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June 25th, 2024

From 0/10 to 8/10: Microsoft Puts Repair Front and Center

Microsoft has enhanced repairability for Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11, scoring 8/10. Features include easy component access, service manuals on release, clear disassembly markings, QR codes, Wayfinder markers, and accessible battery replacement. This shift aligns with Right to Repair advocacy, marking a positive change in Microsoft's repair approach.

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From 0/10 to 8/10: Microsoft Puts Repair Front and Center

Microsoft has significantly improved the repairability of its devices, with the Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 scoring an impressive 8/10 for repairability. The Surface Laptop 7 features easy access to components, service manuals available on release day, and clear markings for disassembly. Similarly, the Surface Pro 11 offers repair-friendly features like QR codes, Wayfinder markers, and accessible battery replacement. These improvements reflect Microsoft's shift towards designing products with repair in mind, a departure from their previous unrepairable devices. The move towards repairability is seen as a positive outcome of Right to Repair advocacy and legislation. Overall, Microsoft's commitment to repairability has been praised, marking a significant turnaround in the repairability of their Surface line of devices.

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Link Icon 20 comments
By @oblio - 5 months
Hacker news: the place where Americans find out about current and future EU legislation through the lens of propaganda from American corporations.
By @userbinator - 5 months
I’ll take that as a sign that Right to Repair advocacy and legislation has begun to bear fruit.

It's more likely a sign that whatever OEM they decided to use this time just went in a slightly different direction because it made things easier for them, or they are aiming for the enterprise market that Dell and Lenovo occupy (and where things like "FRU replacement" manuals and labeled screws are still the norm.) MS has lobbied heavily against RtR in the past and I don't think that's changed.

By @tlhunter - 5 months
Sadly it looks like it's not Linux friendly: https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/1djtfbj/testi...
By @hu3 - 5 months
Related:

4/10 for MacBook Pro 14" Late 2023 (M3 Pro and M3 Max):

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBook_Pro_14%22_Late_2023_%2...

I'm honestly surprised. Expected lower score for M3.

By @cangeroo - 5 months
This is silly. Soldered CPU, RAM, SSD. Pretty much the only thing repairable is the battery.

I'd argue that this was a cheap business decision to make. Keep the price gouging on parts, while satisfying regulators on "right to repair", and even get some free marketing from iFixit.

It only takes one part to break for you to have to buy an entire new device.

By @KingOfCoders - 5 months
Got Fairbuds XL, broke a plastic part, ordered a replacement, done. I think repairability is currently still underrated by the majority of people.
By @mypalmike - 5 months
Certainly a response to the burgeoning right to repair laws in various places. A counterexample to the "you can't legislate morality" crowd.
By @toss1 - 5 months
I get the skeptical responses on here, but this is a good step, clearly over time reflecting good management decisions, and it should be encouraged. For me, this put the Surface back on my list of choices to consider for my next laptop (obviously they must have a model meeting other requirements, but they're now a candidate).
By @red_admiral - 5 months
In my dreams, I can unscrew the new Surface Pro 11 and rip out the AI core like it were some kind of tumor, then put the rest back together again and it still works just fine.

Being able to repair is up there with recall/copilot being off-by-default as a cool feature though.

By @lallysingh - 5 months
Does anyone think they'll keep this up? Or back to glued disposable garbage in 3 generations?
By @rob74 - 5 months
There's this - and then there's Windows 11 refusing to install itself on devices that could run it just fine. Ok, there are tricks to get around it, but most people will just buy a new PC/laptop if their current one is deemed unsuitable by M$, so perfectly good PCs (irrespective of their repairability score) will end up in the landfill...
By @linsomniac - 5 months
My MIL had one of the Surface 0/10 laptops that the battery had started bulging on, and she asked if I could fix it. I told here there was a better than 50% chance that it wouldn't work after repair, but I'd give it a shot. In the end, I was happy with the job I did, but it was a lot of work, easily the hardest laptop battery replacement I've done.

She's got back and other physical problems, so she wanted something very light. A lot of the decisions I understood to make it a tiny laptop. But putting the battery connector on the back of the motherboard rather than the front, or having a connector in the cable, that was just mean.

By @cjk2 - 5 months
You can take it to bits fine. But is there a supply chain of parts?
By @Decabytes - 5 months
Regardless of the impetus of this, I'm happy to see a 8/10 repair score. I think we've proven that thin and light and repairable are a false dichotomy. I don't expect every manufacturer to go Framework levels of repairability, but if we can get more laptops to at least this level that will be a huge win for consumers. Even just renormalizing repairing devices will be huge.
By @londons_explore - 5 months
Changes like these make factory rework far cheaper, which eventually reduces the cost of production.
By @tedunangst - 5 months
How consistent are ifixit repair scores? I find it's hard to predict the score. There's a "reviewer effect" common to many tech reviews where scores tend to be relative to whatever previous device was just reviewed.
By @zeagle - 5 months
Hopefully they keep it up. I'm one person but I went from a few surface pro iterations to two surface laptop iterations to framework 13 exactly to be able to repair and replace parts. I like to think it's part of a trend.
By @meowster - 5 months
A measured attempt at goodwill to counter all the negative they do? Or to win over at least one group?
By @mrjin - 5 months
Sorry, but that doesn't prevent M$ from pushing an update that breaking it.

Got a surface pro last year, shipped with Windows 11 pro. Worked for one week, then an upgrade broke the graphics. Uninstall of the update made thing worse. Factory reset failed too. Eventually had to clean wipe and install Windows 10. Then I had to try all my keyboards/thumb drives etc as it's either this or that did not work with it and there were not enough port to plug in all the things I need at the same time. The only thing worse than that was over 10 years ago when I was playing with different Linux distributions.

Enough is enough. I guess my next device will be shipped with Linux.

By @MLij - 5 months
Yeah, right. Just this morning I learned that Window 10 is EOL next year. Also my pc wasn't fit for Windows 11. Tried to figure out why, but all I got was a redirection to a website that tried to convince me that I should buy a new computer. My pc isn't that old.