My good/bad experiences with the Surface / wont be getting Surface 3

[macmee]

I still like my Surface Pro 2, but this is really getting silly. I'll start off saying the things I really love about my Surface, because there are some good qualities that I really think are worth mentioning:

The (really) good

1. Beautiful 1080 Screen
2. Amazing stylus
3. Full Windows on awesome specs
4. Magnetic charger
5. Even Metro IE utterly destroys iOS Safari and Chrome on Android
6. Free 250GB on SkyDrive is great, web office is decent
7. Battery life on the SP2 is surprisingly long, much improved from the SP1

The bad

1. WHY IN GODS NAME ARE URLS (http://...) IN THE MAIL APP NOT CLICKABLE???? WHY???
2. It takes far too long to boot out of sleep mode, and before you disagree, OS X does it instantly. And even when you factor in the different hardware and battery capacity, OS X is still better for battery life
3. We paid $1000+ for these tablets and they don't come with Office? Not even Office Starter or Student?
4. Why isn't there a place on the tablet to store the stylus?
5. There are many system utility applications that shipped *with* windows that are not optimized for high DPI displays, thus, they we get to choose if we want them to render blurry, or render tiny

The very very bad

1. Microsoft clumsily releases a botched firmware update that impacts my device (reboots every 10 minutes, very cool)
1. Around the same time we learn that our broken 2 month old device has now been replaced with a better model anyway...
3. Instead of immediately fixing the firmware, they abandon their users FOR ONE MONTH AND COUNTING
4. The Touch or Type Cover 2 wasn't available in the entire Province of Nova Scotia, Canada for WEEKS after the Surface came out
5. upon waiting weeks, and then even longer for shipping ACROSS THE ENTIRE USA AND CANADA, my touch cover 2 was defective
6. There's a completely stupid bug where sometimes the on screen keyboard simply wont pop up automatically in METRO apps until you reboot. This bug has been out since Windows 8 was released and STILL ISNT FIXED...

Love the Surface, hate the Company

We throw $1300 at Microsoft and we got tablet that has good battery life, a great stylus and PISS POOR GOD AWFUL DISASTROUS stability and support from Microsoft.

I generally like my Surface more than my iPad, and the iPad does less, but atleast the iPad quite literally just works. Apple has never screwed me in the past like Microsoft has screwed us in the present.

Reparation for the Firmware disaster

Another semi-blow is that I saw folks getting $30 Microsoft Store coupons just for doing trivial things like going to a MS store and complimenting Microsoft. The firmware situation is unprofessional and simply shocking. Especially because of the botched firmware update I am essentially sitting here with a paper weight comprised of a defective keyboard cover and dysfunctional tablet.

Point blank here everything has gone to hell and to make up for it I want Microsoft to give me us free stuff. Heck, why not give those effected by the firmware update a $50 coupon for the Windows Store. This is an excellent offer because:

1. It demonstrates that they acknowledge and are sorry for breaking our precious toys and then letting us sulk around in sadness for over a month
2. It's generally good publicity for the Windows Store, Microsoft and the Surface
3. It will attract new developers to the Windows Store
4. It will promote the already existing commercial software in the Windows Store

They should also give current Surface Pro 2 owners either a free version of Microsoft Office or a discount for a cover because they sold us a tablet and then made it outdated after 2 months. Its within their right to do so but its really crappy to do this, especially when we spend upwards of $1,000 investing in their product.

 

[leeshor]

While I see your points, many of those same complaints and concerns have been brought up by non Surface users. The Surface and Microsoft are not alone on at least half of your list. At least there WERE some good things.

 

[macmee]

While I see your points, many of those same complaints and concerns have been brought up by non Surface users. The Surface and Microsoft are not alone on at least half of your list. At least there WERE some good things.

Agreed, some of what I said could be applied to oddities of Windows 8 in general. I'm afraid though that the broken keyboard and the firmware fiasco are what are damaging my experience with the Surface the most

 

[daniielrp]

The bad

1. WHY IN GODS NAME ARE LINKS IN THE OUTLOOK APP NOT CLICKABLE???? WHY???
2. It takes far too long to boot out of sleep mode, and before you disagree, OS X does it instantly. And even when you factor in the different hardware and battery capacity, OS X is still better for battery life
3. We paid $1000+ for these tablets and they don't come with Office? Not even Office Starter or Student?
4. Why isn't there a place on the tablet to store the stylus?
5. There are many system utility applications that shipped *with* windows that are not optimized for high DPI displays, thus, they we get to choose if we want them to render blurry, or render tiny

The very very bad

1. Microsoft clumsily releases a botched firmware update that impacts my device (reboots every 10 minutes, very cool)
1. Around the same time we learn that our broken 2 month old device has now been replaced with a better model anyway...
3. Instead of immediately fixing the firmware, they abandon their users FOR ONE MONTH AND COUNTING
4. The Touch or Type Cover 2 wasn't available in the entire Province of Nova Scotia, Canada for WEEKS after the Surface came out
5. upon waiting weeks, and then even longer for shipping ACROSS THE ENTIRE USA AND CANADA, my touch cover 2 was defective
6. There's a completely stupid bug where sometimes the on screen keyboard simply wont pop up automatically in METRO apps until you reboot. This bug has been out since Windows 8 was released and STILL ISNT FIXED...

