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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.   

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

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. 

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.

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 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)

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'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.

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 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.

Same report goes onto recommend Apple products... conspiracy

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.

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.

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

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

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..

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

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 

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.

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.

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...

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).

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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. 

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...

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.  

Somebody get Keemstar