Microsoft's Panos Panay responds to Consumer Reports 'Surface reliability' survey

It is lol.

Hahaha. Funny conversation.
Man, these editors need to lighten up, around here. The ego working for WC builds is amazing. Daniel (although I love him🙄) is enough for two sites, and Zac doesn't need to follow in his footsteps... They need to play GOOD cop - BAD cop. SMDH

Only owned a first gen surface pro. That thing was a tank. We dropped it a handful of times and it kept running.  Eventually the fan died.  So I cannot speak for the newer lineup or gen 4.  Anyway, I do not care. I buy what I need and will work for my needs and if it is a surface it is a surface. If it is an HP then an HP. I usually buy used stuff too. Whether it is reliable or not.. I do not pay much attention to the stuff on Consumer Reports either. But tons of other people do...Good thing Panos came out and made a statement.  

I have a Surface 3, and the quality (OS, and Hardware) is phenomenal... Actually, the Hardware is in a class above the software. Lol.... Surface is great, and that's why so many people smile at the idea of a small Surface Mobile Device.

I agree. Even for the first gen Surface Pro, the quality was top notch. Consumer Reports is just another opinion that has everyone looking at it.  People see them as a credible source, but it is all just statistics.  Unless you use one yourself for more than just what a reviewer would, then daily you can appreciate even the smallest of details.

The end point is that I see multiple Surface devices being used everyday. People are happy with them, will buy them again, and might influence the next person to get one... This report isn't anything to worry about. It happens.

The problem is that people with no knowledge of Surface of technology in general will just do a Goo.. ehm.. Bing search and investigate using authorities they think they can trust. Like 'Consumer Reports'.
So, what would you do - if you we're such a person - if they say their products suck.
Right: You would shop somewhere else...
People nowadays trust the first thing they find on the internet.

🤔

@ChrissieNL But Consumer Reports isn't just a first thing you find on the internet.  It's a well established reputable magazine/product.  Many people buy or don't buy based on their reviews.  I love my SP3, but if there are issues Microsoft needs to fix those quickly!  Perception can be deadly in the world of electronics.

@rodneyj I beg to differ.  People should be worried.  There are lots of people who read reviews prior to buying a product and Consumer Reports is a proven ground for many.  This would not bode well for the Surface name.  Particularly if a Surface Phone ever hits the street.  For certain people this may be a red flag for them.  Now, I've owned my SP3 since it's release.  Love that thing.  Use it every day.  Other than the overheating at times it's one of the BEST things Microsoft has ever made.  But don't fool yourself into thinking a big brand name like Consumer Reports couldn't put a damper on sales, because it can.  Just like in the inverse.  They sure can drive sales if they say it's a reliable product. 

I can guarantee you that the overheating you experience is due to Windows 10 and /or Edge.

You hit the nail on the head, the hardware IS a class above the software. We have quite a few Surface Pro and books in our company and there are many complaints, enough that we are considering moving to Dell. However, I can say that a majority of the complaints are due to bugs and instability of Windows 10.

I've been working with Surfaces since their launch, my company has dozens of them, and we always upgrade for newer versions when they come out, but we still keep a few old ones, no problems at all, since the start we sent back 2 or 3, but 2 of them had no problems at all, just lack of experience from the user.
Surfaces are the best mobile solutions by far.
I'm waiting for the new generation of mobile devices to get released to swap my Lumia 950 for one of them, I'm done with Android, I love it, but since I discovered W10M all I can feel for Android is some love, but smaller than the one I feel about W10M, regarding iOS: I had an iPhone 2 years ago, I could only stand it for 2 months, it's just a toy, an expensive one, it's very limited and restricted, it never evolved to meet users needs, it does not worth half of the price at all too.

I'll have to side with Panos on this.  Hubby works for Microsoft on the retail side at a store with heavy traffic.  They sell hundreds of Surface devices and their Answer Desk complaints on Surface are very low in comparison to other brands.  And of the complaints for Surface, the vast majority are third-party software related (people installing any old program), not hardware related.

I appreciate your point of view, miss. Thank you for sharing it :) Personally I reinstalled my Surface Pro i7 two times. It got so bad at one point that I pulled all my devices from insider builds, even the release preview ones. The product was barely useable, and that was the boxed experience. Adding to that, one and a half year later, and everything just works. But in my experience it took too long. I am not saying people should not buy a SP5 though, I am sure it is fantastic device, but if you are not living the US, with the retail stores, you are certainly taking a leap of faith, because the support is less than stellar. At least in Denmark.