1. Outlook app? You mean the Mail app? Links click fine for me on that.
2. Fair point.
3. No Windows PC comes with Office, (except RT), the cost of the PC is irrelevant.
4. The Stylus sticks onto the charging port with the magnetic connector.
5. You can disable DPI scaling for these apps so that appear fine. Not the best solution, but it works.

1. "Impacts your device" - not every device.
1. I don't feel my device is out-dated, do you? Would those extra 300mhz really make much difference?
3. Fair point.
4. Fair Point, the accessories lack of availability outside the US infuriates me.
5. Bad luck?
6. Fair point.

I'll admit yes there are a few things to dislike, but I could come up with just as many things about the iPad too.

 

[macmee]

1. Outlook app? You mean the Mail app? Links click fine for me on that.
2. Fair point.
3. No Windows PC comes with Office, (except RT), the cost of the PC is irrelevant.
4. The Stylus sticks onto the charging port with the magnetic connector.
5. You can disable DPI scaling for these apps so that appear fine. Not the best solution, but it works.

1. "Impacts your device" - not every device.
1. I don't feel my device is out-dated, do you? Would those extra 300mhz really make much difference?
3. Fair point.
4. Fair Point, the accessories lack of availability outside the US infuriates me.
5. Bad luck?
6. Fair point.

I'll admit yes there are a few things to dislike, but I could come up with just as many things about the iPad too.

1. My bad-- I meant that if you have a url http://google.com for instance, it is not clickable (even vBulletin makes it clickable, I've made it non-clickable to the left so you can see what I mean - annoying!)
3. The lesser RT tables come with office, why not the more expensive Pro tablets?
4. That's not reliable at all, it falls off with even minimal prodding
5. Then the apps are very tiny and not friendly whatsoever. Microsoft should have made the effort to make Windows actually nice on high DPI since they're selling products with it

1. My device and many, it shouldn't of happened regardless, there should have been proper testing
5. Incredibly so, and my bad luck seems to be multiplying with the firmware problems too

I'll admit yes there are a few things to dislike, but I could come up with just as many things about the iPad too.

So can I, and I did so in my original post:

I generally like my Surface more than my iPad, and the iPad does less

 

[leeshor]

Actually, with the exception of your Windows specific comments I have seen the same complaints on, (mostly Android), tablet and phone forums and most of the popular companies you can think of, Samsung, ASUS, Motorola and the list goers on. I'm not even talking about Windows 8 area.

The frustrations extend far beyond just one company and/or product.

 

[macmee]

Actually, with the exception of your Windows specific comments I have seen the same complaints on, (mostly Android), tablet and phone forums and most of the popular companies you can think of, Samsung, ASUS, Motorola and the list goers on. I'm not even talking about Windows 8 area.

The frustrations extend far beyond just one company and/or product.

I'm not sure you could find me a $1,300 Android tablet with a 1 month and going broken firmware, stylus placement issues and troubles with the cover keyboard

I could find you cheap Android tablets that have fantastic build qualities like the Nexus 7, tablets that have proper places to hold the stylus such as the Galaxy lineup, and Android tablets that have had excellent software support from their manufactures such as the ASUS Transformer lineup, and all these tablets are much cheaper than the Surface.

But even if we were to ignore that Android is cheaper, and that a lot of Android tablets actually solve several problems I've encountered, I hardly think the old "well X is also bad so it doesn't matter" is a valid justification here. Microsoft isn't Apple or Google, Microsoft is Microsoft, and these frustrations of mine relate to Microsoft and no other company or product. Microsoft is the cause of these problems and Microsoft is responsible for fixing them.

 

[MickeyLittle]

But the big difference between an Asus Transformer and a Surface Pro 2 is about $700 and for $700 we should expect more! What's the old saying; you get what you pay for?

 

[macmee]

But the big difference between an Asus Transformer and a Surface Pro 2 is about $700 and for $700 we should expect more! What's the old saying; you get what you pay for?

Quite right!

 

[leeshor]

Some of the time..

 

[MickeyLittle]

Some of the time..

You know me better than that sir. I'm "quite right" most if not all of the time. Just ask my wife! On 2nd thought.......:cry:

 

[macmee]

Some of the time..

Hah, I actually think what you get for the price of an Nexus 7 is actually amazing, Microsoft should take notes!