“Within hours of Microsoft’s new Surface Book landing in the hands of customers I began seeing reports of serious bugs and issues affecting Microsoft’s new flagship device,” Adrian Kingsley-Hughes reports for ZDNet.
“There is no shortage of tales of woe. And the bugs are many and varied, and solutions for most of these – other than wait or send the machine back to Microsoft for replacement or refund – are thin on the ground,” Kingsley-Hughes reports. “Here are some of the issues affecting the Surface Book as reported by new owners: Dead on arrival (or badly limping on arrival) Surface Books; Random crashes and lockups; Random display driver errors displayed every 10 to 20 minutes; Random trackpad freezes…”
“For some of those who put down a few thousand dollars of their hard-earned cash to be one of the first to own a Surface Book, the experience has been far from smooth,” Kingsley-Hughes reports. “Several people have asked me whether I’m considering buying a Surface Book since I’m in the market for a mobile Windows-based system for a number of projects I have on the go. The answer is ‘no…'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The best “mobile Windows-based system” on the planet is an Apple MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro. Only Apple can offer superior hardware that runs all the world’s software, not just limited to the subset of Windows dreck.
Microsoft’s Surface Book is for those who populate the left side of the Bell Curve. They deserve their “tales of woe,” having stupidly consigned themselves to inferior wares from a badly beaten company.
Same problem Ford had with Microsoft software. I have to admit, Microsoft is consistent, consistently bad.
Lovin it
Ford “Sink” from Microsoft
WOW
I just bought a new fully loaded Kia Soul and it has Microsoft UVO Infotainment software and I absolutely hate it. The GPS is so completely unintuitive that it can’t even take me home when I have loaded my home address in it. Instead, it tries to take me to a funeral home in Michigan (and I live on the west coast).
Microsoft can’t even pour water out of a gumboot with the directions printed on the bottom of the heel.
Yet MSFT goes up while APPL goes down.
Yes–again…for the life of me the market discrepancies/incongruities completely befuddles. I guess the “issues” have morphed into being “features.”
When those hinges start crushing in backpacks you will have even more complaints – just not structurally sound design.
I was thinking the same thing. There is no way these are going to hold up to normal wear and tear. No way in hell.
I wonder why the reviewers didn’t have these issues. Could they have been paid to give this thing a good review?
I watched last weeks Verge podcast where two of their reviewers seemed eager to like it, even as they themselves admitted to issues and returning them various times. They chocked it up to them being “pre-production” versions that would get fixed before release, but there is certainly a wish among reviewers to see MS succeed with it.
I saw that same thing. They are after Microsoft ad dollars. Pathetic.
If it turns out to be a serious problem with the SurfaceBooks, they are going to regret going on that podcast and admitting to recommending them in their reviews while fully knowing they were junk.
Funny how Amazon has a problem with “fake” book reviews fooling customers out of their hard earned money, when “real” reviews are just as bad or worse.
At the risk of sounding naive, what’s wrong with wanting Microsoft to have a good, successful product? They’re a huge American company, providing jobs and tax revenue, advancing tech, and keeping the heat on other companies (Apple included) to keep competing.
If MS makes a flawed, inferior, or insufficient product, by all means, don’t buy it. I haven’t bought any personal Microsoft kit in many years now. But I certainly *want* MS (and Google and Samsung and everybody) to make great products that sell well. And if/when they somehow figure out how to make a better product than Apple, I’ll buy it.
Won’t you?
The reviewers had problems, big problems and down played them. X-Box all over again.
Nothing wrong with wanting MS to succeed, we need strong competition. What I was commenting on is the reporting. Part of being a reviewer is credibility and offering potential customers with good advice.
This is the typical patronising nonsense you would expect from a seasoned IT doofus. It’s all about job preservation. Never forget that when dealing with these unemployable cretins.
The truth about MS, and the real problem they are facing is that their platform is not ever going to grow again. OEMs gave up and developers gave up on them so they are taking it upon themselves because they have to.
Legacy apps and enterprise apps will be fine for now, but there is a dead end. Developers are focused on Android and iOS. MS backed themselves into a corner and now they face a slow death. MS for all intents and purposes is a walking dead and they know that. They are furiously trying to to tread water while swirling down the drain.
Sad but true.
