The Microsoft Surface Book 2 was released to the electronics store shelves last Nov. 16. Not many doubt the capabilities of such a powerhouse tablet, but for all its strengths, there seems to be one flaw: it is impossibly difficult to repair.
A "repairability score" was just released by iFixit, a website dedicated to ranking different devices based on how easy (or how difficult) it is to repair them. The Microsoft Surface Book 2 got a score of one out of a possible 10, with 10 being the easiest to repair.
A lot of factors contributed to the score, most of them having to do with the fact that almost all of the Surface Book 2's components are tightly glued or bolted into place. For instance, the website stated that both the processor and the RAM are soldered to the motherboard, which means upgrading or replacing those parts is out of the question.
In addition, some components are said to be "on the backs of their respective boards." To completely remove the motherboard just to replace some simple components were deemed to be an unnecessary inconvenience. A detailed teardown guide and a service manual for the device were published by the website as well.
Still, this abysmal score is still an improvement over the first Microsoft Surface Book, which got zero out of 10 in its iFixit teardown. It seems the Surface Book 2 got a 1/10 because its solid state drive (SSD), at least, can be accessed and replaced. Although that process in itself is not without difficulties.
The repairability scores are not a measure of a device's actual performance. It is only a measure of how accessible a device's components are for the purposes of repair.
The Microsoft Surface Book 2 was available for pre-order last week, but the product is now available for purchase directly from the retailers.