CR is complete rubbish and has been for years... decades really, pretty much since the advent of the internet lol. This report, which is based on completely unreliable sources of information (as is all their similar survey based data), is just more proof of that. Worse, no one pays attention to what their reported data even actually means. Hint, it doesn't all indicate real critical defects or lasting breaks with the products - it includes any kind of minor/temporary issue including user errors! NONE of those brands have ~20% failure rates - do you think 10% of Macs "break" within 2 years? NO, they do NOT, and neither does any of the other brands in their report. True failure rates across the electronics industry is well under 5% in reality; usually in the 1-3% range!

Yep, relying on CR is even less reliable than reviews on Amazon.At least witho thoswe you can often read between the lines and end up with a somewhat informed opinion.

Companies need money, so, they go for the one that gives them better options or the first one to come into play. If a brand agrees with them to supply products they have to make their products to look better compared with others. That's why we can only trust on real experiences, from other user, from our friends, from our own experience. Forums, all that bullshit places on Internet, are very unreliable, even when it gets to performance tests, real experience sometimes shows us that the reality is different from what we can find on Internet sometimes.

Actually, a LOT of people pay attention to them.  I work in automotive development, and several, if not most OEMs duplicate consumers report testing before the product gets to them to try to sort out issues that they specifically will notice.   That really doesn't apply here, as this is customer feedback, and CR is largely just the aggregator.  This is different from satisfaction, as well. The article mentions JDPower satisfaction ratings, which are different from failure rates.  For example, there are several cars/trucks that score poorly on durability but score highly on satisfaction.  Microsoft designed a brilliant line of computers under the surface brand, which raises satisfaction a LOT over more generic brands and models.  They can still be less durable at the same time.

Exactly!

Hummm.🤔🤔🤔🤔
Surface Pro🙂
iToy🤓
Droid Cereal Box Prize😂 🤣

Let's see.  Who should I believe/trust, a profit motivated company, Microsoft?  Or a non-profit, Consumer Reports, that gets it's money from donors and subscribers, with it's only goal being the testing products first hand and through customer surveys, and then reporting.  The same Consumer Reports who bashed Apple more than once.  I love Microsoft but I trust Consumer Reports. Now maybe MIcrosoft will do a better job at cleaning up their messes as Apple did with the iphone. This will lead to lost sales and hopefuly better products for us all.  

You also have to take into consideration whether the complaints are on hardware failures across the board or people who install software that they really shouldn't and have problems because of it.  You know who I'm talking about, the people who install new programs and click "yes" to everything and have been the bane of Windows for years.  I still have to side with MS on this one based on my conversations on the subject with my husband and his knowledge of just how much Microsoft covers with their support program.

Problem is Consumer Reports has No Relevancy these days. This will be marked as one of it's biggest mistakes.

What I'm thinking is that it is either the line of questioning, but probably the responsiveness of Microsoft's customer care. A bad customer experience with customer care will alter the perception of the customer regarding of the product. It's a well documented fact that customers that get a pleasant response to their complaints usually rate the product higher. In fact it is taught in some industries that Good ratings is not found in the perfection of the product, but rather the perfection of care after a product is purchased. I bring it up because my experience with MS customer care has been terrible, and I'm a fan and have the patience to put up with it, but it is bad. So like you said, hopefully they will see the real issue, which I don't think is the hardware, but the lack of concern from MS after the purchase.

I worked for Xbox Customer Support and by that time, me and my team changed the way Customer Support worked for our Contry, we cared about customers, we were going the extra mile all the time that was needed, the result was an almost perfect level of satisfaction. The trick is treating people as if they were our family, our friends, ourselves, that is good for everyone, for the Brand, for the Customer, and the Agent that is helping the customer and feeling good about it. That is why I always said that not every person is able to work on Customer Support, and many Managers should first learn that their job exists because there are customers, and if customers are happy, there will be more sales, more work, less possibilities to loose their job.

So true. I wish I could have ran into your team when I had issues.

CR is biased and always have been,  regardless of the products you're talking about. 

