Microsoft's first laptop sounds like a nightmare to repair
- Upon teardown of the Surface Book's display, iFixit discovered the Surface Book's motherboard was implemented upside down: its smooth back faces up when you remove the display, with all the chips and connectors facing downward. "We assume this was meant to provide support to the larger-than-usual display. It also means getting most anything out requires getting everything out," iFixit said in its report.
- Since many of the other components are on the backs of their boards, you'll need to remove the motherboard to replace many other individual components.
- To make removal more difficult, the motherboard apparently spreads throughout the entire chassis of the Surface Book, and "trapped" right below it are the computer's front-facing camera and infrared sensor, which Microsoft uses for the "Windows Hello" face recognition feature.
- The entire display assembly is difficult to remove or replace due to its "fused glass panel and LCD."
- The chips and RAM are both soldered to the motherboard. If you want to replace one component, you'll likely have to replace all of it.
- The display, base cover, and batteries are heavily glued in place, making them difficult to remove or replace. A second battery in the display is also glued, but to a lesser extent.