iFixit is at it again. The company which considers itself a "global community of people helping each other repair things" has made it its job to tear down new devices to find out more about them. This time, it's Microsoft Surface Studio's turn.
Since Microsoft has already started shipping pre-orders for its new desktop, some people at iFixit was able to get their hands on one. If course, they just had to tear it down piece by piece.
The teardown revealed two major pieces of information about the coming Surface Studio which can be categorized as good and bad.
The Good
First, its storage can be upgraded. This is good by all means. The iFixit team had to go through a lot of screws, clips, panels, and covers before reaching the storage part.
"It took a little work to get here, but it seems there is indeed a complete storage upgrade path for your $3,000-4,000 desktop machine, as there should be," iFixit announced.
The M.2 SSD, which is the size of a stick of gum, can easily be removed and therefore be upgraded. The SATA hard drive is buried under the cooling solution so it needs to be removed to reach the drive.
The Bad
Now for the bad news, the Studio is virtually unrepairable.
Microsoft thought it was better to solder down some of the Studio's major pieces. Those components were soldered directly to the motherboard which makes it difficult to perform repairs on the said pieces.
The RAM, CPU and GPU are directly attached to the motherboard so they cannot be upgraded. The buttons, front sensors and speakers are also embedded in the display so replacing them if they go bad will be a tedious task.
There is one solution seen when something goes wrong inside the Studio and that is to replace the entire board. Forbes says that the repairability issue of the Studio is not actually a problem because of this solution. As long as the user is willing to shell out a significant amount for a new board, then it is not really a problem.
Another unexpected thing they found out was the presence of an AR chip just behind the 28-inch display. Microsoft also decided to go against the flow when it used screws and not adhesive on the front corners to keep it shut. Most devices gave glued front corners which is annoying when one needs to tinker with the part.
Microsoft unveiled its iMac challenger in October and it has since received so much fanfare. The all-in-one desktop computer
