5 ms·

Microsoft Surface Laptops and Tablets Not Recommended by Consumer Reports

41 points by mnm1 9y ago

jackvalentine 9y ago
Yeah... this is a concern. I bought a Surface book this year, and it embarrassingly cost $4000. It's great, but I'm convinced that in two years I'll be having a stern conversation with Microsoft support about the Australian Consumer Law guarantee of acceptable quality.
- animex 9y ago
  https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees/consumer-guarantees https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees... How is this enforced? If you have a file a lawsuit, the costs/time/effort might not be worth it.
  - throw_throw 9y ago
    The ACCC handles complaints on behalf of consumers, and is more than happy to fine or litigate [1]. Most companies comply well before this stage. 1: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-takes-action-against-apple-over-alleged-misleading-consumer-guarantee-representations https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-takes-action-agai...
    - fulafel 9y ago
      Same in many European countries, there's a consumer ombudsman who can have a stern conversation with the dealer if they think the law is on your side.
    - jazoom 9y ago
      The ACCC and ACL are awesome. Companies should just not suck, but unfortunately they can't be trusted not to suck.
senectus1 9y ago
My company has well over 1000 "surface" devices (Pro's, Books, Screens) and they do ok.... They are not even slightly repairable.. so warranty is just a straight swap out. I have had a Surface-book ($3k i7 Performance base model) for the last month or so... the only complaint I have is that that the bluetooth in it is pathetic. A set of headphones and a mouse connected and I get disconnections and drop outs and slow mouse behaviour constantly. It is exquisitely engineered... I just love using it.
- honestoHeminway 9y ago
  There are troubles with WLAN and paralle used USB though.
eksemplar 9y ago
I'm a long time Microsoft user, sure I dabbled with Linux in my youth, but I never quite got into the tinkering culture and having to spend a day per month in configuring to make things work the way I wanted just wasn't me. Professionaly I'm now in management but the majority of my development experience had been with .Net. Sure I dabbled with all the open source hyped techs when I was younger, but ultimately settled for .Net and enterprise (which I'm happy is also open sourced now by the way, even if .net core isn't really production ready and takes up way too much devops time to deploy). These days windows just feels wrong though. It's probably just me but I feel like my windows machines are basically iPads with keyboards that I can't really do anything with the way I want to. Git sucks on windows, paints replacement sucks, almost anything that isn't .Net development sucks and Visual Studio has to live in a cage or it takes over everything from wanting to debug your steam library to howling at the moon. And now you're telling me the life expediency of a surface is 2 years. Heh.
- vcjohnson 9y ago
  Personally love .NET and Visual Studio development, especially when I was forced back into Java recently. I'm not a huge fan of Windows 10 and but I really would love to stay in the development ecosystem for the foreseeable future. That being said if they ever put out a fully functional VS for linux, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
- sjellis 9y ago
  "These days windows just feels wrong though. It's probably just me but I feel like my windows machines are basically iPads with keyboards that I can't really do anything with the way I want to. Git sucks on windows, paints replacement sucks, almost anything that isn't .Net development sucks and Visual Studio has to live in a cage or it takes over everything from wanting to debug your steam library to howling at the moon." You are being far too polite :) It is not you: Windows is fine as a launcher for consumer applications, but for setup of development tools, it is appallingly terrible, and outside .NET the user experience with developer tools can be pretty rough. For many things, it is now a third-class platform (Mac is first, then Linux). I definitely agree with Git, specifically. This isn't Microsoft's fault: Git is so UNIX-y that you have to wrap it in a kind of miny-UNIX distribution to run it on a non-UNIX platform, but they are the only desktop vendor with a non-UNIX platform. I am looking forward to having an opportunity to work with WSL, to see how much that helps.
throw_throw 9y ago
Quite a contrast: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/4/15961740/best-laptop-microsoft-windows-apple-macbook-hp-dell-lenovo https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/4/15961740/best-laptop-micro...
FLGMwt 9y ago
Anecdotally, my almost four-year old Surface Pro 2 is still a perfect dev machine.
- pawadu 9y ago
  Everyone seem to love Surface Pro 2. I wish I had bought one when it was announced.
pedalpete 9y ago
I've got a surface 2 and a surface 3. I had to stop using the surface 3 at around the 2 year mark as the fan was constantly on and I was noticing a lot of 'strange behaviour' even after a rebuild. Surface 2 is still going strong.
ToFundorNot 9y ago
I'm still running the original Surface Pro, unfortunately the magnetized grid for the pen died about two years ago leaving only touch or touch pad. Besides that, it's going strong four years later.
8note 9y ago
My SP3 was bent by the dock until the screen broke Left one day with it docked, came back to a broken screen
delhanty 9y ago
Also, support is limited to the country that you purchased the device in - see comment by `nailer from 79 days ago HN [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14400873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14400873

