11 ms·
From 0/10 to 8/10: Microsoft Puts Repair Front and Center
- lallysingh 2y agoDoes anyone think they'll keep this up? Or back to glued disposable garbage in 3 generations?
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoEmbrace, Extend, Extinguish. You do the math.
- kristopolous 2y agoNadella's MSFT isn't Gates's. They haven't been a backstabbing rapscallion for many years.
- smegsicle 2y agodo people actually believe this?
- kristopolous 2y agoMaybe I'm just not aware of the evidence. The skullduggery in "Barbarians Led by Bill Gates" looks to be absent these days
- ezst 2y agoAren't they right now? All I see is similar monopolistic and anticompetitive practices pushed through different product lines.
- creshal 2y agoThey're not backstabbing, though, They're completely honest about it: You're the product, and you will be milked as hard as possible.
- jdiff 2y agoNadella's MSFT is plenty underhanded. You only have to look as far as their last two major OS versions. Last four to five if you want to count everything they did to 7-8.1 to get people on 10. But even just on 10 and 11 there's plenty of anti-user nastiness. And more is getting cooked up every day.[0] [0] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/microsoft-removes-documentation-for-switching-to-a-local-account-in-windows-11/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/microsoft-removes-do...
- kristopolous 2y agook, how is that different from iOS, ChromeOS, macOS, or Android? I'm mostly a linux user, but the idea of having to sync with a stupid cloud account to use a commercial OS is kinda how things work these days. Don't you even have to do that dumb stuff for things like Photoshop now? If so, singling out MSFT as some egregious malcontent for this sounds more like salacious headlines
- userbinator 2y agoHow is it different? Because MS was not known for this sort of hostility. "Not acting like Google" was a feature.
- kristopolous 2y agoRight so they reverted from the exception to the norm. Tech is either leaders or followers. Everyone is doing touchscreen cars or laptops without ports or phones with a bunch of things I didn't want. It's a problem, sure, but saying HTC, Hyundai, or Microsoft, in this instance, is particularly uniquely evil for following a trend sounds pretty hyperbolic
- _carbyau_ 2y agoThey don't have to be uniquely evil for people to be allowed to call them evil. And this is MS changing the behaviour of their product over time. They didn't use to be this evil. Now they are. That's comment worthy.
- flakeoil 2y agoMSFT has never been as bad and evil as they are now. Ads everywhere as just one example and they base their ads on your conversations in their messaging apps.
- nottorp 2y agoYeah right. They may not be strong arming OEMs any more, so they spy on their users and force upgrade them now. I get a full screen ad for windows 11 on my windows 10 pc at least once per week when i boot. With the mouse conveniently positioned on 'upgrade now'. And say, is anyone sure they stopped strong arming OEMs?
- g15jv2dp 2y agoIf they want to keep selling in the EU, they better keep it up...
- userbinator 2y agoI’ll take that as a sign that Right to Repair advocacy and legislation has begun to bear fruit. It's more likely a sign that whatever OEM they decided to use this time just went in a slightly different direction because it made things easier for them, or they are aiming for the enterprise market that Dell and Lenovo occupy (and where things like "FRU replacement" manuals and labeled screws are still the norm.) MS has lobbied heavily against RtR in the past and I don't think that's changed.
- transpute 2y agoPossible factor: this generation of Surface is under new leadership, https://pureinfotech.com/panos-panay-quits-microsoft-yusuf-mehdi-replacement/ https://pureinfotech.com/panos-panay-quits-microsoft-yusuf-m... Even Lenovo is improving repairability, https://www.androidauthority.com/easily-upgradeable-laptops-are-making-a-comeback-and-im-here-for-it-3418970/ https://www.androidauthority.com/easily-upgradeable-laptops-...
- fhub 2y agoCould a hardware product be turned around that quickly? Sep 18 2023. Honest question.
- transpute 2y agoSome staff departures can signal the end of a process that started earlier. Either way, past Surface may not predict future Surface.
- shrubble 2y agoAlso left, now at telecom Lumen (merger of Level3 and CenturyLink) https://news.lumen.com/ryan-asdourian https://news.lumen.com/ryan-asdourian : "Ryan also led Business Development and Marketing for the Microsoft Surface business group in the United States"
- praisewhitey 2y agoThe article says the Surface had a 7/10 in 2022. A bump to 8/10 in 2024 isn't that significant to chalk up to a change in leadership.
- mypalmike 2y agoCertainly a response to the burgeoning right to repair laws in various places. A counterexample to the "you can't legislate morality" crowd.
- tedunangst 2y agoHow consistent are ifixit repair scores? I find it's hard to predict the score. There's a "reviewer effect" common to many tech reviews where scores tend to be relative to whatever previous device was just reviewed.