Normally, I would trust an independet organization more, but they can also have flawed data and make mistakes. Something seems off that doesnt seem to jive with MS' data and other's observations. We've bought many Surface Pros at work since the SP2 - even a couple of original Surface Pros. As far as I know, we haven't returned any of them. We've had some users that didnt like them after trying them for a while, but no defects. Maybe we got lucky with dozens of devices, I dont know, but 25% failure rate doesnt seem right with my experience. 

We have about 50 of them deployed now, imaged with the latest W10 build, running Enterprise for Direct Access etc. As a Windows device to get work done, they're as good as any other device we've used in the past (DELL, Lenovo laptops). They're generally pretty speedy and the weight is great. Staff love the stylus and being able to get signatures from clients onto the screen means no printing\scanning now for a great deal of their work. Some staff took to them with ease, some have struggled. The staff that have strugged, I would say that out of the 50, there's around 5 that have constant issues. These people are pretty tech illiterate, but I can't really blame them as the main repeating issues from them are; 1. The power button. They bump it accidentally putting it in their bag, then sometimes they pull it out and its flat.
2. When undocking. We use USB docks. When the undock to go to a meeting, then come back and re-dock, sometimes their external monitor doesn't get recognised as their main screen. Some know how to change it, some know a reboot fixes it, some just log a ticket and complain. Yes, a switched on employee knows how to resolve or avoid these issues, but a new power button design, and better display switching would certainly help - and be something Microsoft could improve. Sometimes we get the occasional one that won't power up, so we talk the user though holding the power and volume button to fully power cycle it. That fixes a few issues occasionally also.. Out of that 50, in 18 months we've only had a single device be replaced due to a hardware fault, so for us that's half a percent hardware failure. You can't complain about that. I guess my advice for any IT Department contemplating rolling these out, opt for the extra accidental damage warranty option, use them yourselves so you understand their quirks and be prepared to hand-hold the staff through the deployment. Other than that, these are great devices and I love them. Oh and one thing I'd like to see Microsoft do, is have 8Gb RAM by default in all the base models, with NO price increase. 4Gb just really doesn't cut it these days.

*1 out of 50 = 2%. But still, not too bad.

i own a surface 3 that is currently going back to microsoft before the extended warranty is , the entire screen has massice amounts of dead pixels.... ilm on my second pen.... With that said, i honestly would buy another surface in a heartbeat! Microsoft's support is impeccable.  My son tore off one of the keys on my keyboard, and Microspft replaced it! i then walked into a store and replaced  my new orange keyboard with a black one. i needed nubs on my first gen pen, they sent me a box full. My pen was broken by a student, went into store and upgraded to V2 pen for $10.  I needed to alk about software glitches and they delt with it.  I talked with one person and they handled it without a bump in their stride. They put the S in Service. Lenovo  on the other hand was a nightmare.  They have two levels to their service department.  talk with level 1 to get to 2. If level 2 disconnects for any reason or doesn't talk to you or call you back. You have to go through Level 1.  it took me four weeks to deal with Lenovo.  I wanted to rip my nails pff and dip them in acid after i finally  got a replacement for my lenovo yoga.   The screws stripped out of the replacement after the warranty ended. stupid flexible plastic...        

If they truly stood by their device they would offer two year limited hardware warranty as proof. As computers continue to skyrocket in price while also becoming unrepairable, one year limited warranty isn't enough to protect the investment. If a button, port, fan, screen/digitizer breaks, the device should be swapped and they can use the good parts for refurbishing. And I don't mean send it in for repair and wait 3 weeks for a swap, I mean take it to the store and walk out with a new one 5 minutes later. Third party warranties are cheap but require too many hoops for a prosumer or business customer. 

almost no company offers more that 1 year warranty in any industry its standard because that's an allotted time frame for your devices to go bad by default of bad hardware/internal software.   cellphones are 1 year cars are 50,000 for 48 months. 50k is normal for a daily driver in or before a year.    appliances other than selected brands are 1 year. The only ones who offer more than 1 year besides warranty is thermador and subzero and only on selected lines of products. They do have some parts like compressors that come with 10 years warranty for refrigerators or washing machines.    bottom line 1 year is long enough for consumers to discern if their purchase has serious issues that are required ro have special care needed to fix or possibly replace, usually after the first year items will last pretty well for a long time  

You are proving my point exactly though. Standard is to not stand behind your product on day 366. This report looks at owners all the way to day 730, you don't see a pile of two year old cars at the junkyard, appliances last for a decade or more and cell phones can typically outlast the software they run. All of your examples are easily repaired in most cases. Surfaces get a 1/10 or 0 repair score in ifixit. I own three S3 in my business and one is a paperweight because a $3 port broke, but is not repairable by design, that is plain stupid for a two year old device. 

