Phones, Tablets: Exist with glued-in but ultimately removable / reinstallable screens
Microsoft: What if we mix crushed up eggshells into the glass?
Microsoft: it’s OK if you can’t fix it, you can just buy a new one and give more money
I worked in the bookstore computer repair shop in college and I was one of 2 techs that was actually willing to crack open Windows laptops and work on them. The bookstore had to have an Apple Certified repair shop to be allowed to sell Apple products, so most of our folks got certified as Apple technicians. I never bothered because I always had plenty of work with the myriad random models of laptops that folks brought in that the Apple bros didn’t want to touch.
LITERALLY the surface pros are such NIGHTMARES to fix. I’ve got a first gen one with a completely dead battery. Good luck trying to slice through all that adhesive then be greeted with 50 screws placed in horrific random positions…
Screen replacements on smartphones are hard enough that I haven’t tried removing the screen from my Steam Deck OLED to do a front shell swap. I just slapped a skin on the front half instead.
Took a look at the ifixit for the steam deck OLED, honestly it doesn’t look bad at all. I’ve removed lots of screens from phones and other tablets and such, and this looks no worse than those.
But man, MS really went out of their way to make the screen impossible to remove without cracking it on this one. There’s a ridiculous amount of adhesive and coupled with the glass being really really thin… 😅 Yea it’s a shit show when even the ifixit team can’t even get some photos for their teardown without a shattered screen lol
I had so much fun cracking open my Surface Duo 2 phone to fix the hinges. I literally cracked the glass shell and had to get a laminate skin to hold the glass together. I ended up getting another phone after I broke the hinges and couldn’t find someone to repair it quickly, so now I just use it as a very fancy mini-tablet. I’m so pissed they killed the platform because I adore the 2 separate screens that can run apps side-by-side and the fact that my Surface pen works on it flawlessly.
I don’t know why I keep trusting Microsoft to keep supporting good platforms, but here I am with multiple Zunes (someone else gave me their old one when they got an iPhone), and a Surface Duo 2 phone…
Zunes are pretty sweet tho
Zunes are pretty sweet tho
The OLED isn’t overly hard. It’s just overly long to bother with.
That’s such a trash product. Crap quality components and no repairability. Hell even an iPad is better. Surface is bottom tier.
I mean I got 6 of em for free, and ya can’t beat free LMAO
I actually had been putting off cracking one open for awhile now but the SSDs in them had been failing one by one and I’m on the last one now lolol
I went for this method of replacing the SSD. It’s less stressful than trying not to break the screen.
Oh hey now there’s an idea! I could probably 3d print a little cover too!
Thanks! If there was such a thing as gold on Lemmy I’d give you some, but there’s not so you’ll have to settle for this 🥇
And to think, MS could have done the same damn thing
Certainly meant to hate toward you bro free is for me!
I have the misfortune of working on these from time to time.
I wish they were more repairable. I have a Surface Pro 8 that serves my needs quite well and I was able to upgrade the SSD to a TB from the 256GB it came with, but I had to do some shenanigans with power settings and whatnot because the only SSD I could find was technically only compatible with the Surface Pro 9 and newer. But it works now and it has been a very good machine for getting through medical school. An iPad would not have met my needs and as much as I hate to admit it, having my Surface and my desktop terminal linked through OneDrive has actually been very helpful.
Full disclosure, I am one of those nerds that bought and used a Surface Duo 2 phone until I broke the hinge by dropping it wrong. I did eventually crack it open to mostly fix the hinges, but shattered the glass in the process. I fixed that with 2 layers of laminate sticker things after assembling the shards back onto the phone.
Username checks out
Look, I’m a 4th year med student in my 30’s. I know what I’m about. My undergraduate degree is in History and I worked in IT and sysadmin for a couple years before I went back to school to go into medicine.
Oh i didn’t mean it in a negative way, quite the contrary
I didn’t take it as a negative! Just expressing that you’re right on the mark about my username being quite relevant.
Well I guess we’ve got the gremlin part right too 😂
When explaining why I need to go into Emergency Medicine as a specialty I tell people that I’m a naturally nocturnal basement-dwelling gremlin with weapons-grade ADHD.
It usually gets a laugh.
(For context, most ERs are in the hospital basement)
I’ve had my surface pro 3 since like… 2016? Still runs great. Never been very happy with the keyboard though.
Not sure what I’ll get for my next tablet but maybe a framework tablet would be nice.
Just a suggestion, but here’s a good linux tablet: https://starlabs.systems/pages/starlite
Do it. I have a Gen 1 batch 2 laptop 13 and it’s the only piece of tech I consistently and loudly promote
