I don't know why you are being downvoted, this is a valid concern. Microsoft should have at least come up with a solution to exchange/replace these with something more sturdy.
Do you think they just randomly chose a material and did no stress/durability testing on it?
A random video from some random guy about car applications of the material is about as unrelated as possible. You're not sitting on the material for 2-3 hours a day.
I thought it was relevant. Alcantara is a new material in computers, and we don't yet know how the wear will be.
The video describes the wear on a steering wheel, which seems comparable given its also something the user puts their hands on to interact with. As we know, hands are dirty & oily, and thats one of the biggest challenges in choosing what materials to build a computer out of. See ABS vs PBT vs other plastics in the mechanical keyboard world - people care about this.
The video at least gives us something we can look out for. There may be a wide variety of Alcantara types out there that wear differently, we don't know though.
Microsoft has a long history of not making durable products.
I've been a bit of a fan boy, and all but one piece of Microsoft hardware I've owned has needed factory service. Xbox 360, Zune 80, Surface RT, Surface 3, Surface Pen, Nokia 920. Its embarrassing. Only my Xbox One has been spared, but I've used it less than 100 hours, so who knows how it would fare if I actually used it.
I've never met a surface owner who didn't have a serious hardware or software failure within the warranty period. Its embarrassing. Questioning the validity of their product design is 100% valid.
I own a Surface Pro 2 since it was launched and am on my third keyboard. They all look disgusting because of their fabric-like material. I bet that Alcantara is no different.
In the video he says it holds up well to sitting on it, but anywhere your hands are (steering wheel, shifter), it wears away in just weeks. I can imagine a similar problem with the hand rest area on the laptop.
Doesn't look like there is much of a choice. I wonder if this was a design or a business decision. I could imagine a lot of cost could be scrapped by not having staff and repair facilities.
Microsoft wanted to beat Sony on the 360 launch so they shipped a system they knew had serious cooling problems. They ended up losing tens of millions on that though.
I wish the EU would come up with some law that forces all computers to be upgradeable. At least RAM, storage, and batteries should be easily exchangeable by a normal user.
This would be such a double-edged sword, essentially freezing development to where we are today (or were several years ago), rather than pursuing more compact and more highly integrated form factors.
I'd rather we continue the march toward making the physical form factor of computers slowly disappear, which will be a much bigger win for everyone. That said, during this march we need to allow certain frequent repairs (like screens and buttons) to be easily accessible, because that is fair.
Mandating upgradability means bulking things up with upgrade slots, rather than integrating things onto a lower power, more compact SoC. The other benefit of this is environmental, since you're making a smaller system with fewer components over time.
So what? Upgradeable or replaceable devices prevent a LOAD of electronic waste.
Common stuff that breaks on phones: screens, USB jack (hi Samsung, I managed to break EVERY USB port on my 5 Samsung phones so far), 3.5mm jack (hello pants dirt, my old friend). Worst phones are these where the USB port is soldered directly to the motherboard and not a cheap daughter board - next to zero repair shops have a solder reflow oven or the necessary skill to operate one, and it certainly doesn't help that there seem to be thousands of different versions of a micro USB jack.
Common stuff that breaks on laptops: keyboard (hi coffee, hi fat cat), HDMI jack and especially power jacks.
Both get hit by batteries going bonkers - I had a couple of laptops with swollen batteries, and I'm happy I still have a phone with a replaceable battery, been through two batteries now.
Having to throw away a (possibly) 1500+ € device because COMMON parts, that cost CENTS, cannot be serviced, is beyond ridiculous.
> That said, during this march we need to allow certain frequent repairs (like screens and buttons) to be easily accessible, because that is fair.
Keyboards and buttons make sense, as those are mechanical parts users interact with a lot.
Ports are a different story. Is over-use of ports really going to be as much an issue in in 5-10 years? We're fast trending away from lots of ports, favoring wireless for networking, audio/video streaming, and charging.
And as far as standards go, USB-C and Lightning are better designed to break at the cable without breaking the device - a much better (engineering) approach to solving this problem.
Also, at some point if you break USB jacks on 5 of your Samsung phones, perhaps you should buy from a different vendor that can make something more durable. I think that goes for a lot of cheap products - they break more often because they're not built as well.
Introducing legislation to reduce the frustration of cheap products today would come at the expense of forward progress and finding engineering solutions to these in the years to come.
Breaking USB ports is exactly why I buy phones with wireless charging whenever possible. Mini-usb was pretty durable, never lost a cable, device, or phone. Micro-usb, despite the marketing, seems radically less durable. I've lost many chargers, cables, and phones. It's just not up to the task of daily use.
I had to give up on a replaceable battery (I normally end up using a phone well after the first battery dies), but I was able to put a wireless charging pad inside the case of my Pixel Xl. So now my usb port is mostly unused and will hopefully last longer than the rest of the phone.
If governments wants to decrease waste the should require replaceable batteries. Sad that just as decent quality materials are becoming quite common and CPU/ram are not limiting factors that devices could last 5-10 years... if not for the epoxied batteries.
Smaller / thinner / lighter / more ubiquitous / more unbundled.
Historically you sit down in front of a computer which bundles compute, display, and kb/mouse input all together. Laptops are variants on that. The last decade's growth in new form factors (phone, tablets, watch, AR/VR, voice, even cloud) are on a path to take over many of the jobs traditionally handled by a 'computer', so my point was just that we shouldn't be too wedded to our existing idea of form factors. I love my big monitors but I'd actually prefer a VR headset, something 1/10th the size or less.
That's an interesting perspective. I can see myself going to an AR display at some point, for some things. I can see a lot of other people moving away from what we've traditionally called "computers". For my own part, there isn't anything around yet that does what I want to do as well as they do.