41 points by mnm1 9y ago

Yeah... this is a concern. I bought a Surface book this year, and it embarrassingly cost $4000. It's great, but I'm convinced that in two years I'll be having a stern conversation with Microsoft support about the Australian Consumer Law guarantee of acceptable quality.

animex 9y ago
https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees/consumer-guarantees https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees... How is this enforced? If you have a file a lawsuit, the costs/time/effort might not be worth it.
- throw_throw 9y ago
  The ACCC handles complaints on behalf of consumers, and is more than happy to fine or litigate [1]. Most companies comply well before this stage. 1: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-takes-action-against-apple-over-alleged-misleading-consumer-guarantee-representations https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-takes-action-agai...
  - fulafel 9y ago
    Same in many European countries, there's a consumer ombudsman who can have a stern conversation with the dealer if they think the law is on your side.
  - jazoom 9y ago
    The ACCC and ACL are awesome. Companies should just not suck, but unfortunately they can't be trusted not to suck.

senectus1 9y ago

My company has well over 1000 "surface" devices (Pro's, Books, Screens) and they do ok.... They are not even slightly repairable.. so warranty is just a straight swap out. I have had a Surface-book ($3k i7 Performance base model) for the last month or so... the only complaint I have is that that the bluetooth in it is pathetic. A set of headphones and a mouse connected and I get disconnections and drop outs and slow mouse behaviour constantly. It is exquisitely engineered... I just love using it.

honestoHeminway 9y ago
There are troubles with WLAN and paralle used USB though.

eksemplar 9y ago

I'm a long time Microsoft user, sure I dabbled with Linux in my youth, but I never quite got into the tinkering culture and having to spend a day per month in configuring to make things work the way I wanted just wasn't me. Professionaly I'm now in management but the majority of my development experience had been with .Net. Sure I dabbled with all the open source hyped techs when I was younger, but ultimately settled for .Net and enterprise (which I'm happy is also open sourced now by the way, even if .net core isn't really production ready and takes up way too much devops time to deploy). These days windows just feels wrong though. It's probably just me but I feel like my windows machines are basically iPads with keyboards that I can't really do anything with the way I want to. Git sucks on windows, paints replacement sucks, almost anything that isn't .Net development sucks and Visual Studio has to live in a cage or it takes over everything from wanting to debug your steam library to howling at the moon. And now you're telling me the life expediency of a surface is 2 years. Heh.

vcjohnson 9y ago
Personally love .NET and Visual Studio development, especially when I was forced back into Java recently. I'm not a huge fan of Windows 10 and but I really would love to stay in the development ecosystem for the foreseeable future. That being said if they ever put out a fully functional VS for linux, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
sjellis 9y ago
"These days windows just feels wrong though. It's probably just me but I feel like my windows machines are basically iPads with keyboards that I can't really do anything with the way I want to. Git sucks on windows, paints replacement sucks, almost anything that isn't .Net development sucks and Visual Studio has to live in a cage or it takes over everything from wanting to debug your steam library to howling at the moon." You are being far too polite :) It is not you: Windows is fine as a launcher for consumer applications, but for setup of development tools, it is appallingly terrible, and outside .NET the user experience with developer tools can be pretty rough. For many things, it is now a third-class platform (Mac is first, then Linux). I definitely agree with Git, specifically. This isn't Microsoft's fault: Git is so UNIX-y that you have to wrap it in a kind of miny-UNIX distribution to run it on a non-UNIX platform, but they are the only desktop vendor with a non-UNIX platform. I am looking forward to having an opportunity to work with WSL, to see how much that helps.

throw_throw 9y ago

Quite a contrast: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/4/15961740/best-laptop-microsoft-windows-apple-macbook-hp-dell-lenovo https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/4/15961740/best-laptop-micro...

FLGMwt 9y ago

Anecdotally, my almost four-year old Surface Pro 2 is still a perfect dev machine.

pawadu 9y ago
Everyone seem to love Surface Pro 2. I wish I had bought one when it was announced.

pedalpete 9y ago

I've got a surface 2 and a surface 3. I had to stop using the surface 3 at around the 2 year mark as the fan was constantly on and I was noticing a lot of 'strange behaviour' even after a rebuild. Surface 2 is still going strong.

ToFundorNot 9y ago

I'm still running the original Surface Pro, unfortunately the magnetized grid for the pen died about two years ago leaving only touch or touch pad. Besides that, it's going strong four years later.

8note 9y ago

My SP3 was bent by the dock until the screen broke Left one day with it docked, came back to a broken screen

delhanty 9y ago

Also, support is limited to the country that you purchased the device in - see comment by `nailer from 79 days ago HN [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14400873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14400873