Microsoft's new Surface Pro dismantling: SSD welding and teardown is not easy to scrap

At the end of May this year, Microsoft held a new product launch conference in Shanghai in order to express its sincerity to Chinese customers. Among the new products, the most eye-catching is the new Surface Pro. This is Microsoft's new generation of Surface Pro products, but it is not named after Surface Pro 5. However, there are still many new highlights on the device, such as the best display screen in the Surface line, and the 165-degree new hinge design that can be turned into a “creative artboard”.

Of course, the new Surface Pro has been upgraded to Intel's seventh-generation Kaby Lake micro-architecture Core processor, with a built-in Core m3 processor and i5 processor version for "fanless design", so the new Surface Pro is also It became the world's first fanless design with a built-in i5 processor. Microsoft also believes that thanks to internal improvements, Surface Pro 5 is the lightest Surface device ever.

So what's the improvement inside the new Surface Pro? Only the disassembly! Recently, the well-known dismantling website iFixit has just dismantled the new Surface Pro 5, let's take a closer look.

iFixit claims that the new Surface Pro looks very similar to last year's Surface Pro 4, but the internal specifications and design are definitely different. Before dismantling, let's take a look at some of the major hardware releases of the new Surface Pro, as follows:

- 12.3-inch PixelSense display with IPS panel resolution of 2736 x 1824 (267 PPI) pixels, 3:2 aspect ratio, support for 10 multi-touch.

- Intel Kaby Lake architecture processor, minimum Core M3 (4M cache, 2.7GHz), maximum Core i7 (4M cache, 4.0GHz)

- 4GB/8GB/16GB third-capacity 1600MHz DDR3L memory

- 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB high speed solid state drive

- 8 megapixel autofocus rear camera, 5 megapixel front camera

- 1 full-size USB 3.0 connector, microSDXC card reader, Surface Connect connector, 3.5mm headphone jack, Mini DisplayPort connector and keyboard cover port

- 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1 Wireless Technology

- Ambient light sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope

By placing the new Surface Pro edge-to-edge on the previous generation of Surface Pro 4, you can see that the new product is almost identical to the old design, the interface and the button design are all in exactly the same place, and the physical dimensions are almost identical. The most striking difference is the cooling vents. The new Surface Pro opening cuts are completely different and become larger, so they don't look as obvious as the old ones, and they don't look dense.

In contrast to the back, Microsoft clearly improved the hinge design for the new Surface Pro. Under the new mechanism design, the bracket can be extended up to 165 degrees, which is equivalent to 15 degrees. I have to say that this is quite a commendable design.

Because the new and old generations have similar designs, iFixit naturally uses the same disassembly tool, iOpenx, which is the tool that iFixit invented. It uses the screen to heat the screen and then pull out the display, then slowly picks up the sealant.

After disassembling the screen, iFixit probably observed that it was cheated by the almost identical appearance of the old and new generations, because at first glance, the original detachable SSD design was gone, and the battery experience was even bigger. Already the only module that can be upgraded, and this year Microsoft has directly soldered the memory chip to the motherboard and can't upgrade it as before.

Let's look at the part of the display screen that the new Surface Pro separates. There are a lot of chips on one side, and it seems that the N-trig module that was previously used in Surface Pro 4 is also used. After Microsoft acquired N-trig in 2015, it should have fully integrated the company's technology into its own products, because the text on the chip is already "Microsoft." The specific chip is as follows:

- Red : Microsoft X904169 06 CL1714

- Orange: Microsoft X904163 01 CL1715

- Yellow: Macronix MX25U1635F 1.8V 16 Mb MXSMIO Serial Flash

Microsoft has already announced at the Shanghai conference that the thermal design has been redesigned in this generation, especially passive thermal design, so the Core m3 processor and i5 processor version can achieve 100% "fanless design". Most of the improvements from iFixit have been improved, and the heatsink has been re-customized, like some kind of crawling bug, at least different from last year's M3 version.

After simply removing the heat sink, several components are removed, and the motherboard can be completely removed, mainly by the speaker and the sensor/camera bezel.

The specific appearance of the motherboard is shown below. There are quite a few embedded chips on it.

- Red: Intel Core m3-7Y30 processor

- Orange: Samsung KUS020203M-B000 NAND flash

- Yellow: Samsung K4E8E324EB 1 GB LPDDR3 1866 MHz memory (4 total 4GB)

- Cyan: Marvell Avastar 88W8897 wireless chip with SoC integrated design including 802.11ac Wi-Fi, NFC and Bluetooth

- Blue: Nuvoton NPCT650SBBWX TPM IC

- Dark Blue: Winbond W25Q128FV 128M-bit Serial Flash

- Pink: Monolithic Power Systems MPS1708 and MPSG53

Reverse the motherboard, there are some chips, as follows:

- Red: Freescale/NXP M22J9VDC Kinetis K22F 512KB 120 MHz ARM Cortex-M4 Based MCU

- Orange: Texas Instruments BQ25700A Buck-Boost Battery Charge Controller

- Yellow: Realtek ALC3269 audio coding chip

For the battery, iFixit said that if the disassembly will face tragedy and cannot be restored to the original, this is a lesson, so I have to keep it stuck. The new Surface Pro is a 45 Wh (7.57 V × 5940 mAh) battery that is nearly 18% larger than the previous generation Surface Pro 4 battery. Its rival Apple's new iPad Pro 10.5 offers a 30.8 Wh battery.

The following is the complete disassembly of Microsoft's new Surface Pro. iFixit said that the new Surface Pro is almost identical to the previous generation of Surface Pro 4. The biggest difference is that the only SSD module that can be upgraded is not used, but is directly soldered. The form of embedded motherboard:

About why Microsoft changed the design of SSDs iFixit did not provide an explanation, only that Microsoft's impression is worse than expected. Maybe it's because it involves Microsoft's interests. After all, if you can replace it, you can also find a professional person to switch to a larger SSD. The 1TB version is not necessary. Of course, the embedded SSD also helps the internal design to save space.

iFixit concluded that the new Surface Pro internal assembly is not standard, so the display removal is relatively tricky, it seems that the process is more simplified, but to solve the foam adhesive, it will be damaged if not. Microsoft's internal components, including display screens and batteries, use a lot of adhesives. Considering that when the replacement of any part, the display is a non-removable component, it is quite vulnerable. In addition, the SSD can no longer be replaced.

The final fixability rating provided by iFixit is only 1 point (out of 10 points), which means that the repairability of the new Surface Pro unpacking repair is very low, and the disassembly and repair is very easy to scrap.