R&D
AUTOPSY
We open up the Microsoft Surface Pro 6 and dive beneath.
BACKGROUND
Microsoft has decided once again to grace its Surfaces with numbers. This year’s Surface Pro 6 comes with a sleek new black paint job and the first ever quad-core processor in a Surface device. What else will we find inside? Let’s find out!
MAJOR TECH SPECS
• 12.3-inch 2736x1824 (267 ppi) PixelSense display
• 8th-Gen quad-core Core i5 with Intel UHD Graphics 620
• 8GB RAM (16GB optional)
• 128GB solid-state storage (256GB, 512GB, or 1TB options) • 8MP rear-facing camera with 1080p video, and 5MP/1080p
front-facing Windows Hello camera • USB 3.0, microSDXC, Mini DisplayPort, SurfaceConnect,
3.5mm audio port, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, and Bluetooth 4.1
KEY FINDINGS
• On the outside, not much has changed. Still the same case, hinge, and relatively healthy number of ports. Noticeably absent, however, is the USB-C port that found its way on to the Surface Go. The Surface Pro series has a few different configurations, all with upgraded adhesive as standard. • Luckily, we’ve got a recipe for screen separation success: Step 1: Apply iOpener liberally. Step 2: Grab an opening pick and suction handle, and fight for dear life through Microsoft’s gauntlet of adhesive.
Step 3 (optional): Get impatient, break screen. Fortunately, we don’t run into any surprises as we free the display—everything’s much the same as before, save for an extra display cable compared to the Surface Go. • It seems Microsoft has been meddling with its passive cooler—it looks like last year’s, but with an extra pipe down the left side, plus some funky heat-spreading pads. • Looking south, the similarities continue, with a quad-cell battery taking up most of the case. On the plus side, all the screws so far are standard Torx. Let’s twirl them out! The Surface Pro 4 had a copper heat spreader, but these look like graphite. Now we’re free to remove the heatsink. • We’ve come to that inevitable junction in any Surface teardown: Take out the heavily glued battery, or leave it be? Considering there are no stretch release battery tabs, we opt to let the beast slumber for now. It weighs in at 45Wh (7.57V x 5,940mAh), exactly the same at last year. • Really scraping the bottom of the barrel case, hoping for something new, we pull out the speakers and cameras. The cameras are still hidden under the bracket holding the antennas (which are incredibly easy to mangle upon opening), while the speakers are still corner-mounted triangles for that surround-sound feel. • Repairability score: 1 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair). To the extent that screws are used, they are all standard Torx fasteners. This tablet still has a headphone jack, which is modular and replaceable, if you can get to it. All repairs require first removing the display assembly—which is stubbornly glued in place, expensive, and prone to shattering. The battery is firmly glued in place, with its connector pinned under the motherboard—requiring near-total disassembly for service. Once upon a time, Surface Pro storage was removable—but not in this version. Complex construction makes all disassembly and reassembly tedious in comparison to other tablets.