‘Surface Book and Pro 4 may be the reason for a negative reliability report’
Microsoft follower Paul Thurrot has an internal memo from the company, in which it elaborates on the recent Consumer Reports reliability report. Microsoft lists statistics on the Surface Book and the Pro 4, which show that these have been returned the most often.
Microsoft statistics show that the two devices were most often returned within 90 days of their launch. The Surface Pro 4 has a maximum percentage of 15 percent and the Surface Book has a maximum of more than 16 percent. According to Thurrot, these numbers strongly influenced the US Consumer Reports report, which recently reported that a quarter of Surface products will have problems within two years.
Microsoft refers to the issues surrounding the release of the devices in the memo as ‘some quality issues’. For example, users reported experiencing screen issues. According to Thurrot, Microsoft was very slow to respond to these reports at the time. In the document, Microsoft’s Panos Panay writes that much work has subsequently been done to solve the problems, but that this is not reflected in the statistics of Consumer Reports. He also suggests that the organization has drawn the definition of ‘a problem’ too broadly.
Regarding the problems with the Surface Book and the Pro 4, Thurrot writes that he recently heard a new statement from a source within Microsoft. So far, Microsoft knows the shortcomings of Intel’s Skylake processors, but according to the source, it was the Redmond company’s own drivers that caused problems. CEO Satya Nadella would also not have been aware of this, because he asked Lenovo whether it also had so many problems with the CPUs. Lenovo said it didn’t know anything at the time.
Another consequence of this would have been that Microsoft moved more progressive products into long-term planning and came out with the Surface Laptop and the new Surface Pro instead.
In the memo, Panay goes on to say that Microsoft has collected data and plans to release it soon, most likely in a more comprehensive response to the Consumer Reports report.
Image via thurrot.com