The good folks over at popular repair website iFixIt are back with a new teardown, this time taking a deep look at the Surface Duo. And the moral of the story is that the device not meant to be repaired.
Microsoft made some good gains with the Surface Pro X and the Surface Laptop 3, both of which gained some pretty good reparability scores.
This is not the case with the Duo, however, as it ended up with a score of 2/10.
Still, a better score than the monstrosity that was the original Surface Laptop, which infamously got a unimaginable 0/10 reparability score.
As this press release details, this score basically means that the Surface Duo is not something that is meant to be repaired, maybe not even by Microsoft itself. That is because doing so is taking on sticky glue traps and easy to slice cables, not to mention the painful process of replacing the batteries.
In fact, the batteries are glued, the USB-C port is soldered, and almost all entry points for this Android powered handset are stubbornly glued together.
The only high point iFixIt found was the displays and the back covers being easy enough to be replaced without disassembling other components.
Point being, if you are buying a Surface Duo, there is no chance that you will be able to repair it on its own if something goes wrong. Likewise, getting the device serviced by experienced technicians will also not be a straightforward process.
Microsoft does offer a $200 Complete Protection Plan at checkout that covers accidental damage.
Perhaps something to consider?
