I broke our Surface Laptop Studio

[Emily Young]

The Surface Laptop Studio is a new premium windows machine from Microsoft. Too bad they didn't make it easier to open...

 

 

[Alireza]

1 minute ago, GabenJr said:

The Surface Laptop Studio is a new premium windows machine from Microsoft. Too bad they didn't make it easier to open...

 

 

watching a teardown guide would've help

[WhitetailAni]

Linus, please just step away from laptops. This is at least the second where you’ve made an excuse of some sort. Your staff can handle the review without you.

 

Also it’s been so long since I’ve watched a new LTT video, I went “hey new intro! cool!” before remembering.

[swimtome]

12:01: I CANT FREAKING HEAR ALEX.  EDITORS: ADD FREAKING SUBTITLES WHEN SOMEONE ISNT MIC'ED UP.    This has been getting EXTREMELY annoying lately.

 

(Especially in Techlinked:  Hey Dennis, would be great if you can add subtitles or increase volume of the jokes.  I can literally be on 100% volume on a decent laptop but not be able to make out wtf Riley/James said in the corner.  Its really getting tiring.)

 

Please remember, you're wearing headphones.  Not everyone does.  No matter how clear you think it is, it cant hurt to make your videos more accessible.

[RejZoR]

No, Linus is not to be blamed. Also no, there is NO need to watch god damn teardown videos if device cases weren't designed this way by assholes on purpose.

 

I made a rant about this exact thing over a year ago:

https://rejzor.wordpress.com/2020/03/14/manufacturers-stop-hiding-screws-under-rubber-feet-of-devices/

 

It's an absolute asshole design and it should be banned by law. I broke so many plastic bits on laptops because of asshole hidden screws. And maybe Surface has a disassembly video, good luck finding exact one for 500 variants of generic HP laptops that aren't from some special "premium" series. Just "similar enough" is not good enough. It has to be exact model match. But why, when there would be NO need for that if all the screws were simply visible? If that purposely hidden screw was visible, they wouldn't fuck it all up and effectively ruin a $2000 device. It's bottom of the device. No one would ever be bothered by visible screws.

[miles5600]

@GabenJr

i really wanna know the branding name of the haptic trackpad.

[TetraSky]

57 minutes ago, Alireza said:

watching a teardown guide would've help

The video was shot a while ago, likely before any teardown guide were out.
In fact, I can't find any teardown videos of this model after a quick search. So I'm not sure where they could've watched one.

If there really is none, you could say Linus's sacrifice paved the way for someone else to do a proper teardown video without breaking their entire laptop.

[Quackers101]

so it can have windows 11, but not on a new system? thanks microsoft.

oh well, this new "upgraded OS" will have less bugs right and be clear UI wise, right?

Faster it breaks, buy a new phone... I mean laptop.

[HenrySalayne]

Microsoft misplaced the keyboard. And to add insult to injury they send over a mouse on a device with a touchscreen and a trackpad which are both accessible in canvas mode. People tend to use the keyboard quite often, you know? And they probably don't need three different options to move the cursor.

That's how it's done: 

 

 

4 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

It's an absolute asshole design and it should be banned by law. I broke so many plastic bits on laptops because of asshole hidden screws.

They did not only hide screws under rubber feet or under a generic stickers, they glued a perfect piece of plastic looking like anodised aluminium over some screws. That's quite frankly a new low. You are guaranteed to ruin your laptop.

 

[Quackers101]

10 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

They did not only hide screws under rubber feet or under a generic stickers, they glued a perfect piece of plastic looking like anodised aluminium over some screws. That's quite frankly a new low. You are guaranteed to ruin your laptop.

"right to repair MS" my a**.

that was such bullshit, a copy that looks like an apple product.

[BaidDSB]

Right to repair something, right microsoft?

[RONOTHAN##]

13 minutes ago, HenrySalayne said:

Microsoft misplaced the keyboard. And to add insult to injury they send over a mouse on a device with a touchscreen and a trackpad which are both accessible in canvas mode. People tend to use the keyboard quite often, you know? And they probably don't need three different options to move the cursor.

That's how it's done: 

I know that makes sense, but it just looks wrong. Plus, when you're not using tablet mode using the trackpad is just awful.

[hishnash]

Would love to see LTT look into how hard/costly it is to get a repair shop to do a soldered ram upgrade. On most systems this is not impossible, ram BGA soldering is not that hard due to the low density of solder joints so any board level repair shop should be able to do the needed soldering, im sure LTT even have team members with this skill.  

It would be an interesting video to look at what it costs to source raw DDR dies (can be quite cheap) and then have someone within LTT do an upgrade and also see if they can contract a repair shop to do it and find out how much this costs (it might not end up costly much more than buying SODIMM.  

(the the disclaimer that they use a laptop were you can get to the memory dies without breaking it, maybe an M1 devices would be a great example as this is LPDDR4x memory that you can't even buy in SODIMM format.)

[KingA]

If you guy do not want te damaged surface notebook anymore.

i'm happy to take it. 

