Adafruit: From Ultimate Driving Machine to Ultimate Rent-Seeking Machine: The BMW Logo Screw Patent.
If you haven’t already heard, BMW’s R&D teams have been busy “innovating.” Unfortunately, they aren’t focusing on the things that actually matter—like stellar engine performance or the legendary driving dynamics that gearheads love. Instead, the C-suite execs decided that the best use of their engineering budget was to design a proprietary security screw specifically intended to prevent BMW drivers from fixing their own cars.
sorry, but torx is vastly superior to philipps, and my preferred style of screws
Ok but they were selling shitty laptops with 4g of soldered RAM very recently. I also had to deal with a 64gb soldered SSD, that piece of shit wasn’t even that old, it was a Windows 11 PC . The torx still annoy me, but they’re a garbage company. Don’t even start on their printers.
Everything is going to be soldered except on some mid and high-end corporate laptops within a couple generations. Those, and desktops will use CAMM. My prediction.
Torx is a superior screw though. On low-torque applications, sure, Phillips is a bit more convenient.
Reason being, it’s very difficult to cam-out or round a torx head if you are using the right size driver.
Torx are absolutely my go-to for general construction screw, when I’m using an impact driver and can zoom zoom zoom. Quite satisfying.
I think the reason torx wins in laptops and pre-built PCs is probably because they are much better for assembly-line or automated assembly. The right tools are always there and will always securely grab the screw.
If you slip with a screwdriver on a main board, you can easily destroy the main board. Making torx superior for large-scale assembly.
My dad wrecked his Abit BH6 back in the day, trying to secure the slotket for an upgrade (to a Malay Celeron 300A), due to the screwdriver slipping out. Managed to slice an SMD capacitor right in half. Good for him, even at like 55 he was able to hand-solder a replacement in and revive the board.