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Consumer Reports has revoked its recommendation of Microsoft Surface laptops and tablets due to poor reliability compared to other brands, as reported by its subscribers:
Consumer Reports is removing its "recommended" designation from four Microsoft laptops and cannot recommend any other Microsoft laptops or tablets because of poor predicted reliability in comparison with most other brands.
To judge reliability, Consumer Reports surveys its subscribers about the products they own and use. New studies conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center estimate that 25 percent of Microsoft laptops and tablets will present their owners with problems by the end of the second year of ownership.
Microsoft objects:
"Microsoft's real-world return and support rates for past models differ significantly from Consumer Reports' breakage predictability," Microsoft said in an emailed statement. "We don't believe these findings accurately reflect Surface owners' true experiences or capture the performance and reliability improvements made with every Surface generation."
Also at CNN, CNBC, and Reuters.
Update: Microsoft blog post.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @04:07PM (2 children)
I suck the squirrels off until they blow a load into my throat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @04:43PM
I find it disturbing that I have a relevant link [vgcats.com] for you.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 11 2017, @05:17PM
Found the Surface owner!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @04:13PM (3 children)
They should have pulled it for being a turd of a product long ago. No stability like a laptop, no app support like a tablet, and no LTE service to go beyond wifi easily. Just a turd.
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Friday August 11 2017, @04:37PM (2 children)
They should have pulled it for being a turd of a product long ago.
To be more specific, it is an unrepairable turd [ifixit.com] of a product. And that's just counting the hardware, not even looking at the Vista10 malware that comes pre-installed.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:31AM (1 child)
You stopped short. I'll expand on this:
How Consumer Reports ever gave this piece of junk a recommendation in the first place should be the big question here.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday August 12 2017, @04:58AM
In other works: just like Mac Book Pro.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1) by crafoo on Friday August 11 2017, @04:34PM (4 children)
25% after 2 years - that's really quite bad. I have a Surface Pro 4 for about that long. Other than Windows 10 being absolute trash, haven't had any real issues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @05:48PM (3 children)
I have to wonder if the customers can distinguish between the OS being trash, and the device itself being trash. Though, the line is definitely blurred here - they shove firmware updates through WU and many features are only really supported on surfaces.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @05:58PM (1 child)
To the average consumer I don't think they perceive a difference. And since this device has no user-serviceable parts, and cannot have the OS replaced, the hardware and OS are tied together in such a way that it doesn't really matter which one is the bigger problem.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday August 12 2017, @02:36AM
Actually, it appears that after all the drama about insisting all tablets be locked, Microsoft itself decreed the Surface line to be laptops and thus eligible.
Have a look at this random link [microsoft.com] to a discussion at Microsoft's own forum about whether dual booting voids the warranty by counting as "internal tampering" or not. I have seen other online resources that imply you can even disable secure boot on various Surface models like on many laptops. There are pages devoted to sorting out the details of various distros running on various specific Surfaces so apparently it is a "thing" to upgrade a Surface. Holy Hell, were the GNOMEs right when they built a tablet OS? I always laughed at them that "nice idea, too bad there ain't going to be any unlocked tablet hardware." Joke is on me if the exception is the Microsoft Surface. Who said the Universe lacks a sense of humor?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Friday August 11 2017, @06:01PM
If other devices it is compared to also have Windows installed but have better reliability scores, it does not make a difference.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @05:15PM
Linux is the best of all time and if you use Microsoft then you an old turd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @05:22PM (3 children)
CR says that they don't accept free product, but I always found their tech reviews to be naive and useless - the blind leading the blind. I suspect that is the same when they cover material I am blind in, like cars.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 11 2017, @06:57PM (2 children)
CR was legit back in the day. But organizations sell out. Whether or not they did I can't say, haven't read them in years.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday August 11 2017, @07:47PM
As far as I can tell, they have not sold out their integrity. And lets be realistic, if they sold out they would ignore consumer's feedback and accept money to agree with (in this case) Microsoft's explanation.
My biggest dealing with them is I frequent their consumer related news site, https://consumerist.com/ [consumerist.com]
I have signed up for their bi-weekly news letter, occasionally (not frequent) they do send out requests for donations to keep them going.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @07:48PM
You have to look at what staff they employ. They have multiple, and I mean multiple, experts in cars, but many of their experts in other places have fled and many that are left are either J-school grads or are measured in years (instead of decades). Plus, they have only so much time to test everything. Plus, the top has gotten bigger and bigger salaries, while making bigger and bigger mistakes, which leads to brain drain.
I think a perfect example is the article here: https://www.consumerreports.org/solar-panels/doing-the-math-on-teslas-solar-roof/ [consumerreports.org] where they reprinted a slightly updated article they originally printed less that 6 months ago. The piece is complete crap. They basically just took Tesla's word for it and barely compared it to a traditional system, not that you could since the real numbers aren't out from Tesla yet.
http://stateofthenet.net/2016/02/22-more-experts-have-fled-horrific-leadership-at-consumer-reports/ [stateofthenet.net]
http://www.alternet.org/media/exposed-behind-brain-drain-consumer-reports [alternet.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by maxwell demon on Friday August 11 2017, @06:31PM (2 children)
So they say, problems with the device did surface? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 11 2017, @07:01PM (1 child)
I've said this before here, so somebody mod me redundant. But when the surface commercials played during NFL games, they would depict a high-yellow Black man with a nice suburban single-story home requiring the assistance of his wife and kids to use it, and then they would all laugh, and that was supposed to be a light-hearted joke or something that made you feel warm and fuzzy inside.
I can only imagine the sharks laughing as they conceptualized and recorded the commercial: "We're calling these knuckle-draggers morons to their faces and they're still buying our shit!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @09:59PM
You are sooooo off the mark. But hey, I'm responding to an EF post so I obviously have mental issues of my own...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @08:59PM
Welp I guess that pretty much destroys any creditability they might have had