I would be satisfied with non-serviceability being treated as harmful, like tobacco or food additives. That is to say, subject it to mandatory labeling: Warning: this technological product is not serviceable or upgradeable in any way. If people still buy it, then that's the free market.
Yep, there's a lot of category error that gets introduced when using words like 'computer', likely far too much for legislation to handle correctly. We've got more form factors than ever, there's a lot of fluidity between them, and the traditional 'computer' market is stagnating anyways.
I would say any battery powered electronic device should be required to allow user replacement of said batteries.
I would extend to say that any computing device costing over X amount (say $1000 USD) have user replacement ability to also include input device(s), memory and storage. Too many laptops are tossed because the keyboard wears out, or the drive dies.
Gaskets are thick. With wrist worn devices, people are very sensitive to thickness. While those with larger hands don't care so much, people with smaller hands start caring about individual millimeters. I have seen consumer studies done where a 2mm difference in thickness results in a product having dramatically more negative customer response.
Don't most water resistant/proof watches already have a user replaceable battery, and a gasket to seal the access point? The big thickness is needed more because of the depth desired for waterproof... even without a gasket/seal this would be an issue. But the difference for most devices is less than 2mm for decent water resistance, which is what the gp mentions.
Smartwatches are already incredibly thick, too thick for many people in fact. Getting them thinner is a huge problem. A 2mm gasket when heroic efforts are undertaken for every mm shaved would make a product unpalatable next to a competitor that is 2mm thinner.
Have you ever heard of physics? The pressure that the gasket can withstand is tied to the clamping pressure the circumference of the gasket and its cross section.
It works ok with watches that have a very small area and can use double gaskets which are clamped very very strongly.
The same thing will not work with a mm or thiner piece of plastic that is kept in place by its flex and a few hooks.
If you can design a chassis with a replaceable battery which is waterproof and is not substantially thicker than modern smartphones a lot of companies would like to have a chat with you.
Thinkpads have been water resistant for many many years now. Recently, this video[1] shows coffee, wine, water being poured on a T440s without problems. The thickness of that laptop is 0.8in. This laptop comes with 2 separate replaceable battery so you can even hot swap them.
Recent thinkpad X1Cs are only 0.65in and have user serviceable batteries via just a couple screws. So it's definitely not a crazy hard feat to pull this off.
Granted this is not a waterproof laptop, it is simply water resistant (no dropping into the pool). However, that seems to be what you're asking for in your original reply. The only question remains what you believe to be "substantially thicker than a modern smartphone".
It's not like you can't still buy PCs that are upgradable. I don't think it's unreasonable for extremely thin and light computers to be difficult or impossible to service.
All electronic devices designed to operate via battery should be able to have them replaced by a typical owner. If that requires a spudger or standard screwdriver, so be it, but it should be able to be done by most users.
I don't think the typical user is willing to even do trivial things like replace the RAM in a desktop PC.
I could replace the oil in my car, I'm positive I could figure it out. But I would much rather forgo the money I would save doing so and have it done by an auto shop.
I do think that most users might be willing to replace a battery every couple of years. Maybe not, we've become a throwaway culture mostly. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option or possible.
Unfortunately, most consumers are making this harder and harder to do. They now demand thiner and lighter PCs, phones and tables, which make upgrading them increasingly more difficult. What really pisses me off, though, is that specifically Apple is making upgrading all their PCs and laptops impossible (there is currently no Apple laptop that you can easily open with a screw driver without risking damaging the whole laptop).
I currently have a 6 year old macbook pro and I love it. I was able to upgrade it a few times (RAM to 16GB and a 650GB SSD) but I am not sure if I will buy another mac if apple has no laptop that is upgradeable and servicable to a certain degree. While my mac is still fine, the CPU is getting slow (compiling bigger programs takes 5 to 10 times as long as they do on newer machines) and I am worried that my mac might not get security upgrades any time now.
What the EU would have to do is strike a good compromise, which makes it realistic to upgrade/service devices without pissing off customers because "EU device are so much bigger". Maybe they should force manufactures to sell a bulkier device which is serviceable alongside a non-serviceable device for the same price if a company insists on having a non-serviceable device. But that would increase the costs significantly because now suddenly Apple/Microsoft has to design two devices and offer them for the same price even though one device might only be bought by 1% of the customers.
I would really like a bigger MacBook Pro with upgradable components. I use my MacBook as a desktop computer 99% of the time (lit closed with an external screen) but I also need to be able to take it anywhere the 1% and not have to send a large amount of time to upgrade the software, install the new tools just to realize I have forgotten something and use all my mobile just to download that one thing. But maybe I am just a minority.
Do they, though? Like the latest MBP, less battery life, no 32GB option - I don't see many people complaining, "Sorry, the Early 2016 MBP is too thick, need it thinner".
Yes they do. A lot of people are really excited about the MacBook and MacBook Pro because they are so thin. I even know somebody with the new MacBook Pro who loves its speed and power while being extremely thin. He said he could not image using his older MacBook Pro (I think it was one from 2013) because it was "too thick and heavy". He didn't really need all the power nevertheless he bought one of the more expensive ones because he thought he did.
There are a lot of people who buy powerful MacBooks because it makes them feel important. Some of them tend to be sales people who travel to customers to show off some software on their $2k Hardware although this software runs just fine on a MacBook Air.
We are a small bubble who can actually take advantage of much ram (I for one need a lot for VMs and google chrome) but most people do not need more ram. fortunately, this year developers and media professionals were finally fed up with the under specced MacBooks and cried loud enough so that the media heard them. And suddenly a lot of people who already had the MacBooks also thought 8/16GB was not enough and started complaining.