- inhumantsar 2y agothey're pretty consistent. unlike most tech reviews, there's things which have to be present to be considered repairable. eg: is everything glued down? are screws accessible? are there a bunch of different screws with obscure heads? is there a publicly available repair manual? etc. also iirc their scores are determined by committee rather than a single individual
- tedunangst 2y agoOkay, I would have figured 8/10 is impossibly high for fixed ram.
- samtho 2y agoThe score is not a qualitative measure on how serviceable a product is compared to it’s peers, rather, the score reflects how simple it is to service items that are able to be serviced. If the ram is not swappable, it’s simply not counted in the score as it’s integrated with the main board.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI have here, a brick. It has won 100% of the swimming races that it has participated in. It is therefore a very good swimmer.
- noahtallen 2y agoNot sure this is true — then every device by definition gets a high score, singe the display or batter is simply “not able to be serviced” on devices with poor repairability.
- tlhunter 2y agoSadly it looks like it's not Linux friendly: https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/1djtfbj/testing_linux_on_the_new_surface_pro_11th_edition/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/comments/1djtfbj/testi...
- transpute 2y agoSince EL2 support is present in reference firmware, MS Surface could restore this functionality with a firmware update.
- nottorp 2y agoThat was my first thought: "it's good that it's repairable but it runs windows 11 spyware, can we put linux on it?"
- TiredOfLife 2y agoNew, 1st gen hardware that doesn't ship with linux has poor linux support? Stop the presses.
- tlhunter 2y agoThe 11th generation surface pro is a 1st gen device?
- TiredOfLife 2y agoThe arm cpu is.
- knallfrosch 2y agoWSL2 and Docker seem to work already: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/1dkxtb8/wsl2_and_docker_on_surface_pro_11_arm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/1dkxtb8/wsl2_and_d...
- imglorp 2y agoWSL is not at all the same thing as Linux on hardware.
- hu3 2y agoRelated: 4/10 for MacBook Pro 14" Late 2023 (M3 Pro and M3 Max): https://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBook_Pro_14%22_Late_2023_%28M3_Pro_and_M3_Max%29 https://www.ifixit.com/Device/MacBook_Pro_14%22_Late_2023_%2... I'm honestly surprised. Expected lower score for M3.
- toss1 2y agoI get the skeptical responses on here, but this is a good step, clearly over time reflecting good management decisions, and it should be encouraged. For me, this put the Surface back on my list of choices to consider for my next laptop (obviously they must have a model meeting other requirements, but they're now a candidate).
- zeagle 2y agoHopefully they keep it up. I'm one person but I went from a few surface pro iterations to two surface laptop iterations to framework 13 exactly to be able to repair and replace parts. I like to think it's part of a trend.
- meowster 2y agoA measured attempt at goodwill to counter all the negative they do? Or to win over at least one group?
- KingOfCoders 2y agoGot Fairbuds XL, broke a plastic part, ordered a replacement, done. I think repairability is currently still underrated by the majority of people.
- Gigachad 2y agoYou have to consider durability as well though. A part that pretty much never breaks is better than one that breaks often but can be easily replaced.
- KingOfCoders 2y agoAgreed.
- rob74 2y agoThere's this - and then there's Windows 11 refusing to install itself on devices that could run it just fine. Ok, there are tricks to get around it, but most people will just buy a new PC/laptop if their current one is deemed unsuitable by M$, so perfectly good PCs (irrespective of their repairability score) will end up in the landfill...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- oblio 2y agoHacker news: the place where Americans find out about current and future EU legislation through the lens of propaganda from American corporations.
- realusername 2y agoThat's called the Brussels effect and I'm not sure why it's still relatively unknown. The EU has a massive influence on standards all around the world
- PlutoIsAPlanet 2y agoDon't tell the Brexiteers
- ozim 2y agoReal Brexiteers were bankers. There were rumors that because UK is leaving many banks from London City will move to Germany or Belgium or the Netherlands. They did not because they actually did not want to be regulated by EU and UK can serve rich people better while poor people got it worse. Under the guise that poor less educated people wanted brexit… where they were brainwashed.
- red_admiral 2y agoSome of them. There are not enough bankers in the UK to produce the turnout for leave that we saw. There were also a lot of people whose main motivation was "f*** the system", and they sort of succeeded, even if they ended up worse off as a result. It makes me think that the academic left should be a bit more careful with their regular calls to "burn down the evil capitalist system". It turns out a mob with torches might also set fire to the parts you like.
- robertlagrant 2y ago> the academic left should be a bit more careful with their regular calls to "burn down the evil capitalist system" They are the most obvious example of "saw off the branch you're sitting on" I can think of.
- cjk2 2y agoYou can take it to bits fine. But is there a supply chain of parts?
- londons_explore 2y agoChanges like these make factory rework far cheaper, which eventually reduces the cost of production.