Just a side note here. :-)  50,000 miles is NOT normal for a car.  15,000 is around average, and 25,000 miles/year would be fairly high.  50,000 miles/year would be a 100 mile commute, 200 miles a day both ways, or roughly 4 hours in the car a day, assuming you were on a highway.

50,000 miles a year, normal? I put on 25, 000 km a year, and it seems like I'm always driving. Which is just about 15,000 miles.

It's true that products are most likely due to fail within the first year, but that's primarily because of a design flaw or manufacturing defect. A lot of products have a propensity to fail in the second and third year, which falls outside the warranty, but which I'd still consider to be new. It really depends on the product, however.  Automotive warranties are longer for a variety of reasons, but I think they tend to be more reasonable. At least the ones that go to 50k miles and 48 months. Unfortunately, a lot of automakers have shortened their warrantees down to 36k miles and 3 years. I will point out that no way in hell is 50,000 miles normal for a daily driver. That's nearly 137 miles of driving, every single day. According to the US government, the average mileage driven per year is just over 12k miles. That's why warranty periods are set up the way they are and why leases have similar mileage limits.

consumers reports has limited resources. ive had surface 1,2 and now 4. microsofts replacement under warranty policy is seamless and fast. i am very happy with microsoft quality and customer service.

"Earlier today, Consumer Reports announced that it was removing its recommendations for Microsoft's Surface line of devices, citing poor reliability after two years of use." "While it is true that Surface devices in the past have suffered from reliability problems, Microsoft's new Surface products in 2017 have been much better." Have they? If the CR announcement takes two years of use into consideration, you can't really say that 2017 have been much better right of the bat. You don't know what's coming... The Surface Pro could start showing touch input problems or the Laptop could start overheating or whatever. Fact of the matter is, I've seen several articles here and around the internet that cited problems with the Surface Pro 3 and 4 and the Surface Book. I can't really say that CR isn't right.

While I like Microsoft products, I'm slowing looking faith in the company.  I'm on my third Lumia and this one finally doesn't have an issue after a two years. However, in March, I purchased a Surface Pro 4 and already having issue with the screen flickering and a double vision like display issue when watching videos.  I am so sorry, I didn't do my reseach before I purchased, since online there are lots of cases of this situation and Microsoft is yet to address it.  I love MS products, but spending $1400+ and having issues like these is just not right. My commitmment to the company is wearng thin. Unfortunately, thought I purchased the device in March, the manufacturer's warranty expired a few days ago and living in Barbados almost makes it impossible to get it fixed.  No solutions online have worked.  I am frustrated.  

I feel you man. Mine in not even a year old and already was replaced. Warranty expires next month and I'm screwed when (and it is when and not if) something happens...

I don't personally own a Surface product (yet) I will say the article seems somewhat strange.  Its not evaluating a specific product, like the Surface Book, Pro or Laptop but all of the line.  To me that is an extremely inaccurate measurement in stability.  The most accurate survey would be owners of the Surface Pro 3 or lower which would be a full 2 year period with buffer time.   The Surface Book and Pro 4 were released in June of 2015 so there is no 2 year data to base the concern on.  The Surface Laptop was just released this year so how big is the sample size for that device? Although they are independent they are not exempt from skewed tests and surveys.  Even the flip flop on the 6th Gen Intel Macs with the Touchbar was shady when they changed the recommendation 3 weeks later following an update.  If thats the case, you should look at SP3's failure rate post the major FW update this year. Despite their high price tag, Ultrabooks don't appear to be devices you keep longer than 3 years anyways.  Given you can buy an extended warranty from MS, SquareTrade, or Geek Squad i'd conclude if you really want one you should get it.  I personally am looking forward to a 2018 SurfaceBook or Laptop with my next refresh.      

I have has my Surface 3 for a few years now, and it's survived twice as long as my wife's Sony and Toshiba laptop. The Surface has been, and still is solid.