 

(i know it ain't gonna happen)

 

[Arika]

God i hate the, what i'm going to dub, "The Shelf" bottom chasss

[FezBoy]

No mention of Linus' investment into Framework?

[Arika]

18 minutes ago, FezBoy said:

No mention of Linus' investment into Framework?

did you not even watch past the intro?

 

literally at 1:00 the first thing said right after the intro animaton

Quote

"But Linus" You might say, "After your investment in framework how can you possibly declare".....etc

 

[deef0000dragon1]

55 minutes ago, Arika S said:

did you not even watch past the intro?

 

literally at 1:00 the first thing said right after the intro animaton

 

 

Just briefly mentioning the investment like that isn't proper disclosure. I gave them the first laptop video that didn't have a mention of the investment because they do pre-record a number of their videos, but at this point I am expecting a disclosure readout at the end of the video, or more ideally, after the intro. 

At MINIMUM, even if this was recorded before the investment (it obviously wasn't as he does mention it) there should be a disclosure in the description.

Linus made a promise of transparency to the community when he purchased those shares, and so far, he has not upheld that promise.

[Arika]

17 minutes ago, deef0000dragon1 said:

 

Just briefly mentioning the investment like that isn't proper disclosure. I gave them the first laptop video that didn't have a mention of the investment because they do pre-record a number of their videos, but at this point I am expecting a disclosure readout at the end of the video, or more ideally, after the intro. 

At MINIMUM, even if this was recorded before the investment (it obviously wasn't as he does mention it) there should be a disclosure in the description.

Linus made a promise of transparency to the community when he purchased those shares, and so far, he has not upheld that promise.

Technically (at least in Australia) what he did in this video is sufficient disclosure, because this video exists:

 

When a disclosure has already been made public, you don't need to have full disclosure information in every transaction going forward. It does need to be mentioned, but the specifics don't need to be brought up each time.

 

If something changes in his investment, then yes, a full re-disclosure would likely need to happen, but if nothing has changed since the above video, there's not much else you really need to do.

 

Standard disclosure: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, this is my interpretation of the legislation written in the country of Australia only.

[Luscious]

Two ways around not bricking a device you're trying to disassemble:

 

1. Obtain the original service manual from the manufacturer

2. Find a teardown video with step by step instructions

 

Actually there is a third as well - use your common sense. Granted, some people lack that, as well as patience LOL

 

Many devices now are being put together badly, either deliberately (thanks Apple) or just because the designers chose to use inferior parts that fail prematurely (thanks Samsung). In the worst case it can even be both.

 

Either way this model is not sustainable.

 

Environmentally these materials need proper recycling and cannot be disposed like trash. That requires manpower to do, special plants set up to disassemble, then separate what can be recycled and what can't. Notice Apple is hush hush about the exact percentage of how much of an iPhone does get reused, never mind phones and batteries that never make it back to a recycling plant and end up in a landfill somewhere or in the belly of a large ocean animal. What dirty secrets does Apple keep that they won't let us see what they do with the aluminum, lithium, silicon, etc... and parts they cannot recycle. And no, Samsung are no different - they share just as much guilt in this practice as Apple.

 

Then there are the economic factors. Number one being that material being reused has already been paid for by a previous customer, or even customers multiple times over - how many times do you think that new iPhone 13 has been paid for already from materials salvaged from previous throwaway donor phones? Ask yourself who is getting rich here? Their level of greed does not stop there - how about a software brick that makes perfectly working older models slow down to a crawl forcing users to upgrade! Already the prices of aluminum, silicon and lithium (pretty much any precious metal) are rising - prices that will continue to rise as these rare Earth resources are finite/limited and becoming harder to find and mine. Yet here these manufacturers are encouraging consumers to pay full price, throw away and repeat! There comes a breaking point where people will get sick and tired of spending their hard-earned disposable income on brand-new replacement phones/tablets/laptops when repairs and replacement parts could keep their devices going an extra 2 years easy. And this is already evident in low-income households and in countries where dropping $700+ on a new smartphone every 2-3 years is, let's be honest, a luxury. These people need that money to put food on the table and for other uses, not feeding the piggy bank of some corporate fat cat.

 

And there comes that last reason - ethics. What kind of a corporate leader can sleep well at night knowing they are milking the worlds disposable income, depleting the Earths resources, contributing to an e-waste disaster and then making the speech on stage that they are "for the environment, for the consumer and for the future". The only thing they are for is how to take the money that's out there still for themselves and give the finger to the environment. Companies like Apple are setting a very dangerous precedence, and the more control (money) we give them the less accountable and responsible they will become.

[Dracarris]

14 hours ago, Quackers101 said:

that was such bullshit, a copy that looks like an apple product.

Ironically Macbooks have easily accessible (and no hidden) screws. For a decade or so all you need is a Pentalobe bit and a plastic pryer to open up any Macbook without having to check a teardown first. So not even Apple is afraid of having visible screws on the underside of their laptops.

13 hours ago, hishnash said:

Would love to see LTT look into how hard/costly it is to get a repair shop to do a soldered ram upgrade. On most systems this is not impossible, ram BGA soldering is not that hard due to the low density of solder joints so any board level repair shop should be able to do the needed soldering, im sure LTT even have team members with this skill.  

