Broken your new Surface Go 2 already? Looks like it's a bit more repairable this time

No sooner had Microsoft pushed the Surface Go 2 out the door, torque screw terror iFixit tore it apart to see how it measured up to the appalling repairability of its predecessor. The original Surface Go scored a woeful 1 out of 10, with the iFixit crew citing a difficult-to-remove screen, tons of glue and a lack of modularity …

[Steve 53]

Microsoft's update has added some much-needed horsepower

The "standard" pentium offering is a very, very small speed bump a 1.7ghz Kaby Lake process vs 1.6ghz. It was a moderately old design when the Go 1 was released, it's a very elderly processor now, and one which is noticeably slow even when being used for general web browsing.

All they've offered is the opportunity to spend an extra 90 quid (Only on the high end 128gb model) on a processor which isn't crippled by disabled turbo.

The surface go is a lovely machine, but £629 is an awful lot to spend on a machine which is only going to have tolerable performance.

[NightFox]

Ambiguity:

"While the MicroSDXC reader can be removed easily enough, along with the cameras, the USB and Surface Connect ports remain soldered in place."

So does that mean the cameras can or can't be removed easily enough?

[Cereberus]

I suspect not

I think this should have read something like:

"The MicroSDXC reader can be removed easily enough. Along with the cameras, the USB and Surface Connect ports remain soldered in place."

Or a slightly less wordy option:

"The MicroSDXC reader can be removed easily enough. The cameras, the USB and Surface Connect ports remain soldered in place."

Based on these interpretations I would say they can't be removed easily.

[doublelayer]

Re: I suspect not

I agree that sentence is unclear. I looked at the source. The cameras seem to come out just fine. See approximately 51% through the video to see it. Not that that part is particularly important, but the sentence break should have been after the "along with the cameras" chunk. Probably the clearest phrasing would be "The Micro SDXC socket and cameras can be removed easily, but the other components cannot."

[Anonymous Coward]

Wifi died on my 2015 HP laptop last week. Broadcom Dual 5GHz/2.4GHz BCM94322MC...

Thankfully, that's a £4 eBay replacement. Note, a one screw replacement Wifi Card, easily accessible from the base, not a Microsoft 'glued up' Surface/Apple circa £1000 replacement.

Any why, I'll stick with what I have for as long as I can.

SSD soldered to the motherboard? No thanks Apple.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: Wifi died on my 2015 HP laptop last week. Broadcom Dual 5GHz/2.4GHz BCM94322MC...

Ah yes, Apple of course being well known as the company selling the Surface Go 2.

If you're still enjoying your 2015 laptop then fair play to you, no need to upgrade for upgrade's sake. It is however, nigh on irrelevant as a comparison here.

[Evil Harry]

Re: Wifi died on my 2015 HP laptop last week. Broadcom Dual 5GHz/2.4GHz BCM94322MC...

I think the comment relates to the thought that broken stuff can easily be replaced on a device from 2015 rather than one from 2020 because somewhere in-between, someone let Apple and Microsoft loose with industrial grade Prittstick.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Wifi died on my 2015 HP laptop last week. Broadcom Dual 5GHz/2.4GHz BCM94322MC...

It's very relevant.

Until companies start offering something equivalent to what folks already have in terms of repairability, new and shiny for the sake of it, isn't an option.

In normal circumstances I would have upgraded my laptop every year or so (as I always did previously), the problem is, new laptops offer very little over a decent well-made repairable older one. The same can be said for iMacs from 2009-2011, good machines, the ones with magnets to hold front glass in place.

Not all HPs are decent and well made, it really depends on the white-box manufacturer HP have used. The best ones (I've found) have been from Winstron, the worst from Quanta.

[Captain Scarlet]

Re: Wifi died on my 2015 HP laptop last week. Broadcom Dual 5GHz/2.4GHz BCM94322MC...

I assume its a Probook, consumer HP's are bloody awful to replace anything.

Newer ProBooks now require removal of screws that are no longer held by a spring (ARGH where did the screw fly off to!) and I fear it will only get worse

[SuperGeek]

"there is not much here to delight an upgrade enthusiast – the memory and storage are firmly soldered in place."

Welcome to the modern world, where companies think they're carbon neutral but are ADDING to landfill. I was looking to find a GTX 1050 laptop the other day, and ALL OF THEM have SOLDERED discreet cards and CPU as well as being PLASTIC CRAP.. Fuck that. The amount of GPU's I had to vacuum rework in the old nVidia days (Go 7900 here's looking at you!) I ain't risking a hefty repair job again, or forking £600 for an ENTIRE mainboard just cause a VRAM chip is corrupted causing freeze screen on driver load.

Sticking with my Precision M6600, which is thinner than most high end laptops these days (with lower die count!), is METAL CHASSIS and STILL manages removable GPU and CPU! Not the latest, but repairable. Looks like desktop is still the way to go for gaming then!