At least MSFT seems to have licked the Blue Screen of Death . . . .
But MS copied the brown smear of Zune crap.
I thought these types of issues were Msft’s ‘secret sauce’ that makes their fans love it so much?
let me elaborate, some years ago during Age of Vista I was debating online with a Msft devotee. He said he ‘appreciated’ Windows problems because it made him a ‘stronger’ computer user (unlike me a mac dope). He said BECAUSE of Windows problems he knew how to debug, defray, anti virus etc his computer and he was ‘prepared’ unlike ‘idiot’ Mac users (who have ‘no problems’). he said spending one or two hours doing such things every week and generally fixing his machine so that it can run was healthy exercise… etc.
So I guess Msft is just ‘con’-tinuing to give it’s fans what they want. Hey they don’t want their customers to die of shock if they changed all of sudden right?
——-
LOL , years later me happy Mac user is still laughing at the dunce I debated with. I think he STILL doesn’t get it….
“I thought these types of issues were Msft’s ‘secret sauce’ that makes their fans love it so much?”
I think you’re right, and your theory sounds really close to my own. Because MS always makes even the simplest tasks difficult, and cumbersome, Windows sufferers feel like freakin’ geniuses for being able to get anything done.
It really just delusional, and sad.
Stockholme Syndrome.
Most Windows users have no choice, as it is still the preferred OS of businesses for the desktop.
You guys got it all wrong! Those aren’t bugs or issues; they’re features!🖖😀⌚️
The docking screen/hinge mechanism looks like a nightmare with returns. A seriously costly and obvious mistake.
There is no way this is not going to be a long term issue. From as far away as I am from ever touching one , it looks so obviously flawed from a “what could possibly go wrong?” perspective. I can’t imagine anyone at MS not shaking in their boots just looking at the thing in terms of liabilities.
Sure it’s cool looking! But who in their right mind would ship such a disaster waiting to happen? SMH
A few years back there was a group both within and outside Apple pushing for Apple to implement a variation on this type of hinge for the MacBook Air — one that could possibly have allowed the hinge to rotate a true 180 degrees.
I’m glad Apple never went that way. It has a lot of wow, but virtually no substance.
Wallstreet will reward Microsloth for this failure. Guaranteed! LOL…
All of WallStreet? Every single investment firm? Every stock broker? Every last one? That kind of thinking, if it were applied to race, would be called “racism”.
Stockholm syndrome.
A big reason for buying a notebook is portability. The binder-style hinge adds asymmetrical bulk that will cause pressure points and imbalances during transport that will create additional wear and stress on the device.
This reminds of Microsoft choosing the ribbon interface when the notebook trend was going with widescreen monitors making document viewing even smaller or awkwardly wide.
These are the kind of UX dissonances that will continue detract from the user experience and usefulness. Unfortunately, they seem to inspire an entire industry that goes off the same UX cliff.
Hardware is hard. Industrial Design is hard. The tech press can give Panos Panay all the puff pieces Microsoft wants but a crap product is a crap product.
Exactly. They raved about his keynote performance while I shaked my head because he looked and acted like a coked up used car salesman.
Anyone is surprised by this?
Dead on arrival (or badly limping on arrival) Surface Books; Random crashes and lockups; Random display driver errors displayed every 10 to 20 minutes; Random trackpad freezes…”
We’re talking about Microsoft. Of course this is what you get!
“For some of those who put down a few thousand dollars of their hard-earned cash to be one of the first to own a Surface Book…”
Seriously? Such people exist?
——RM
45 day return period. We’ll know more by then.
-Sent from my Surface Book
Yes, I have it on good authority that such people do exist–all two or three of them.
Will this fiasco finally mean plenty of traffic in MS stores?
…. or not 🙂
Most excellent snark! Waves of customers returning the defective junk to the stores!
surprisingly disappointing was WIRED mag’s premature review of the Surface Book 2015-10-21 as it claimed Microdough got Surface Book right as the best laptop ever (hopefully they meant within Msft or PC but not overall brands ; )
unexpected from serious mag Wired – hope their journalists/reporters are not bribable too, by interest groups or perks http://www.wired.com/2015/10/review-microsoft-surface-book/?mbid=nl_102115
Flickering screens turn Microsoft Surface Books into Microsoft Surface paperweights
So Microsoft… 😛