- oblio 2y agoYet they only did it due to EU regulation, so this theoretical point is moot.
- cangeroo 2y agoThis is silly. Soldered CPU, RAM, SSD. Pretty much the only thing repairable is the battery. I'd argue that this was a cheap business decision to make. Keep the price gouging on parts, while satisfying regulators on "right to repair", and even get some free marketing from iFixit. It only takes one part to break for you to have to buy an entire new device.
- cjk2 2y agoiFixit only dislike Apple.
- jkaplowitz 2y agoThey gave Samsung some pretty harsh criticism recently when they ended a partnership with them: https://www.ifixit.com/News/96162/were-ending-our-samsung-collaboration https://www.ifixit.com/News/96162/were-ending-our-samsung-co...
- alt227 2y agoMaybe thats because Apples devices are terrible to repair?
- Moldoteck 2y agoU sure about ssd? I think Microsoft switched for several years to easily accessible screwed ssds that you can easily replace
- Derbasti 2y agoThe SSD is user replaceable, and has been for the last two generations of surface tablets, IIRC.
- TiredOfLife 2y agoThe tablet literally has a magnetic door to change the m2 ssd
- mavhc 2y agoMostly I replace batteries, screens and keyboards. Sometimes the power input or ssd. How much does a new keyboard cost?
- red_admiral 2y agoIn my dreams, I can unscrew the new Surface Pro 11 and rip out the AI core like it were some kind of tumor, then put the rest back together again and it still works just fine. Being able to repair is up there with recall/copilot being off-by-default as a cool feature though.
- knallfrosch 2y agoUntil you find out it's actually useful for creating subtitles for no-audio video watching for videos that don't supply their own subtitles. Improved grammar and style checking without the cloud. Maybe a whiff of telling GIMP what to do instead of clicking through 1,000 menues. Automatically creating calendar entries from emails that lack an *ics attachment. NPUs are able to do more than Recall and Bing search. Don't fall for Microsoft marketing.
- Nullabillity 2y agoExcept all of those things are incredibly unreliable and/or undesirable. No thanks.
- mynameisvlad 2y agoTo you, perhaps. But not everyone is you.
- tiptup300 2y agoI've found that when I attempt to automate some task via llm, I have to really focus, sit down, and think about exactly how I'm describing every detail. I have think about the wording and how I describe the concepts in such a way, where it takes more mental effort then just doing the thing. It's even worse since the mindset of describing and writing in such a way is not within the same headspace as the technical portion, so by the end I'm only more tired from having to switch gears too much.
- rchaud 2y agoPaint in W11 cannot even do AI augmentation without first phoning home to Microsoft. I'd just use a service for the use cases you mentioned, if I had need for them.
- mrjin 2y agoSorry, but that doesn't prevent M$ from pushing an update that breaking it. Got a surface pro last year, shipped with Windows 11 pro. Worked for one week, then an upgrade broke the graphics. Uninstall of the update made thing worse. Factory reset failed too. Eventually had to clean wipe and install Windows 10. Then I had to try all my keyboards/thumb drives etc as it's either this or that did not work with it and there were not enough port to plug in all the things I need at the same time. The only thing worse than that was over 10 years ago when I was playing with different Linux distributions. Enough is enough. I guess my next device will be shipped with Linux.
- mynameisvlad 2y agoHow does any of that have anything to do with hardware repairability scores. For that matter, how could they possibly push an update that breaks said repairability? It's not like a software upgrade can fuse the battery door to the bottom of the laptop.
- linsomniac 2y agoMy MIL had one of the Surface 0/10 laptops that the battery had started bulging on, and she asked if I could fix it. I told here there was a better than 50% chance that it wouldn't work after repair, but I'd give it a shot. In the end, I was happy with the job I did, but it was a lot of work, easily the hardest laptop battery replacement I've done. She's got back and other physical problems, so she wanted something very light. A lot of the decisions I understood to make it a tiny laptop. But putting the battery connector on the back of the motherboard rather than the front, or having a connector in the cable, that was just mean.
- Decabytes 2y agoRegardless of the impetus of this, I'm happy to see a 8/10 repair score. I think we've proven that thin and light and repairable are a false dichotomy. I don't expect every manufacturer to go Framework levels of repairability, but if we can get more laptops to at least this level that will be a huge win for consumers. Even just renormalizing repairing devices will be huge.
- MLij 2y agoYeah, right. Just this morning I learned that Window 10 is EOL next year. Also my pc wasn't fit for Windows 11. Tried to figure out why, but all I got was a redirection to a website that tried to convince me that I should buy a new computer. My pc isn't that old.
- einsteinx2 2y agoLook into Windows 10 LTSC 2021 IoT version which is EOL in 2032. Also there’s LTSC versions of Windows 11 that remove a bunch of the BS that MS includes in consumer builds.