Questionable quality control, and my third RMA process.
- Thread starter FFX
- Start date
Thanks, I must have received a real dud. Distortion appears only on the side bezels, not appearing on top and bottom.
kristalsoldier
Well-Known Member
ChemCat
New Member
I'm a technophile. I've gone through a couple of dozen devices from a dozen different brands across several platforms. I can assure you guys that ALL manufacturers have QC problems at one point or other. Even the iPad and iPhone had had problems. And I mean big problems.
What I've found funny every time is that the individual group of the specific device always think they got it worst. The grass always greener on the other side of fence.
I've gotten my hands on half a dozen surfaces. I can tell you guys that compared to other devices, including the almighty iPad, the surface is probably the most generally well built device out there. The system runs amazingly smooth.
The problems that a few people run into are unavoidable. All electronic components are vulnerable to having defects and developing defects. It's a fact of life. I know it is frustrating to having received several defective units in a row. And again, I can understand that in this case the grass would seem greener on the other side of the fence.
Take the light bleeding issue, for example. Almost all iPads have side light bleeding. It's just the way the technology works. Ipad users for the most part don't really care. After all, how often do you watch something with a completely dark screen inside a completely dark room? On iPad forums, most people with this "defect" just ignore it. But over in the android forums, you'd think that the world was coming to an end because some android tablets have back light bleeds.
If you have a defective unit, move on.
What I've found funny every time is that the individual group of the specific device always think they got it worst. The grass always greener on the other side of fence.
I've gotten my hands on half a dozen surfaces. I can tell you guys that compared to other devices, including the almighty iPad, the surface is probably the most generally well built device out there. The system runs amazingly smooth.
The problems that a few people run into are unavoidable. All electronic components are vulnerable to having defects and developing defects. It's a fact of life. I know it is frustrating to having received several defective units in a row. And again, I can understand that in this case the grass would seem greener on the other side of the fence.
Take the light bleeding issue, for example. Almost all iPads have side light bleeding. It's just the way the technology works. Ipad users for the most part don't really care. After all, how often do you watch something with a completely dark screen inside a completely dark room? On iPad forums, most people with this "defect" just ignore it. But over in the android forums, you'd think that the world was coming to an end because some android tablets have back light bleeds.
If you have a defective unit, move on.
I agree with you for the most part. I had to return two iPads because of issues and also one iPhone. All the issues either had to do with dead pixels or scratches. With that said, the volume rocker issue is pretty inexcusable and seems widespread. It is as if the mold used is slightly larger in 50% of the units. I am not kidding when I said that I looked at about 10 of these at the store and it was just about 50-50 on whether or not it was loose. The volume works either way, but how can they be inconsistent in the cutout is very strange.
The Surface 2 does have a clear improvement in that there are no longer any screws behind the kickstand.
I totally agree! In tech and in life, specially when talking about our couples
When i bought my iPad 2 i had to exchange it because the wifi chip was faulty....sometimes the wifi toggle was greyed out and the only way to enable it was to reboot...
Disclaimer: I love my S2 and i wish Win RT to be a long term strategy.
Talking about, SO, i agree. Win RT is now at least as smooth as iOS 7, but to me more powerfull. Or at least potentally. I dont want to open a discussion about apps (well maybe yes
, but even though I've found almost every app i needed, they are a little under-cooked. Flipboard can't keep the screen on while reading, Audible can't sync your audio location and doesn't have a sleep timer, TuneIn doesn't have a sleep timer, Facebook doesn't create a preview when you post a link, Twitter stream on the Twitter app sometimes "flickers" when it is loading tweets while you are scrolling, etc.Regarding hardware and manufacturing quality, not so sure. I think it is a solid build, and on par with a premium tablet. But the iPad still feels better in hand. And i can see some very small imperfections on some parts on the back of the tablet where the plastic that surrounds the camera meets the metal and on the upper edges where the metal that is seen from the front of the table also meets the plastic (well i think its platic, but i may be wrong).
I prefer the Surface for a variety of reasons, but my ideal device would be a tablet that has the iPad build quality, the Win RT OS, the touch keyboard and the kickstand. Well, may be a thinner Surface will just be ok to me
. I know there is the very useful USB port, but it think they will figure out how to make it a little thinner and lighter.
ChemCat
New Member
Reminds me of a conversation I had with an iPads user. He was a college student. I told him I liked the iPads but I needed something that had a USB port. In the professional world, people still transfer data via USB. He then started giving me a lecture on this so-called paradigm shift that iPads users tend to rave about. I just went along with it even though in my head I was thinking boy he'll be in for a shocker when he gets a real world job. I worked in an IT company before and we still used USB devices to transfer stuff around. The only people I know with the time to mess around transferring stuff by either Bluetooth or the cloud are students. Here in the real world, (1) there's no time to fumble around with your iPads trying to figure out how to transfer the important data to your colleagues and (2) you still have to deal with most real world people who still use laptops.