> He said he could not image using his older MacBook Pro (I think it was one from 2013) because it was "too thick and heavy".
Given that the difference between the two in thickness is .1", just over 2mm, I'd likely equate that to bias. Yes, it's thinner, but in a way that is noticeable on your lap or your desk, or in your backpack? Not as much.
There are far, far bigger fish to fry in the environmental world than ensuring that the small percentage of users who actually know how to and want to do so can replace their RAM / storage / battery themselves.
Repair shops and second hand markets exists. Users don't have to be able to replace things themselves. I wouldn't service my washing machine myself either, but I'd like the guy whom I call to be able to replace a small part instead of telling me that the whole thing is junk.
> Users don't have to be able to replace things themselves.
But you said above:
> At least RAM, storage, and batteries should be easily exchangeable by a normal user.
I think the difficulty you're having in specifying what exactly you would want to see out of such a law is indicative that such a law would be ridiculous. Who decides what a "normal" user is? What does "easily exchangeable" mean? How do they enforce this law?
The fact that the iPhone is successful is proof that people don't want what you want. I don't see why you feel like your preferences somehow are more important than those of others such that that they warrant a law.
Aren't these devices being targeted at the education sector, where they may be assigned to students? Is there perhaps some design intent here to prevent tampering?
One other potential benefit may be less worry about your laptop shipment being intercepted in Langley before delivery.
If they are targeted at the education sector, as in deployed in schools, they should be MORE repairable. Students wreck stuff they don't own.
For instance, latest (non-Pro) iPad went back to a more repairable chassis that educators are liking because the screen is much easier to replace. And Chromebooks are so cheap if they break it's not a huge loss.
I don't think the Surface is particularly targeted to edu enough to alter their hardware assembly decisions though.
In all seriousness, would this be a good candidate for using as a sort of "dummy" travel laptop? I'm thinking of something along the lines of sealing off the ports too. That way, if intercepted or taken for "inspection", there's almost no chance that it could be hacked by physical access without leaving obvious clues.
If the government really wanted to spy on your, they can just install custom UEFI over USB before it ships to you (cause I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't sign any random firmware cause the gov asked them to coughcoughStuxnet).
Vault7 shows they could infect Samsung TVs with just a USB stick. It's a little harder with a laptop with TPM, but not that much more so.
You can't take apart a surface laptop without destroying it. "Open" in a laptop context sounds to me more like... opening it, you know, so you can see the display and type on the keyboard.
While I understand why you changed the link, I don't completely agree with the executive action.
I don't like having my name attached to a link I didn't want shared. Vice is a high-quality publication, and it brought a compelling angle to the iFixit review. As the OP, I wanted to share the Vice article (which links to the iFixit review).
This sounds to me like a specific instance of the "most users don't want it, so we won't provide it" problem in computing. Similar to the lack of MacBook for power users. People who want to open their laptop are a tiny minority of users, and thus, not a population worth addressing.
There is a debate raging over "right to repair" and the consumer is losing. Honestly, I can't continue buying $1000 smart phones. It's just not worth it. And no, I'm not going to insure them, either. That whole concept is a bag of dicks.
Does "right to repair" have anything to do with "repairability"? There are definitely some things, like iPhones, that might not be possible to build in a repairable way without decreasing the quality of the product. Perhaps Surface is like that, too.
This is the biggest conundrum for me. Every engineering decision is a compromise. There are very few cases where making a choice by going down one path isn't a compromise where you're getting one thing but giving up something else. Obviously user-serviceability is a good property for a device to have, but that has a cost as well (a device that is lower quality or less desirable in other ways).
I think right to repair is a separate debate. The right to repair movement is about a company being able to sue you for attempting the repair at all. This is about the company doing its darndest to physically prevent repairs. As iFixIt shows, you're welcome to try.
Right to repair is also usually centered around software, since that's the crux of the argument used by companies like John Deere. JD technically isn't telling people they can't repair things, just that they can't "hack" their software (an "IP infringement"), which so happens to be a necessary step in repairs.
Yes there is. One is by force of law, the other is simply a reverse engineering problem. If you can put it together, you can take it apart, it doesn't mean it will be easy though.
It goes beyond software, I'm more than capable of replacing dead SMT components on a board - but I can't get board layouts or official replacement parts for anything these days.
I have a legal right to repair my own products or have a third party do it, but because the manufacturer is under no obligation to make it easy everyone gets screwed.
In my laptops, I have replaced internal hard drives and RAM many times. Sometimes a wireless module or CPU. Neither of them was broken, though, just upgraded stuff.
Practically, even if Microsoft did want to make the device disassemble friendly and was even willing to spend the engineering dollars to make that happen, I think they'd be turned away by the fact making a "polished" device that's easily disassembleable would increase failure rates. The bonded materials greatly increase strength over a set of spaced screws/latches into thin material.
I'm the 95%! Honestly, if something is going to take me more than 10 minutes to do, and the risk of breaking something is higher than none, I'm of the mindset to either pay to have a professional fix it (or break it for free), or rip out the hard drive and buy a new laptop.
All these higher end laptops all come with pretty decent warranties so for a couple hundred bucks you get it either repaired or swapped out. Then again, I'm a tone deaf American with a large amount of disposable income...
I am proudly of the '5%'. Some things I have done include: Thinkpad (some ancient Pentium-133 model) motherboard (30 min), Fujitsu T4020 fan (4 hours), Fujitsu T4200 SSD (2x, 10min max each), various hard drives, HP Pavilion 17 fan (3 hours), Motion M1400 memory and hard drive (converted to a PATA SSD after much research, 30min), and the M.2 SSD on my HP Elite X2. The fan replacements in particular were not fun but it seemed wrong to throw them away for something as basic as a $11 fan (buried in the internals as it was), which is why my current laptop (Elite X2) has no moving parts whatsoever.
