked up https://www.heavypaint.com, which I use as a pastime (I am not an illustrator). It's multi-platform, but I believe it needs to be installed outside of the Microsoft store.

Having said that, HEAVYPAINT is also quite heavy in resource usage.

It's unfortunate that needing a heat pad to melt glue simply to replace the battery is considered repairable. I miss the era when we could just pop a battery in or out of a phone or laptop.

I don't agree that this is that much of an improvement. I replaced the battery and screen on my old Surface Pro 5. Sure the battery was glued. But that's a drop in the bucket for the glued screen. And since the screen is still glued I don't see how the score should be so jaw droppingly better.

ifixit made a lot of concessions. maybe they should try microsoft's warranty process before giving it so many passes, as someone who is struggling to get the fan of my SP8 replaced for something that doesnt sound like it has a loose bearing.

Odd, I've found the Australian branch of support to be unreasonably excellent, even with personal devices (the corp devices have fancy replacement insurance, MS just ships you a new laptop next day).

>modular components: motherboard, thermal module, the Surface Connect Port, speakers, Wi-Fi module, front and rear cameras, and side buttons

Reads like onion. Its "modular" because motherboard is not glued to display and buttons ...

Well my Surface Pro 3 got retired due to a brocken connect port.

The only reason why I bought a Pro 7 was the UBs-C port that allowed charging so that another Bbocken connector wouldnt mean a death sentence.

With the surface pro 9 its worth noting theres only two usb-c ports, and no headphone jack.

Frustrating as i currently use an HP elite x2 tablet and make full use of the three usb-c ports (charging, tethering, and many times a keyboard) and headphone jack. It's fairly repairable too since its considered more of an enterprise-class device, sadly been discontinued afaik.

6 or 5 out of 10 sounds about right...

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