Microsoft makes the new Surface Laptop 3 repairable for its enterprise customers

The Microsoft Surface brand does not generally target the average consumer. Instead, it targets groups like students and the enterprise sector. Problem is: These target groups have some conflicting interests and targeting them with the same device can be difficult. Enterprise customers for example care for serviceability of their laptop, as they have to be repaired quickly in the case of a defect. Students meanwhile care more for a thin and attractive design than the repairability of their laptops.

When it released the original Surface Laptop, Microsoft clearly favored students with their design choices. The Surface Laptop 1 and Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 offered seamless, thin designs, but as we quickly found out (thanks to iFixit's tear-down), these devices were almost impossible to repair. Even skilled technicians could only access the innards by destroying part of the Alcantera palmrest.

For Microsofts enterprise customers, this clearly was a serious drawback. Accordingly, the company made the new Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 easier to repair, as it announced yesterday during its Surface event. As Gizmodo notes though: Even with the new possibility to repair the device at all, it is still pretty hard to do it.

Still: It is a pretty significant event that Microsoft course corrected on repairability, because the Windows giant used to be terrible in this area. Users can have hope that the new Surface Laptop 3 will fare better in iFixit's teardown than its predecessor, which scored zero points out of 10. (Surface Laptop 2 on sale now at Amazon)