I'd pay a professional to do it or sell it for parts/repair. Working on small mobile electronics requires skills and experience. It's very easy to accidentally cause damage that's worse than the problem you were trying to fix in the first place.
That is very untrue. In most places in the world (and with most classes of people), the standard is to repair your laptop if it breaks, not buying a new one. Among certain people, and probably within the bias group you and I are coming from, the norm is to replace laptops every 3-4 years, but that is so not the case for a lot of the other groups of people and geography.
At least in the UK, I've never been unable to sell or give away an old laptop, even if it's "broken". There's always someone willing to repair it, whether a student with plenty of time, or someone who runs a small repair shop and buys broken electronics from eBay to repair and sell.
That's a very fair point. Maybe what those people need is a laptop that looks more like the ones we had 15 years ago that are larger, and easier to manipulate. However, the universe of people who will get rid of a laptop once it stops working is large enough, that a company can be very successful addressing just those people. Maybe the answer to your statement is someone needs to make low cost laptops that are thick, heavy, cheap, and maintainable? The problem is whatever company that is will not be marketing themselves as "cutting edge".
Why do they need to be thick and heavy? Mine has a 15.6" screen, Weighs around 5lbs (slightly under), and is under 3/4" thick. It could be lighter if the case were made out of plastic instead of aluminum. It's about half the thickness and 60% the weight of my previous laptop, but still has user-replaceable components (I upgraded the RAM and added an HDD after purchasing it).
Also thick doesn't really need to be heavy. My Thinkpad x230 weights less than a pound more than a current macbook pro. Everything is easily accessible and replaceable, and it has a bevy of ports. It cost me about $250 bucks to upgrade it to contain 2 256gb ssds and 16gb of ram. -- edit -- just checked, current x260 actually is lighter than the current macbook pro.
I've taken apart MacBooks (it was cheaper to put in a custom SSD than buy Apple's overpriced one .. and at the time they didn't offer 16GB of ram so I manually changed out the 8GB chips) and I'm often on the road a lot in a nomadic fashion, so ship-in based warranties are often a not-an-option.
I've found Dells, Lenovos and even MSIs aren't too bad to take apart; even their incredibly thin version too. Most have replaceable parts (Carbon X1 has soldered on ram .. grr, but you could get an adapter to M.2 for the first gen weird/custom SSD).
You can make super thin laptops that are serviceable, and with high end developer laptops running upwards of a grand, yes, people do service them. At most shops I worked at, if your Dell went bad, the desktop support team would take it apart get a replacement screen, bezel, battery, whatever, and send the original back as part of their service contract.
Nah I didn't, but it was a 2012 era MacBook. There was nothing special; just standard laptop memory sockets. You unscrewed the back and they were right there.
What do you mean? I am sure many people would be happy if you could upgrade the RAM in the iMacs and Macbooks instead of having to buy a new one and create more waste if everything else works just fine.
The problem with that reasoning is that everybody has different needs and wants. If you take the intersection of the sets of features that are needed by all potential users, in an attempt to reach the least common denominator, you tend towards the null set, and your products tends towards uselessness.
A practical example of the curse of dimensionality if you will. Seems to be a pretty common problem.
The Surface laptops, perhaps with the exception of 2012's Surface RT, have earned generally positive reviews, with critics variously commending Microsoft (Microsoft!) for designing attractive-looking hardware that doubles as a reference point for its vision of what a modern Windows-based laptop should look like. Unfortunately for consumers, this seductive vision is apparently incompatible with being able to extend the laptop's useful lifespan on your own
This 'seductive vision' is also a direct assault on the consumers right and prerogative (once taken for granted) that he(she) own and do with as he deems fit, any item purchased with his money.
First, the abominable Windows 10 which is a brazen intrusion on users privacy; now the Surface. What else MS ?
There is no assault on the consumer here, you can do whatever you like with the device once it is in your possession. No one is forcing you to buy this.
...you can do whatever you like with the device once it is in your possession....
But you literally cant. Isn't that the point at issue ?
I marvel at many responses here that explain this to a "design" issue, "this is what the market wants". No it is not. It is a malicious attempt by Msft to dispossess you of your money and what used to be an unwritten consumer right. We are expected to accept this as the new normal.
These companies (msft,apple, etc) are treading the same path as Deere, the tractor makers. How has that turned out for farmers ?
The difference of course is that in the Deere case, it is a DMCA issue (read legal). Msft is not stopping you in any way from putting the OS that you want on the device, it is not stopping you from opening the device, it isn't even preventing you from upgrading the device.
Now have they made it really difficult to do so because of the design choices they made, yes, absolutely, but they are in no way actually preventing you from doing something with the device. You don't have some inherent right to have a device that is easy to disassemble.
And the market absolutely wants this. I've owned probably a dozen laptops over the last 15 years or so and the only upgrade I ever did was to add more RAM. I haven't upgraded a laptop in the last 5 years and I always am sure to purchase my laptop with a healthy set of RAM. These devices (Surface and Macbook) are not trying to compete with the $200 devices. They are trying to capture the top 10%(read: those with disposable income) of the market.
Panos Panay, Terry Myerson, and Satya Nadella all didn't sit around figuring out how to screw Lordarminius out of their money. They designed a device that the market wanted. Combine the market wants with the fact that there really is just no need to upgrade/update like we used to even just 10 years ago, and this design choice makes perfect sense. My OG 15" Macbook Retina Pro is still a solid laptop today despite being over 5 years old.
The market for laptops is big, and it wants both of these, just different segments. There're lots of upgradeable laptops out there, esp. in corporate segment.