Actually no. Ironically one of the biggest electronics-centered tech channels has multiple CNC/mechanical engineers but no one that can do micro soldering or even any decent soldering. Every time I see a soldering iron in an LTT video (as someone that can solder) I get really uncomfortable. Worst was this chiller remake/boxing video where they even "dealt" with cables that carry mains power (which, according to LS, immediately kills you when touched).

[hishnash]

44 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Actually no. Ironically one of the biggest electronics-centered tech channels has multiple CNC/mechanical engineers but no one that can do micro soldering or even any decent soldering. Every time I see a soldering iron in an LTT video (as someone that can solder) I get really uncomfortable. Worst was this chiller remake/boxing video where they even "dealt" with cables that carry mains power (which, according to LS, immediately kills you when touched).

This is true however at least for SSD dies this does not count as micro-soldering, but they could find a local board level repair shop (would be a more legit video) or partner with Rossman so that they can get it captured nicely with some detail explaining how to do it by someone who and explained this many times.  

A memory (or SSD) upgrade on a non M1 devices (were the memory is no on the SOC package) is going to be simpler but an upgrade of the memory on the M1 (or further M1x) would likely get more views and highlight even more to the community that these things are possible and we all should stop considering these machines as e-wast.

A video with this would get a lot of views and with the 14" and 16" laptops coming soon (that will likely support upto 32GB or even 64GB of memory i could easily see the repair shop upgrade coming in a lot cheaper than the enviable $800+ upgrade cost if you get it from apple.  The same is true for SSD i expect the 16" will support a 8TB drive (costly over $2k to upgrade) buying the dies and paying a repair shop will not cost less than $1k!  Not only this but it would open their eyes for future laptop reviews and open the communities eyes that these things are possible (and not that costly) likely leading to a lot fewer e-wast machines and leading to nice work for repair shops (im sure they prefer upgrading your SSD in your laptop to fixing nasty `water` damage corruption from spilled coke)  @LinusTech?

 

A video titled something along the lines of: "We saved $2000 off apples tax!" would likely get a LOT of clicks.  

[HenrySalayne]

15 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I know that makes sense, but it just looks wrong. Plus, when you're not using tablet mode using the trackpad is just awful.

It's not too bad. It takes some time to get used to, but it looks way worse than it actually is. And you have to remember that on a device like this the trackpad is only a secondary or even tertiary input. The first thing you would add using it on a desktop would be a mouse and on your lap you can do just fine with the touchscreen or the pen.

What you certainly don't want to do is to flip the screen all the way back every time you want to use the keyboard. Then you're giving up all of the advantages of the dual-hinge design.

IMHO it's a really poor choice to make a device like this more suitable to "normal" laptop use.

[Roswell]

19 hours ago, FakeKGB said:

Linus, please just step away from laptops. This is at least the second where you’ve made an excuse of some sort. Your staff can handle the review without you.

 

Also it’s been so long since I’ve watched a new LTT video, I went “hey new intro! cool!” before remembering.

He owns LMG. Doesn’t matter who the person is reviewing it, the whole company needs to remove themselves from Laptop content. At a minimum, they need to stop reviewing them.

[Egg-Roll]

23 hours ago, FakeKGB said:

Linus, please just step away from laptops. This is at least the second where you’ve made an excuse of some sort. Your staff can handle the review without you.

 

Also it’s been so long since I’ve watched a new LTT video, I went “hey new intro! cool!” before remembering.

You're not wrong, but at least he disclosed it in a way...

I think he's too self-centered/power hungry/narcissistic(?) to let anyone do anything with good faith. Must be a shitty work environment if he feels like he can't trust his own workers to do a laptop review/any video on their own without it passing threw him first to any degree...

 

Also the ending of the video you can see his involvement with framework...

 

5 hours ago, Roswell said:

He owns LMG. Doesn’t matter who the person is reviewing it, the whole company needs to remove themselves from Laptop content. At a minimum, they need to stop reviewing them.

Yes/No. I mentioned this in the past if LMG is the holder then yes 100% LMG should step out, however if Linus's name is on the papers with no involvement of LMG then only Linus needs to step out of the laptop review process for all LMG videos. Reasoning is no other employee nor LMG would benefit from the success or failure of framework, however Linus would have an interest in their success. Simply put if Linus is the sole holder and not LMG by kicking Linus out of all of the laptop videos processes in total LMG can keep its integrity as no other worker nor would LMG benefit from frameworks.

 

Sadly as long as Linus keeps his chokehold on the company we can't trust anything they say. So till further notice if Linus says a laptop is good it's actually bad and that we should buy frameworks, if a laptop is bad we should still buy frameworks.

 

If I was Microsoft I would be seriously thinking about criticizing this review just because of how Linus acted in the end of the video. He's likely not wrong but he actually never checked either. Besides how many people actually upgrade their laptops realistically? This video likely won't stop most surface buyers but it's still a huge mistake imo on LMGs part because Linus was involved.