Just wanted to share my opinion on this mobile device that Microsoft has released. Sorry Microsoft but this is going to be a bad review. I went to Best Buy local store as I wanted to take a look at this flagship machine but unfortunately they did not carry in stock any versions of SP3 with i7 processor. Don't know why, but you can never find any of this high end machines for a quick view and get a feel before you commit to buying them. Trusting Microsoft products from the past experience I ordered one through them and so it arrived two days ago. I sat on my office and opened it carefully to see how it looks and feels. I was very happy to see that the unit was very well packed and everything else looked in good shape with no damage from shipping. The multi-position kickstand really shines and very useful. Unfortunately this is where my joy ended. Please note that I have not gotten a chance to power up the device yet. Should I? As I positioned the kickstand at the best angle for my eyes and tried to adjust my chair I noticed this horrible optically destorted reflection of my ceiling round light of my office on the SP3 screen. As you keep following the reflected object(ceiling light) around this display you would notice all kind of oval shapes of its reflection, especially on the upper side of the display where the camera and the sensor is mounted. This is clearly a manufacturing defect in the display itself, or the wrong assembly is used for it with unacceptable quality control I should say. Why Microsoft, why? You proudly display that stupid scale where SP3 weighs less than an iPad or a MAC pro. What weight has to do with quality? If you want to release a flagship don't mess around with cheap quality parts. If a nice display with a thicker glass would add another 100g on its weight go for it. Remember that the flagship starts with the display. All that hard work you do inside with i7, 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD work hard to present something enjoyable to your eyes through that display and if this display is crap... oh well...
Although my decision was to return it immediately, I did powered it up to see the rest of it. What I did was I setup a totally black screen saver and took the PS3 in a dark room. I discovered that on those areas where the reflected object was out of shape were the areas that the display also had backlight bleeding issues. In my opinion this display got to be so thin that is not able to hold is own shape and it is only 12inch display. Imagine same display quality on a 50inch screen. Being so thin when glued on its edges this warps or changes shape which causes optical characteristics to change on it. Yes, it is a glossy one and you chose it to be glossy. If it was a mate one maybe these optical imperfections would not be so pronounced. When I bought this unit I also bought its docking station that offers a display port so I could connect it on my 30inch monitor and used it so all these issues I'm complaining are gone. True, but Microsoft is asking for a lot of money for this machine. The i7, with a 512GB SSD costs $2,000.00 and I get this kind of quality? This is not acceptable. I went back to BB to exchange it hoping that I got a bad unit. Before doing so I looked at other demo models of SP3 with i3 and i5 and they all had warped displays. I walked to the MAC's area and looked at those screens and they looked perfectly flat with no optical distortions on objects reflected on them. I don't like MACs and I have my reasons for not buying one. With what I saw I returned this device and will wait or look for something else. I think Microsoft should do a better job in quality check of these devices before they are released.
Although my decision was to return it immediately, I did powered it up to see the rest of it. What I did was I setup a totally black screen saver and took the PS3 in a dark room. I discovered that on those areas where the reflected object was out of shape were the areas that the display also had backlight bleeding issues. In my opinion this display got to be so thin that is not able to hold is own shape and it is only 12inch display. Imagine same display quality on a 50inch screen. Being so thin when glued on its edges this warps or changes shape which causes optical characteristics to change on it. Yes, it is a glossy one and you chose it to be glossy. If it was a mate one maybe these optical imperfections would not be so pronounced. When I bought this unit I also bought its docking station that offers a display port so I could connect it on my 30inch monitor and used it so all these issues I'm complaining are gone. True, but Microsoft is asking for a lot of money for this machine. The i7, with a 512GB SSD costs $2,000.00 and I get this kind of quality? This is not acceptable. I went back to BB to exchange it hoping that I got a bad unit. Before doing so I looked at other demo models of SP3 with i3 and i5 and they all had warped displays. I walked to the MAC's area and looked at those screens and they looked perfectly flat with no optical distortions on objects reflected on them. I don't like MACs and I have my reasons for not buying one. With what I saw I returned this device and will wait or look for something else. I think Microsoft should do a better job in quality check of these devices before they are released.