> If the market wanted ClunkBox perpetual computer that was infinitely upgradeable, there would be an option out there.
I'm not so sure this is true. What kind of company would produce reliable hardware that you could maintain over decades? Where's the money in making something that high quality?
The company you're talking about is Lenovo with their Thinkpad series. (ALMOST) all of their computers are built this way and are made to last 8+ years.
Arf I hate this rhetoric because there absolutely a need for the old school style laptops, it's just everyone wants to chase the convenience users who will replace their machines every year or two, especially if they can convince companies to do it for them.
In my case I bought a Dell Precision 5520, its an absolute beast with killer battery life too and is completely user serviceable. I expect this thing to easily last 5 years and it's not much thicker than a MacBook.
There are not many people aiming for my market segment because I suppose the money is in disposable hardware. But I can still dislike it.
I'm okay with bulkier, replacable batteries which are reasonably cheap. Most people I know would like it too. Are we not a part of "the market" ?
As a kid I would confidently open up any electronic device without worrying too much about breaking it. A radio, tv, toys, remote controlled devices, speakers, headphones, laptops, disk drives, etc. These days I do not find myself opening up electronic devices as much. More from them fear of breaking them or the hoops that I have to go through to do it.
That exploration really taught me valuable things.
I don't have kids yet, but if and when I do, I'd want them to open up anything that they are not sure how it works internally, under the shiny box. I am not sure if they will be as confident about opening up common device of their time be it a mac or an iPhone or a tablet or any such "tightly locked" device.
I hope I can build, nurture and keep their curiosity alive.
You are, and there are plenty of devices for you. This idea that because one or two device lines (surface, macbook) do something means that it is an assault on you (the collective) is tiresome. The great thing about capitalism is that you vote with every purchase. People want these, those people aren't you (the writer).
As much as I kinda loathe this tendency, like the ways most people treat phones, these "luxury"-style laptops like the Surface and MacBook brands I kind of assume to be as-is.
Most of the people who can afford to spend that kind of money on a high-price laptop with mid-range specs are the sort to buy a new one in a year or two anyhow.
If someone's looking for a computer to last them a number of years, I generally wouldn't recommend a Surface product. A mid-range Acer or Dell is not as pretty or thin, but is going to be easier to repair and upgrade over time.
Back when Mercedes-Benz was less of a luxury car it was fairly common for people to buy them and keep them 2-3 times as long as the average car. Better engineering, better materials, and better design. While enjoying a lower cost to own and a better resale value.
Laptops used to be like that as well. A serious use would pay top $$$ and get a well built "tank" of a device. The designs changed less often, parts availability was good, and the more likely parts to break (charging ports, keyboards, and batteries) were replaceable.
Now the opposite has happened. The cheap crappy laptops are easier to work on, and the expensive laptops are thin, sealed, and impossible to work on.
Different markets. Ever tried a Dell Precision Mobile Workstation? They're beautiful laptops. High-quality parts, easily repairable, parts are plentifully available. Lot of upgrade and expansion potential.
Also as large as a small New York apartment.
Why does one assume the Surface Laptop (or MacBook Air) is supposed to meet all possible needs?
That's the price of "thin". We should expect mobile electronics to be sealed watertight at the factory.
There's a tradeoff between repairable and bulky. Here's a repair job of mine.[1] This is restoring a Teletype Model 15 from the 1930s. These are completely reparable - every part can be removed without damage. IFixit would give it a score of 10. It's big, heavy, loud, and drips oil, but completely repairable.
Oh come on there's some middleground where you can have repairability without bulky. Macbook pros are not bulky but you can absolutely get inside them to repair & replace parts.
Modern MacBook Pros are quite a bit thinner (and more solid/sturdy feeling) than just a few years ago; and, poking around at iFixit's site, it looks like they all get 1/10 scores.
iFixit is weird about Macs. On the Mac, you can at least open the thing up to replace a fan (the only moving part in the whole machine). You can also replace the battery with a little bit of effort to undo the glue. But it only gets 1/10, compared to the 0 the Surface Laptop gets which you can't even open at all.
It's being compared to things like a Thinkpad: the manual for my T430 has guides to walk you through how to replace every single part inside, as well as the product numbers for each part so you can order individual replacements yourself. Not only is everything easily replaceable and upgradable, but they actually help you do it!
Another Surface competitor/clone is the HP Elite X2 1012 G1 (what I have). Opening it is a pleasure - takes under 5 minutes. Once open, the screen, SSD, and battery are easy to replace. I updated the SSD on mine in less than 15 minutes.
Thinkpads were/are for enterprises with mass deployments and enough IT staff that needs to be able to fix stuff instead of sending it in to a repair center and wait for two weeks.
I have a 2011 Macbook that I am writing on. I believe that's the perfect compromise. Anything more than this at least for me is going in the wrong direction. Solid (aluminum body), powerful (i7 16gb ram), and repairable. If you just kept making more powerful versions of this size and repair-ability I would be a happy camper.
Current models of Macbook Air are reasonably repairable as well. I've swapped the top case on mine to fix a keyboard issue, for instance. It was a bit of a slog, but didn't require any special tools beyond a pentalobe screwdriver, and everything went back together properly afterwards.
It has air holes though so how are you going to dust the inside ? This will make the laptop have a high probability of failure once enough dust accumulates and causes a short .
I have worked around this on other laptops that I wanted to clean without opening them: attach a vacuum hose to the vents and let it pull out the dirt. Of course, this is no help when the fan fails for other reasons :(.
>We should expect mobile electronics to be sealed watertight at the factory.
That does seem to be the final destination as things become more and more tightly integrated. "System on module" seems to be where we are headed.
After all, you don't crack open your CPU to repair that bad L1 cache.