There have been about 7 Surfaces in the house, fro Pro, RT, Pro 3 and just 3. I had one RT die. MS had a new one in my hands in a couple of days. From my experience that's a 15% failure rate. I'm absolutely pleased with the product though, and MS, and wouldn't hesitate to buy another or recommend one. CR may be un-biased, but I think they have been going off half-cocked for quite some time. The cynic in me says that's how you retain readership. I can believe their Apple numbers but when you tell me Acer and Samsung have better numbers than HP, Lenovo and Dell, I'm going to be taking a little salt with that. 

Surprised no one's made the comment that CR is just a bunch of iDroid fanboys that want to make a dent in the Surface's success.

OK, so Microsoft's plan is to bury the head in the sand and pretend the evidence against the reliability and quality control of Surface products doesn't exist. Nice to see we're apparently back to 2006 Microsoft... (And before the crybaby fanboys throw a fit, pointing out the real quality problems every single Surface product has launched with doesn't make the product itself bad. It makes its quality control bad. That's not the same).

Watch out djcbs,  put your raingear on.   The tears will be flowing shortly!   One of my two surface 3s had a couple of issues.  They were quickly resolved however.  but thats a 50% failure rate!   Now,  that 50% means NOTHING.   the number that stikes me as odd,  is that the surface team says they were expecting a 25% failure rate.  Then,  they were happy when it was below that.  WOW.  They expected 1/4 of their devices to have problems.  yowzers!

wwwwwaaaaaaahhhhhhh crybaby fangirls

I am not happy with my SP4. It already was replaced with a refurbished one... Warranty ends next month and I'm screwed when something happens...

If Microsoft wants to get some tips about reusability and quality, they should hear the ex-Nokia employees who are working with them now. I am still using Lumia 720. Even Lumia 1520 performed way better than Lumia 950. Display, battery and performance, everything was better on 1520.

That wouldn't necessarily help MS.  Even with the Nokia phones, they each had their share of problems.  My 900 had a serious problem with the haptic feedback (actually even playing music would do it too) and would forever boot me onto the search page when i was in the middle of doing something.  My 920, as much as I loved it, had problems with the charging port and that part had to be replaced multiple times.  I'm on my second 1520 because the first one ran into issues with the daughterboard and I could no longer use it to do anything related to cellphone data, including making phone calls.  I also ran into the problem with phantom touches that were so widespread, and no, phantom touches are very much a hardware problem, not software like people kept claiming.  Nokia made impressve hardware with cool new features but I can't claim that they did better than MS in the quality control area as our Lumia 640s were more consistant than any of Nokia's flagships.

Same old CR crap, they'll do a U turn in a few weeks just like the did for the Macbook Pro. Stunts like these are just to drum up news and page views for the site. People are way more likely to voice a bad opinion about a product than a good one which is why third party surveys are usually completely skewed. I've got a Surface Pro 4 m3 and it's a brilliant little machine.

It's funny, some of y'all say you've been through 4 of the same gen Surfaces, what in the world are you guys doing to them?? My SP3 was expensive, and I treat it like a baby, and it has been great for over 3 years. I find it hard to believe you can go through so many without it being your fault in some way 

LOL who on earth can believe MS anymore? :))) I'll never buy a surface product. Don't like being tester for MS

This is your last 15 comments 56 min ago LOL who on earth can believe MS anymore? :))) I'll never buy a surface product. Don't like being tester for MS 1 hour ago Nutella's mediocre quality at stage. 21 hours ago No dev is looking forward to anything MS related! Stop dreaming. MS failed miserabily with mobile, simply pathetic, and no... 1 day ago :)))) lol another big one bites the dust. Fanboys can dream on however...Pathetic! 2 days ago The problem Jason, with windows 10 mobile, was that it had not succeed because of MS itself. You cannot expect a platform... 3 days ago Maybe, just maybe after this article, fanboys will stop with their pathetic delusions! Win10mo is DEAD!! nothing more than... 4 days ago that no one will buy...you fanboy miss the point again and again....and again! USers, no matter how rich or poor they are,... 4 days ago LOL You all expect stuff from MS, and this pathetic win10mobile isn't even able to work with this website...Edge browser..... 4 days ago Well, users bought the Lumia 930, 1520, 1020 when they were launched at pretty high prices, but back then WP8/8.1 was at... 4 days ago What apps?? LOL..stop dreaming again. 4 days ago If those were the phones Nutella was reffering to, :)) it's clear MS has absolutely no clue about mobile phones. Their... 4 days ago @dalydose MS has failed everytime! So no matter how much their mithycal device will cost, unless it has APPS!!!! MOBILE... 4 days ago If users do pay up 1000$ for an iphone or a Samsung, it does not mean they will pay up the same for a surface phone! When... 4 days ago :))) another article from the future. MS continues to be the same dumb company  over and over again. Who knows in 10-15... 4 days ago :)) who the F cares about another device running a dead OS?? besides fanboys LOL, have you ever owned a Surface product?

