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Mystery Screen Cracking

Ryan Paul

New Member
Hey all. First post here, and all that. I've been a dedicated tablet user since 2005 (used Wacom Intuos well before and since/still). About 6 weeks ago, I bought a Surface Pro 3 to replace my ancient Motion Computing LE1600 (seriously- ancient. Bought it in 2007, at the end of the model life. Win XP SP2, Adobe CS2, and Wacom digitizer, lasted 7.5+years).
I've treated this thing like an heirloom. First thing that went on it was a screen protector. Always in a rigid, padded case when not in use. I wanted it to last at least as long as the Motion had. Loved everything about it except the pen nib, which went to shit in a couple weeks. Last time I'd used it was Thursday (04 June) night, and the pen nib was so degraded that I gave up, put it in the case, and decided to head to the MS store on Saturday (today) to get a replacement nib.

Got the replacement tip, no problem at all. Then I thought that I should just give it a quick try and make sure that it worked satisfactorily. So I took the tablet out of the case, tried to boot it up, and it didn't want to get past the SURFACE screen. Odd. So I did a few soft resets. Finally got to the home screen, which froze. Clicked the pen's One Note button, One Note came up, and the text box was just repeating the apostrphe keystroke, and there was no way to stop it. I saw a line on the screen protector, and thought maybe it was just a leftover from drawing... nope.

Tore off the screen protector (aaarrrrgh), and lo: a hairline crack from around the middle of the bottom edge to the upper mic cutout on the right side of the screen. Digitizer functions ruined. No touch, no pen input. It's now a six-week-old, 1200-dollar paperweight. It's only been babied, never dropped, not a scratch, everyting pristine. I'd put it away, in its case, and, 32-ish hours later, took it out, and it's cracked, and done for.

This has been my Surface Pro 3 experience, thus far.
 

NeilG

New Member
Hi, sorry to hear of your problems.

Another forum member posted a remarkably similar experience a few weeks ago, I think they ultimately had a result with the MS warranty as their device, probably like yours, had no evidence of drop or impact damage.

Have you spoken to them?
 
OP
R

Ryan Paul

New Member
Hi, sorry to hear of your problems.

Another forum member posted a remarkably similar experience a few weeks ago, I think they ultimately had a result with the MS warranty as their device, probably like yours, had no evidence of drop or impact damage.

Have you spoken to them?

Yeah, very similar-sounding. I've contacted Amazon, who issued an RMA. I will be ordering a replacement this afternoon, and this time with the MS warranty. When I discovered the crack yesterday at the MS store, they told me a replacement would be $320, a retroactive warranty.
 
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