Consumer Reports Pulls Microsoft Surface Tablet Recommendation Over Breakdowns, Unreliability

The Surface series is Microsoft’s flagship laptop lineup, but the product has gotten major criticism from a notable source. Consumer Reports has pulled its recommendation for several Microsoft Surface laptops over concerns about the series’ reliability and rate of breakdowns.

In its polling, Consumer Reports said that roughly 25 percent of Surface tablet PCs will have breakage problems within its first two years. According to Consumer Reports, the non-profit group surveyed around 90,000 subscribers to evaluate reliability and user histories with Surface tablets.

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Consumer Reports pulled its recommendations for the 128GB and 256GB version of the Surface Laptop, along with the 128GB and 512GB versions of the Surface Book. In Consumer Reports’ lab testing, the Surface series regularly earned high marks thanks to its performance and specifications.

However, consistency and build quality were a regular problem for users in Consumer Reports’ polling. Survey respondents said they experienced problems with Surface laptops that included unexpected freezes or shutdowns and slow response times from the touchscreen.

On social media, many users echoed the report’s findings with similar stories. From reddit’s Microsoft Surface subreddit, user UTese shared his history with Surface Pro repairs.

I know this will probably be an unpopular opinion here as well as a semi rare occurrence, but man I think this is a universal problem with Microsofts products. I've have 2 surface pro 3's that had to be replaced and when the surface book came out I decided to upgrade to that and have had to replace that one 4 times because of "manufacturers defect" (I think that's what they referred to it as).

To be completely fair to Microsoft I do lug it to classes almost daily but I am as gentle with it as I would be with a baby and almost all of my devices except my current surface book has had issues.

As much as I love my surface book it's extremely frustrating to have to constantly take a trip up to the Microsoft store to get my device replaced when my sister and friends have Macbooks that seem to last them years. The power and form factor of Microsofts Surface line are nearly unparalleled but if they can't consistently pump out devices that don't experience immediate defects past the normal wear and tear, I don't think their will be many people that remain loyal to the brand.

In a statement, Microsoft denied that the outlet’s findings reflected real-world usage among Surface users.

“Microsoft’s real-world return and support rates for past models differ significantly from Consumer Reports’ breakage predictability,” Microsoft said. “We don’t believe these findings accurately reflect Surface owners’ true experiences or capture the performance and reliability improvements made with every Surface generation.”

For Consumer Reports, it’s not the first time the outlet has made waves with a major hardware company. Earlier this year, Consumer Reports declined to endorse Apple’s Touch Bar-equipped MacBook Pro over inconsistent battery life performance, but updated its rankings after Apple released a software patch that fixed its issue. On the same front, Apple also led other tech companies in the same Consumer Reports survey, posting a two-year breakage rate among survey respondents of only 10 percent.

Read: Microsoft's New Surface Pro 5 Specs, Release Date Revealed, Has 13.5 Hour Battery Life

Microsoft launched the Surface series in 2012, marking the company’s first major entry into the hardware market. The series is best known for its hybrid tablet PCs, which feature a large tablet-like display that can be anchored to an optional keyboard for additional versatility. Within the Surface product family, Microsoft also sells the Surface Laptop, which features a traditional clamshell laptop design.

For Microsoft, the Surface was notable for being the first time the company entered the laptop and hardware market. Traditionally, Microsoft had limited its involvement with laptops to providing Windows and left the hardware up to manufacturers like HP and Dell. While the Surface series hasn’t been as strong of a performer for Microsoft lately as it has in the past, the series has still been a major player in defining the hybrid tablet PC market among consumers.