Thanks for sharing that. I have to chuckle and shake my head when I see people who have nothing but negative things to say.

STALKER MUCH?   Nope..just a crybaby fangirl.

Ha ha ha....love those fangirl downvotes whiners!!!!

Ms deliver good products, good service. but i think is how we handle the it.. I have both my ms products works fine some are old and still looks and function good..

It would be really strange if he said that he agrees with the report. 

SP4 (i5) and Surface Book (i7) owner here... No issues with either so far!

WIthout seeing the actual data they claim to have I would make the assumption that the conclusions bypass the usual user error mistakes in installation and general day to day use. Also it would bypass the fact that there maybe disgruntled Surface RT users. The CR article seems to shove everything onto one pile which at best contaminates the results. Being a consumer oriented organisatio they tend to soeak to their target audience preference and as such be biased by default. It's simply easier to blame MSFT than it is to actually  disect the data and present 'and this part is because people make mistakes' results.

I assume they use the same criteria for all manufacturers. It is a level playing field.

We deployed over 50 Surface Pros in our company, from the Pro 2 to the 4 and have had no issues with the products. I personally updated the Pro2 to Win10 and the unit still performs exceptionally for it's age(the hardware is in good shape too). The only issues we have faced have been user related where the units have been damaged and in these situations MS' support has been impeccably as they replaced all damaged units for free with 5days(in UK so no MS store). So from my experience i have to disagree with that report.

Same report goes onto recommend Apple products... conspiracy

I wish my three would die so I would have an excuse to get a new one. That said my 3 pro had been a most excellent little machine.

Consumer report probably got paid by a competitor to write their report this way. Although I also believe many average users put up with issues on their devices without reporting them. I see this so often, even with my close friends and family and I work in IT. It normally goes on till I noticed the issue myself and then tell them to report it and even then they don't always do it. And I'm not talking about software related issues.

I'm SO concerned over the Consumer Reports assessment that I'm going to buy a fifth-gen Surface Pro as soon as the prices come down a bit.  My SP3 still works like a charm and so does my wife's SP4.

MS should consider an environment friendlier eco system. Something like if it breaks, one can fix. At the moment if it breaks, replace it. That is how I see the "surface reliability" comment.  It is nice to have a OEM warranty. But, how can a business rely on equipments that are not fixable? 

I have Surface Pro 4 i7 since last year.. and until now battery health is still great! Its amazing still stand at least 5 hours for heavy program running (Visual Studio, SQL Server, Camtasia, Photoshop, etc)

Unfortunetally, I have had personal experience with issues on my Surface devices.  Surface Pro 2: was my first Surface device, generally buggy, got better with time, overall I didn't care too much Surface Pro 3: ghost touches, inconsistent battery life, issues with waking up from sleep Surface Pro 4: the most annoying issue so far - the touch screen / pen digitezer / keyboard cover "freezes", making it impossible to save work - the only way to fix this is to do a hard restart by a long press of a power button PS: Please, instead of saying that I am stupid, help me actually solve this problem.     

I have been taking a number of consumer companies with a pinch of salt for a while. For the UK I guess Which is considered one of the bigger players and I generally find I do not agree with the insights for things I understand which makes me think for things I do not understand how reliable are they. So historically we had around 5 of the original Surface Pros and Similarly 5 RT devices these are first generation I think and this is going back I cannot recall anything other than user style issues. Which is interesting as these new form factors did generate a number of specific issues unique to this form factor in my opinion. We continue to purchase the Surface genre over the years and now have a number of generations and increasingly Surface Books and staff in general want them which is not something I would say for the traditional Lenovo\IBM laptops which whilst pretty reliable and more than capable are lets be honest just black boxes. One thing I will say though is issues with the Surface Book and docking stations was a problem and that was largely down to incorrect cables\monitor compatibility\DPI scaling and some early issues with the docking stations and to a lesser degree this also affected the Surface Pros we had but it was to a lesser degree. In fact the docking stations and screen recognition and the occasional non recognition of peripherals is probably the biggest problem I could say I have seen regularly. As for hardware faults I see nothing to indicate its worse than its competition in my case HP and Lenovo but more to say its better. I think like others have said the form factor and the connecting of peripherals can be an issue for the less experienced.