That's why I said the iPads is nothing more than a fancy toy. Believe you me, plenty of companies have spent millions and millions of dollars trying to incorporate the iPads into the professional work environment. Probably because of all the ifan tech media articles flying around. What people just end up doing with their expensive company iPads is check emails. That's it.
Speaking of which, I don't deny the level of build quality iPads have. I'm a simple guy. I get up early in the morning to either go into the office or out to a construction site somewhere doing inspections. I need a device that does real work for me. How does the external build quality improve my work performance? I'm not saying there shouldn't be quality, but there is such a thing a too much unnecessary quality. I'd rather it be at the quality of the surface and actually be productive than having the micron quality like the ipad and be just an expensive Facebook browser.
That's why I said the iPads is nothing more than a fancy toy. Believe you me, plenty of companies have spent millions and millions of dollars trying to incorporate the iPads into the professional work environment. Probably because of all the ifan tech media articles flying around. What people just end up doing with their expensive company iPads is check emails. That's it.
Speaking of which, I don't deny the level of build quality iPads have. I'm a simple guy. I get up early in the morning to either go into the office or out to a construction site somewhere doing inspections. I need a device that does real work for me. How does the external build quality improve my work performance? I'm not saying there shouldn't be quality, but there is such a thing a too much unnecessary quality. I'd rather it be at the quality of the surface and actually be productive than having the micron quality like the ipad and be just an expensive Facebook browser.
Regarding hardware and manufacturing quality, not so sure. I think it is a solid build, and on par with a premium tablet. (1) But the iPad still feels better in hand. (2) And i can see some very small imperfections on some parts on the back of the tablet where the plastic that surrounds the camera meets the metal and on the upper edges where the metal that is seen from the front of the table also meets the plastic (well i think its platic, but i may be wrong).
I prefer the Surface for a variety of reasons, but my ideal device would be a tablet that has the iPad build quality, the Win RT OS, the touch keyboard and the kickstand. Well, may be a thinner Surface will just be ok to me
(1) Probably due to the beveled edges on the Surface versus curvy iPad. The hand-feel is fine to me, and I understand why MS designed the aesthetic the way they did. It looks more "grown-up," or whatever.
(2) You're correct; the top strip containing the power button is indeed plastic. When I accidentally shock my Surface (in an extremely dry/cold climate at the moment), it's never on that top strip but only the rest of the case. That's the primary physical detail I dislike about the Surface 2, really. It should've been magnesium. It annoys me that the color/lustre is off, besides the obvious durability difference.
(3) I can't find the quote source at the moment, but supposedly MS stated that the S2 can't get thinner due to that USB port, and the Surface line will always have a full-size USB port. The Surface 2 magnesium case is already super-thin, and I personally wouldn't want structural integrity to suffer by going thinner, unless there's another tough material they'll use in the future...
Er, not to get off-topic or anything.
@Borka: I believe the volume rocker thing is an early batch issue that should be corrected by now. Since all the demo units would have been from those early batch(es), the higher probability of flaws is understandable due to low starting public volume ("acceptable" is another matter). I don't know what batch mine came from, but I preordered, and mine doesn't have the rocker problem. Unfortunately, who knows if that minor component is even fixable, considering how annoying the case is to open without damaging anything...
ChemCat
New Member
Haha. The tech company I worked for before spent a ton of money buying everyone a fancy iPad. I don't know who the idiot that recommended the upper echelon to buy everyone such a useless device. Sure, people tried to make use of it at first. But eventually, it became an email device. Nothing more.@chemcat, i mostly think the same way, and i work in IT too. That's why i have my S2 and left the iPad world. I prefer function over form. But, we always ask for more
BTW, i forgot to mention, but i too have the loosely volume rocker, though thankfully it doesn't do any sound.
I suspect very much that the reason companies are hesitating to recognize the usefulness of the surface nowadays because of the whole iPod fiasco. Every tech media source at the time was raving on and on how great the iPad was, and company executives bought into it. They didn't consider the fact that tech bloggers are pretty much ifanboys who don't know what a hard day of work was like.
Most of the employees at one of my companies want a corporate-given iPad strictly because it was cool, and the employee could get it free! They never really intended to work on it anyway, though. The iPads are set up for email, but not the custom mailboxes or whatever (thus useless in my department), and that's really it. Pathetic.
Well, though it's telling that an Apple employee sits on the board of directors. Android is banned from corporate use (company-given phones); Windows is merely a necessity. The best part is that despite the attached-to-the-hip relationship between my company and Apple, Apple doesn't give our employees a discount on anything. LOL.
At least I know the decision for my company to go Apple was strictly political and had nothing to do with actual technological superiority: Ask most anyone in my department "Exactly how is the iPad worth $400-$500?" and a common answer is "Oh, but I didn't pay for it."
Similar threads
