Microsoft Surface Laptop 3: dramatic access improvements

[HEXUS]

Tech tinkerers at iFixIt find out its much easier to upgrade/service than its predecessors.

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[cheesemp]

This is good news apart from the battery and RAM which are the two components after the SSD you are most likely to change! I wish devices had replaceable batteries nowadays. I did an ipad4 the other day and it was so stuck together it was crazy. I keep finding perfectly usable equipment is now binable just due to dead batteries! I just don't understand it...

[blokeinkent]

I was going to give them some credit to MS until I saw the RAM was soldered. Really? Still? After making the effort to go so far and then failing like that. Boo, Shame.... SHAME!

[[GSV]Trig]

TBH I don't think it would take much to make the batteries easier to replace, MS seems to be using similar white double-sided tape that Apple use on iPhones, there are 2 covered "tags" that you can pull that pulls the tape out and then the battery drops out, wouldn't be much of a change from MS end...

[DWhitley]

I keep finding perfectly usable equipment is now binable just due to dead batteries! I just don't understand it...

Couldn't agree more - and at a time when waste, and plastic waste in particular, is being criticised. I know several people who get very excited about plastic bottles but see nothing wrong with 'upgrading' their smartphones and fitness monitors with depressing regularity.

[Xlucine]

It'd be nice if they used less adhesive, but the battery is still removable - it's not as if you need to unstick it to access anything under it, so if you're pulling it out then it's going in the bin anyway so you don't need to be too gentle with it. It's not going to stop anyone from replacing the battery, basically, whereas a glued on keyboard that'll need replacement each time you open the chassis will

[LSG501]

While I can 'kind of' understand the battery, although no real reason they couldn't have used screws, I really wish they hadn't soldered the ram on but this is likely due to the fact that we'd just do it ourselves instead of paying the stupidly high markup for more ram.

[scaryjim]

... I really wish they hadn't soldered the ram on but this is likely due to the fact that we'd just do it ourselves instead of paying the stupidly high markup for more ram.

It's more likely down to aiming for the thinnest possible design - a ram chip is about 1mm in height, a SODIMM can be up to 3.8mm - and apparently some people really care about that extra 2.8mm depth in a device...

EDIT: also, you can fill a dual channel DDR4 memory interface with 4 directly soldered chips. To use both channels with SODIMMs you'd need to make space for 2 slots...