I have the surace 3 (non-pro) and it is really slow, and it has that bug where the touch can get stuck at a certain pixel if i touch it :/! It worked great in college, but the atom cpu werent strong enough for me! (especially when it has trouble running fb at edge) Since i got a new PC with Ryzen cpu and 16 gb ram have made me more willing to reinstall the surface. Its beautiful computers and not filled with bloatware, so thats what i like with the surface line. 

Anecdotally, between 2 surface rts, an rt 2, and now a surface book, as well as other friends' surfaces, I've yet to see or hear of a hardware/physical issue. Perhaps surprisingly, it's the rts that had 0 issues, and they've been battered and USED (my wife's rt2 has honest to goodness dents in it, and the other rt is being used by my tech illiterate folks). Software wise, rt is dead and buried, and the surface book every once in a while has the squirrely sleep/screen doesn't turn on/has to be hard rebooted issue... but nothing hardware-wise. The only issue that comes to mind is my rt's microSD card slot wouldn't keep the card in. Meanwhile, I've seen other laptops have to be replaced thrice over before finding one that isn't all goofed up. Is there a chance that surface is becoming the "kleenex" of pc laptops? That people who took the quiz were people with shoddy laptops and ultraportables, maybe even a knockoff "SerVase" laptop that were like "yah, these are horrible"? 25% does sound really high...

here's the satisfaction rate for consumer reports. https://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/consumer_reports.htm

LOL now that's funny. CR scores 1/5 stars ;D

I have a Surface Pro 3 and it's an amazing device, I've had ZERO as in no problems from day 1 with it. Obviously the only people who responded to their reliability questions were ones with issues as from everyone I know who has a Surface, they are just like me, great device with no issues.

Consumer Reports has been an Apple shill for many years now. I note they NEVER rate any Apple products poorly, even though a few of them truly suck. They know who their subscription demographic is and they cater to their whims.

My experience with it Surface devices at home and the ones I support at work is that Cosumer Reports is right. They are still considered good at work but just a little quirky at times.

Sorry can you repeat that?

The person is likely still trying to use the Windows Central app for commening - which is utterly broken.

I'm on my second Surface device in 4 years and both have been flawless, the Surface is a beautiful bit of kit. Getting really tired of media generated public misconceptions which are killing off perfectly good products. Like when the BBC summed up the Lumia 1020 camera as "not as good as a DSLR", can you imagine how they'd have promoted it if Apple came up with a 41MP camera?

My experience with it Surface devices at home and the ones I support at work is that Cosumer Reports is right. They are still considered good at work but just a little quirky at times.

My experience with it Surface devices at home and the ones I support at work is that Cosumer Reports is right. They are still considered good at work but just a little quirky at times.

My experience with it Surface devices at home and the ones I support at work is that Cosumer Reports is right. They are still considered good at work but just a little quirky at times.

My experience with it Surface devices at home and the ones I support at work is that Cosumer Reports is right. They are still considered good at work but just a little quirky at times.

The Surface Tablet/Laptop to me is fabulous device. Even the clunky Surface  Pro-1 which had it's faults like lousy battery life and a small screen showed how a premiun Tablet computer should be made. The Surface Pro 3 Tablet design got it right. From then sales of Surface pro Tablets went to the billion dollar business level. Sooner or later I am going to buy one. I read consimers reports from time to time but they are not what I read to get a tech advice on what to buy. I buy what I like. I like Windows smart phones and have 2 of them and am waiting till 2018 for the next one with the Andromeda Windows 10 OS running it.   

Microsoft's response fails to address the core of CR's focus. CR has stated that their results are based on their surveys to subscribers. Microsoft has responded with an Apples to Oranges comparison. CR is using freezing and screen response as examples of problems. Neither of these is likely to result in the return of a product, or even repair. Microsoft is talking about defect rates and returns. There have been numerous fixes to Surfaces, in the form of firmware updates. Battery problems, WiFi problems, etc. I own a Surface 3, had a Surface 2, and also own a Dell XPS 13, and Apple MacBook/MacBook Pro. By far, I've had more issues with the Surface than I have with the others. Regardles of the opinions of CR's methodology, I don't think that the view that the Surface is the best device ever is a realistic view.

