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How to pick
Be honest with yourself about how far you plan to go. If you only want to swap a laptop battery or open a game console once, a small kit is plenty and the big one will sit in a drawer. If you expect to open phones, tablets and laptops regularly, buy the proper kit once and stop replacing cheap drivers that round off screws. That is the real failure mode with bargain toolkits: the bits are soft, they chew up the screw head, and now a ten minute job needs a drill. Two other things people forget. Get something to keep the screws in order, because modern laptops use four different lengths and putting a long one in a short hole cracks the board. And never blow dust out with a compressor or a straw, since moisture and static both kill electronics.
What I recommend
Electronics air blower or duster
Fans and vents choke up with dust and that is behind a lot of noisy, hot, slow computers. A rubber blower is cheap, lasts forever and has no propellant. If you use canned air instead, keep it upright and use short bursts, because tipping the can sprays liquid onto the board.
- Type
- Rubber blower beats canned air
- Why
- No propellant, no moisture
- Lasts
- Years, nothing to run out
- If canned
- Keep it upright, short bursts
Magnetic project mat
A magnetic pad you write on with a marker. Screws stick where you put them and you note which hole they came out of. Sounds fussy until the first time you finish a laptop with three screws left over. Modern machines use several lengths and the wrong one in the wrong hole can crack the board.
- Surface
- Magnetic, screws stay put
- Marks
- Write on it with a dry marker
- Size
- Big enough for a laptop
- Why
- Screw lengths differ, mixing them cracks boards
iFixit Essential Electronics Toolkit
The small kit. A driver, a set of precision bits, an opening pick and a spudger. Covers a laptop battery, a RAM upgrade, a console clean out and most of what people actually attempt at home. Start here unless you know you need more.
- Includes
- Driver, bits, pick, spudger
- Good for
- Laptop battery, RAM, console clean
- Bits
- Around 16
- Skip if
- You open things weekly
iFixit Pro Tech Toolkit
This is the one in my bag. Sixty odd precision bits, proper opening tools, a suction handle, an anti static wrist strap and tweezers, in a case that folds out so nothing rolls off the table. The bits are hardened properly, which is the whole point. Cheap drivers round off a screw head and turn a ten minute job into a drilling job.
- Bits
- 64 precision, hardened
- Also has
- Suction handle, tweezers, picks
- Static
- Anti static wrist strap included
- Case
- Folds out, nothing rolls away
iFixit Manta Driver Kit
If you already have opening tools and just want the widest set of precision bits, this is it. More than a hundred, including the odd security screws manufacturers use to keep you out. Worth it only if you are opening things often enough to keep hitting a screw type you do not have.
- Bits
- 112, the widest set
- Covers
- Security and tamper proof screws
- Has
- Bits only, no opening tools
- Get it if
- You keep hitting screws you cannot turn
Related reading
Opened it up and now it will not go back together?
It happens to everyone. Bring it to me rather than forcing it, and I will have a look before anything gets broken.