It would be nice to compromise on some sane boundaries though. Perhaps screen, "processing unit", and battery. I'd give up some thinness to mix and match those components to suit my use cases.
I'm a little worried what this says about the actual repair process. If I bought one, had an issue, and sent it to Microsoft, would they just throw it away and send me a new one? I'm pretty sure other companies already do this, but it feels like a massive amount of waste generated in the name of cost savings. Especially with the decline of rare earth materials required for these things.
Microsoft can probably scrap it for some parts, screen, keyboard, trackpad, motherboard, speakers, chassis. The cover on the keyboard looks like it's once use though.
The people that are trying to justify that this is the price you pay for thinness is sickening to me. No, this is the price you pay for inferior engineering. Anything that can be assembled should be able to be disassembled without breaking it.
I always wonder if there will ever be a modular laptop coming out with a 10 to 15 year lifetime.
Whenever there is a technological stabilization round the corner,There is another different kind of device created and people run towards the new device.
But still it is possible, and it is clear that making a "proper" small cover/latch door for allowing changing that would have costed nothing or next to nothing to MS, and added nothing to thickness, so it is IMHO a "political" decision to accelerate the obsolescence of these devices or to attempt to create a repair monopoly, not unlike what Apple attempted (and to a certain extent managed to succeed with).
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 211 ms ] threadA random video from some random guy about car applications of the material is about as unrelated as possible. You're not sitting on the material for 2-3 hours a day.
The video describes the wear on a steering wheel, which seems comparable given its also something the user puts their hands on to interact with. As we know, hands are dirty & oily, and thats one of the biggest challenges in choosing what materials to build a computer out of. See ABS vs PBT vs other plastics in the mechanical keyboard world - people care about this.
The video at least gives us something we can look out for. There may be a wide variety of Alcantara types out there that wear differently, we don't know though.
I've been a bit of a fan boy, and all but one piece of Microsoft hardware I've owned has needed factory service. Xbox 360, Zune 80, Surface RT, Surface 3, Surface Pen, Nokia 920. Its embarrassing. Only my Xbox One has been spared, but I've used it less than 100 hours, so who knows how it would fare if I actually used it.
I've never met a surface owner who didn't have a serious hardware or software failure within the warranty period. Its embarrassing. Questioning the validity of their product design is 100% valid.
I'd rather we continue the march toward making the physical form factor of computers slowly disappear, which will be a much bigger win for everyone. That said, during this march we need to allow certain frequent repairs (like screens and buttons) to be easily accessible, because that is fair.
Mandating upgradability means bulking things up with upgrade slots, rather than integrating things onto a lower power, more compact SoC. The other benefit of this is environmental, since you're making a smaller system with fewer components over time.
Common stuff that breaks on phones: screens, USB jack (hi Samsung, I managed to break EVERY USB port on my 5 Samsung phones so far), 3.5mm jack (hello pants dirt, my old friend). Worst phones are these where the USB port is soldered directly to the motherboard and not a cheap daughter board - next to zero repair shops have a solder reflow oven or the necessary skill to operate one, and it certainly doesn't help that there seem to be thousands of different versions of a micro USB jack.
Common stuff that breaks on laptops: keyboard (hi coffee, hi fat cat), HDMI jack and especially power jacks.
Both get hit by batteries going bonkers - I had a couple of laptops with swollen batteries, and I'm happy I still have a phone with a replaceable battery, been through two batteries now.
Having to throw away a (possibly) 1500+ € device because COMMON parts, that cost CENTS, cannot be serviced, is beyond ridiculous.
> That said, during this march we need to allow certain frequent repairs (like screens and buttons) to be easily accessible, because that is fair.
Keyboards and buttons make sense, as those are mechanical parts users interact with a lot.
Ports are a different story. Is over-use of ports really going to be as much an issue in in 5-10 years? We're fast trending away from lots of ports, favoring wireless for networking, audio/video streaming, and charging.
And as far as standards go, USB-C and Lightning are better designed to break at the cable without breaking the device - a much better (engineering) approach to solving this problem.
Also, at some point if you break USB jacks on 5 of your Samsung phones, perhaps you should buy from a different vendor that can make something more durable. I think that goes for a lot of cheap products - they break more often because they're not built as well.
Introducing legislation to reduce the frustration of cheap products today would come at the expense of forward progress and finding engineering solutions to these in the years to come.
I had to give up on a replaceable battery (I normally end up using a phone well after the first battery dies), but I was able to put a wireless charging pad inside the case of my Pixel Xl. So now my usb port is mostly unused and will hopefully last longer than the rest of the phone.
If governments wants to decrease waste the should require replaceable batteries. Sad that just as decent quality materials are becoming quite common and CPU/ram are not limiting factors that devices could last 5-10 years... if not for the epoxied batteries.
I'm not sure what this means. Can you clarify what you were thinking?
Historically you sit down in front of a computer which bundles compute, display, and kb/mouse input all together. Laptops are variants on that. The last decade's growth in new form factors (phone, tablets, watch, AR/VR, voice, even cloud) are on a path to take over many of the jobs traditionally handled by a 'computer', so my point was just that we shouldn't be too wedded to our existing idea of form factors. I love my big monitors but I'd actually prefer a VR headset, something 1/10th the size or less.
Isn't that what the label "No user-serviceable parts inside" is supposed to convey?
I would extend to say that any computing device costing over X amount (say $1000 USD) have user replacement ability to also include input device(s), memory and storage. Too many laptops are tossed because the keyboard wears out, or the drive dies.
It works ok with watches that have a very small area and can use double gaskets which are clamped very very strongly.
The same thing will not work with a mm or thiner piece of plastic that is kept in place by its flex and a few hooks.