Standard response..  Any company who was told their proudcts are "Problem" items would do anything to defend their name.

My experience with Surface Pro 3 is that the first one died after 2 1/3 years (it wouldn't turn on). Microsoft replaced it even though my extended warranttee had expired. The replacement has been reliable. The most frustrating thing with the devices has been keyboard reliability. Sometimes you just have to disconnect and reconnect the keyboard for it to work. This is especially true of the fingerpring reader on my SP4 keyboard attached to my SP3. The reader is sometimes non responsive, but a disconnect, reconnect of the keyboard makes it work.  I love the form factor and I'm technical user so I'm willing and able to work through the annoyances. But for many users they may view the annoyances as intolerable. I do think Microsoft needs to focus more on driver reliability, it seems every new product release suffers from a major issue that needs a software fix for.  

Lets look at what CR actually said. First, they discuss the device with very positive terms about the technology, and convenience. Frankly they like the device. Then they did a survey of TABLETS ... and people who owned them were asked to rate several points of interest to CONSUMERS ( not necessarily people who are technically focused ). Based on the reports, they found about 25% of those who responded, and selected Surface products to evaluate, have experienced difficulties. Based on their standards ( which apply to everything they review ), this was too high to continue the "recommended" checkmark. The article doesn't say "don't buy". It doesn't brag about other systems. It simply points out that their audience had a high rate of problems with these devices. As one who has invested in 5 Surface devices ( Book, Surface 3, and Surface 3/4 Pro models ), I can echo these concerns. Do I use a Surface ? Yes. Do I recommend it to my clients ? Sure, but with a clear explanation of what they might encounter. Do I prefer the Surface over other options ? Yes. Does the Surface line have problems? Absolutely. Have I communicated these with Microsoft ? Yep - including a recent interaction with Global Escalations for over two months only to have an unresolved problem with the dock ( DVI issues ...persisted through 3 docks, including one sent from MSFT directly with the latest firmware ). Are the problems reproducible ? Yes. Now I've got 35 years of experience with Microsoft operating systems, and PCs. I can resolve problems pretty quickly if at all possible. However, CR has an audience of general consumers who generally do not have IT departments or other venues for assistance. They have to rely on the phone in support at MSFT which can be a disaster. ( Don't trust me on this ... read the various MSFT help sites, and count the number of "me too" responses, or the number of questions that are NEVER answered ). For these people, they get annoyed, but they may not return a product. When they see the survey, they respond honestly about their personal experience. Rather than get defensive, it would be nice, in my opinion, if the community, and MSFT, would say "Wow ... lets see what is going on, and how we can fix it." Instead, we get the quick defense. My point is simple. CR presented a valid finding, and it would be far better to acknowledge that perhaps MSFT should address issues important to consumers if that is the market they want to engage.

I can't remember the last time I read a review by consumer reports. Probably the last time was in the 80's. Who cares?

Surface Pro 3, nary a problem. Both my and my wife's Surface Pro 4's (both for personal use), again, nary a problem. My Surface Book, however, which I've had since December 2015 has been another story. I was not a contributor to the CR report but my experience has been similar to what they've reported. Microsoft has been absolutely no help - either online or at their store in San Francisco. I continue to have my screens blank periodically for two to three seconds. The SB is an i7-6600 with 16GM RAM. All firmware updates to both the laptop and the Surface Dock to which the two monitors (neither is 4K and both listed as approved on the MS site) are attached with high-end mini-DP to DP cables. I've tried every solution offered that I've been able to find. And you would not believe my inventory of DP and HDMI cables - several of them active.

I've had many issues with my SP4 i7 edition, but during the last 1½ years by far most of them have been fixed, only the ones remains which are periodic and hard to tell if it is an odd glitch or a real bug. While I am now satisfied with my SP4 Pro i7, and I use it daily for work and play. However, I will not dare purchase another Surface Pro product, before I hear 0 major bugs at launch. By 2019 that should be doable. Make no mistake, I LOVE the Surface line, but due to less than stellar support i experienced in Denmark, I do not dare just taking a faithful jump into another Surface Pro product.