Gadgetory

the surface pro 3 is thinner and lighter than last year's model it is a beautiful 12 inch display a new kickstand and a Pandi digital pen unfortunately it's still just as difficult to disassemble if not more so I'm bill Detweiler and this is cracking open given its size weight and hardware specs the surface pro 3 is more of a convertible or ultra portable laptop than our real tablet it has a 12 inch display stereo speakers a micro SD card slot a full size USB 3 port a mini DisplayPort and 2 5 megapixel cameras now it comes in a variety of CPU RAM and storage combinations and pricing starts at seven hundred and ninety nine dollars u.s. at just over 1 and 3/4 pounds it's heavier than your average tablet but again about the same as an ultra-thin or ultra portable laptop like last year's pro the pro 3 is well built and feels sturdy in your hands and unfortunately it's just as annoying to crack open the first step in opening the case is removing the front panel and display assembly so that means breaking out the heat gun hairdryer or other warming device and very carefully heating the edges around the actual display now be very careful not to overheat the glass and warp the plastic cover behind it as several ribbon cables run along the lower edge will start at the panel's upper left corner and work our way around removing the front panel is a slow tedious process but if you rush you risk damaging the front panel like I just did now after disconnecting all its cables you can set the front panel and LCD assembly aside and begin removing the pro threes other internal components now although there are still lots of screws inside the pro 3 Microsoft did use fewer than the nearly 100 found inside the old pro as before I recommend cataloging the location of each screw as you remove them after disconnecting the battery we can begin removing components star with the SSD card next comes a thin board that runs along the top of the pro three this contains the front-facing camera ambient light sensor microphone and a few antennas after detaching all its cables and removing a few more screws the motherboard and cooling assembly come out next and with the board out we can remove the metal shielding and then separate the cooling assembly from the board alas to come out are the left and right speakers charging port microSD card slot and rear-facing camera at this point our teardown is pretty much complete the LCD in front glass panel are basically fused together and separating them isn't practical the battery is held to the back cover with copious amounts of adhesive and there's nothing under it so I'm going to leave it in place likewise I'm leaving the keyboard connector power button volume buttons vibration motor and headphone jack alone they're clearly visible while still in place and I don't want to risk damaging them unnecessarily when I disassembled the surface pro last year I officially dubbed it the worst device I've ever cracked open and despite having fewer screws on the inside the pro 3 is still a real pain to service it's extremely difficult to remove the front panel there are still lots of different size screws inside the case you can't really remove the battery and the front panel glass is extremely fragile as I found out now given that a well equipped surface pro 3 and keyboard like our core i5 test model costs around $1,200 the same price as a laptop it would make sense that device be as repairable as a laptop but it's not I mean even on a MacBook Air which Microsoft compares the pro 3 to in its marketing material you can open the case without much fuss I'm just disappointed the Microsoft couldn't find a way to make the pro 3 both a solid device and one that's easily serviceable now for more information on the pro 3 including real world tests and pricing check out the CNET review to see more teardown photos and read my full hardware analysis go to techyv public comm board / cracking open I'm bill Detweiler thanks for watching