If you can design a chassis with a replaceable battery which is waterproof and is not substantially thicker than modern smartphones a lot of companies would like to have a chat with you.
Recent thinkpad X1Cs are only 0.65in and have user serviceable batteries via just a couple screws. So it's definitely not a crazy hard feat to pull this off.
Granted this is not a waterproof laptop, it is simply water resistant (no dropping into the pool). However, that seems to be what you're asking for in your original reply. The only question remains what you believe to be "substantially thicker than a modern smartphone".
[1]: https://youtu.be/0U5n2WaMMHo?t=60
I could replace the oil in my car, I'm positive I could figure it out. But I would much rather forgo the money I would save doing so and have it done by an auto shop.
I currently have a 6 year old macbook pro and I love it. I was able to upgrade it a few times (RAM to 16GB and a 650GB SSD) but I am not sure if I will buy another mac if apple has no laptop that is upgradeable and servicable to a certain degree. While my mac is still fine, the CPU is getting slow (compiling bigger programs takes 5 to 10 times as long as they do on newer machines) and I am worried that my mac might not get security upgrades any time now.
What the EU would have to do is strike a good compromise, which makes it realistic to upgrade/service devices without pissing off customers because "EU device are so much bigger". Maybe they should force manufactures to sell a bulkier device which is serviceable alongside a non-serviceable device for the same price if a company insists on having a non-serviceable device. But that would increase the costs significantly because now suddenly Apple/Microsoft has to design two devices and offer them for the same price even though one device might only be bought by 1% of the customers.
I would really like a bigger MacBook Pro with upgradable components. I use my MacBook as a desktop computer 99% of the time (lit closed with an external screen) but I also need to be able to take it anywhere the 1% and not have to send a large amount of time to upgrade the software, install the new tools just to realize I have forgotten something and use all my mobile just to download that one thing. But maybe I am just a minority.
Do they, though? Like the latest MBP, less battery life, no 32GB option - I don't see many people complaining, "Sorry, the Early 2016 MBP is too thick, need it thinner".
There are a lot of people who buy powerful MacBooks because it makes them feel important. Some of them tend to be sales people who travel to customers to show off some software on their $2k Hardware although this software runs just fine on a MacBook Air.
We are a small bubble who can actually take advantage of much ram (I for one need a lot for VMs and google chrome) but most people do not need more ram. fortunately, this year developers and media professionals were finally fed up with the under specced MacBooks and cried loud enough so that the media heard them. And suddenly a lot of people who already had the MacBooks also thought 8/16GB was not enough and started complaining.
Given that the difference between the two in thickness is .1", just over 2mm, I'd likely equate that to bias. Yes, it's thinner, but in a way that is noticeable on your lap or your desk, or in your backpack? Not as much.
No sarcasm.
But you said above:
> At least RAM, storage, and batteries should be easily exchangeable by a normal user.
I think the difficulty you're having in specifying what exactly you would want to see out of such a law is indicative that such a law would be ridiculous. Who decides what a "normal" user is? What does "easily exchangeable" mean? How do they enforce this law?
The fact that the iPhone is successful is proof that people don't want what you want. I don't see why you feel like your preferences somehow are more important than those of others such that that they warrant a law.
One other potential benefit may be less worry about your laptop shipment being intercepted in Langley before delivery.
For instance, latest (non-Pro) iPad went back to a more repairable chassis that educators are liking because the screen is much easier to replace. And Chromebooks are so cheap if they break it's not a huge loss.
I don't think the Surface is particularly targeted to edu enough to alter their hardware assembly decisions though.
Students wreck stuff the DO own, as well.
On the other hand, if Langley intercepted your laptop shipment during the design and manufacturing phases, there's nothing you can do about it.
Vault7 shows they could infect Samsung TVs with just a USB stick. It's a little harder with a laptop with TPM, but not that much more so.
I don't like having my name attached to a link I didn't want shared. Vice is a high-quality publication, and it brought a compelling angle to the iFixit review. As the OP, I wanted to share the Vice article (which links to the iFixit review).
Right to repair is also usually centered around software, since that's the crux of the argument used by companies like John Deere. JD technically isn't telling people they can't repair things, just that they can't "hack" their software (an "IP infringement"), which so happens to be a necessary step in repairs.
I have a legal right to repair my own products or have a third party do it, but because the manufacturer is under no obligation to make it easy everyone gets screwed.
Practically, even if Microsoft did want to make the device disassemble friendly and was even willing to spend the engineering dollars to make that happen, I think they'd be turned away by the fact making a "polished" device that's easily disassembleable would increase failure rates. The bonded materials greatly increase strength over a set of spaced screws/latches into thin material.
All these higher end laptops all come with pretty decent warranties so for a couple hundred bucks you get it either repaired or swapped out. Then again, I'm a tone deaf American with a large amount of disposable income...
If you have to use the word /honestly/ in your communications, this leads readers to believe that the remainder of your information is falsehoods.
Also, please link to the studies & polls that show %95 of users do not want serviceable, fixable, or user upgradeable laptops.
I doubt the veracity of your claim.
How many of your MacBook Pros shipped with removable batteries?
I've found Dells, Lenovos and even MSIs aren't too bad to take apart; even their incredibly thin version too. Most have replaceable parts (Carbon X1 has soldered on ram .. grr, but you could get an adapter to M.2 for the first gen weird/custom SSD).
You can make super thin laptops that are serviceable, and with high end developer laptops running upwards of a grand, yes, people do service them. At most shops I worked at, if your Dell went bad, the desktop support team would take it apart get a replacement screen, bezel, battery, whatever, and send the original back as part of their service contract.
A practical example of the curse of dimensionality if you will. Seems to be a pretty common problem.
This 'seductive vision' is also a direct assault on the consumers right and prerogative (once taken for granted) that he(she) own and do with as he deems fit, any item purchased with his money. First, the abominable Windows 10 which is a brazen intrusion on users privacy; now the Surface. What else MS ?
But you literally cant. Isn't that the point at issue ?
I marvel at many responses here that explain this to a "design" issue, "this is what the market wants". No it is not. It is a malicious attempt by Msft to dispossess you of your money and what used to be an unwritten consumer right. We are expected to accept this as the new normal. These companies (msft,apple, etc) are treading the same path as Deere, the tractor makers. How has that turned out for farmers ?
Now have they made it really difficult to do so because of the design choices they made, yes, absolutely, but they are in no way actually preventing you from doing something with the device. You don't have some inherent right to have a device that is easy to disassemble.
And the market absolutely wants this. I've owned probably a dozen laptops over the last 15 years or so and the only upgrade I ever did was to add more RAM. I haven't upgraded a laptop in the last 5 years and I always am sure to purchase my laptop with a healthy set of RAM. These devices (Surface and Macbook) are not trying to compete with the $200 devices. They are trying to capture the top 10%(read: those with disposable income) of the market.
Panos Panay, Terry Myerson, and Satya Nadella all didn't sit around figuring out how to screw Lordarminius out of their money. They designed a device that the market wanted. Combine the market wants with the fact that there really is just no need to upgrade/update like we used to even just 10 years ago, and this design choice makes perfect sense. My OG 15" Macbook Retina Pro is still a solid laptop today despite being over 5 years old.
That's what the market wants. If the market wanted ClunkBox perpetual computer that was infinitely upgradeable, there would be an option out there.
(I'll admit though, the glue is kind of weird. But I guess a natural progression when "no one opens these things anyway")
I'm not so sure this is true. What kind of company would produce reliable hardware that you could maintain over decades? Where's the money in making something that high quality?
A company whose business model was renting out hardware or services requiring the hardware, rather than selling hardware.
But, yeah, that's not what your really looking for.
Many cheaper laptops still have replaceable RAM, WiFi, cell modem, SSD, optical drive, battery.
A few models still come with socketed, upgradable CPUs. These days the 14nm desktop CPUs are efficient enough for laptop use.
The hand rest on these are cloth. It's going to be disgusting after few months, let alone years.
In my case I bought a Dell Precision 5520, its an absolute beast with killer battery life too and is completely user serviceable. I expect this thing to easily last 5 years and it's not much thicker than a MacBook.
There are not many people aiming for my market segment because I suppose the money is in disposable hardware. But I can still dislike it.
That thing has a 512G SSD and 8G of ram now, which is definitely reasonable, but I think 2G of ram and 5.4k/RPM drives are not reasonable in 2017.
As a kid I would confidently open up any electronic device without worrying too much about breaking it. A radio, tv, toys, remote controlled devices, speakers, headphones, laptops, disk drives, etc. These days I do not find myself opening up electronic devices as much. More from them fear of breaking them or the hoops that I have to go through to do it.
That exploration really taught me valuable things.
I don't have kids yet, but if and when I do, I'd want them to open up anything that they are not sure how it works internally, under the shiny box. I am not sure if they will be as confident about opening up common device of their time be it a mac or an iPhone or a tablet or any such "tightly locked" device.
I hope I can build, nurture and keep their curiosity alive.
Most of the people who can afford to spend that kind of money on a high-price laptop with mid-range specs are the sort to buy a new one in a year or two anyhow.
If someone's looking for a computer to last them a number of years, I generally wouldn't recommend a Surface product. A mid-range Acer or Dell is not as pretty or thin, but is going to be easier to repair and upgrade over time.
Laptops used to be like that as well. A serious use would pay top $$$ and get a well built "tank" of a device. The designs changed less often, parts availability was good, and the more likely parts to break (charging ports, keyboards, and batteries) were replaceable.
Now the opposite has happened. The cheap crappy laptops are easier to work on, and the expensive laptops are thin, sealed, and impossible to work on.
Sad.
Also as large as a small New York apartment.
Why does one assume the Surface Laptop (or MacBook Air) is supposed to meet all possible needs?
There's a tradeoff between repairable and bulky. Here's a repair job of mine.[1] This is restoring a Teletype Model 15 from the 1930s. These are completely reparable - every part can be removed without damage. IFixit would give it a score of 10. It's big, heavy, loud, and drips oil, but completely repairable.
[1] http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,43672.0.html
Ironic that it's Microsoft, not Apple that first produced a sealed, tamper-proof laptop.
That does seem to be the final destination as things become more and more tightly integrated. "System on module" seems to be where we are headed.
After all, you don't crack open your CPU to repair that bad L1 cache.
It would be nice to compromise on some sane boundaries though. Perhaps screen, "processing unit", and battery. I'd give up some thinness to mix and match those components to suit my use cases.
Manufacturers have much more leverage when the only reliable option the customer has is to buy a new one if the current one fails.
My hunch is that this will pave the way for smaller product manufacturers to spring up with better value for customers.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+Tea...
Vice is just an easier way to read it overall.
Whenever there is a technological stabilization round the corner,There is another different kind of device created and people run towards the new device.
http://surfacepro3ssdupgrade.blogspot.it/2015/02/surface-pro...
to change the SSD in a Surface 3.
(you need some guts to follow it)
But still it is possible, and it is clear that making a "proper" small cover/latch door for allowing changing that would have costed nothing or next to nothing to MS, and added nothing to thickness, so it is IMHO a "political" decision to accelerate the obsolescence of these devices or to attempt to create a repair monopoly, not unlike what Apple attempted (and to a certain extent managed to succeed with).