Posted on 12/13/2015 10:19:19 PM PST by dayglored
Flickering lights, sleeplessness leave Redmond's typoslabs feeling drained
Microsoft has apologised for the "less-than-perfect experience" reported by many buyers of its new Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book computers, but has nonetheless beaten Apple in the tablet sales stakes.
The Surface Book has suffered from flickering screens. Both machines have generated complaints of poor battery life, especially when machines are placed into sleep mode but still manage to deplete the power source.
Users have also complained that machines are slow to wake from sleep mode, that they run hot and/or slowly.
Microsoft's offered some updated drivers to address the issues mentioned above, but has now published A Note to Our Customers from The Microsoft Surface Team in which it thanks "all of our customers for your open and candid feedback on Surface Book and Surface Pro 4."
Redmond's recommended response is to ensure your device has all the latest updates, and is ready to implement new tweaks to be delivered through Windows Update. If, of course, you trust those updates enough to adopt them without an explanation. The fixes are due in early 2016.
Whatever the new Surfaces' flaws, analyst outfit 1010data says they're selling well. The firm's analysis of the US tablet market for October had Microsoft with 45 per cent of online sales, well ahead of Apple's 17 per cent.
The firm's not yet in a position to say if Microsoft's remained in pole position, or if the October result was a result of a sales surge brought about by the new Surfaces' release.
As word spreads about the new machines' flaws, The Register imagines sales may cool somewhat.
Let's hope MS can address the shortcomings in software, and that the problems are not in the hardware design -- a recall would be a major black eye to a promising product line.
Hi Swordmaker, special ping on account of the Apple tablet sales comparison.
“a recall would be a major black eye to a promising product line. “
True but if it is necessary they should do it post haste.
Kids have been hinting on getting them a tablet like their friends. Being an old desk top computer guy, it has been quite the learning curb for me trying to make heads or tails of this new tech. Ram, operating systems, what it will run, what the heck is apps (I don’t own a smart phone, so apps are new to me). Lolipop Operating systems verses those that will run windows.
Good grief, here kids, take the money and buy it yourself.
If the tables (tablets) were turned, and Apple’s products were to perform as poorly as the Surface, mobs would attempt to burn down the stores. But Microsoft gets a pass. What the heck, flickering screens of death, depleted batteries in sleep mode, running hot and slowly, and people still want to buy the Surface? Suckers born every day.
I wouldn't say Microsoft is "getting a pass" -- they're being panned pretty hard for the problems.
And Apple's had a few products that (initially) had issues -- who can forget the original iPhone 4 antenna design problems, and the deathless Apple response, "You're holding it wrong" (i.e. holding it the way 90% of smartphone users hold it). Apple was roundly trounced, but came back eventually with a revised design that works great (I have an iPhone 5c and love it).
I don't doubt that Microsoft will address these Surface issues. If they're design-related, and widespread enough, we'll see a new version of the hardware appear, and possibly a recall if they can't fix it with software updates. If they're manufacturing-related, that'll be interesting. I'm not sure who Microsoft has doing their manufacturing on these products.
> True but if it is necessary they should do it post haste.
Agreed.
That's probably the wisest option. If you're not already conversant with the technology, trying to learn enough quickly enough to evaluate the available offerings and make a decision before everything changes, is well nigh impossible.
Still some to go, I guess. ;-)
Microsoft simply doesn't understand the tablet market usage expectations. Take for example the wake up lag reported on their tablet - inexcusable. The biggest virtue to a tablet device is being able to pick it up and go seamlessly. Waiting for the device to “wake up” is still PC mentality. If they weren't so arrogant they would know this and never gone to market with a device acting this way. Note the other complaints, running hot, or low battery life...these are all PC traits not tablet issues.
If Microsoft would just stop trying to “leverage” their PC monopoly into other devices and just make a friggin product that works better than others they would be ok. On the other hand, like their disaster product Xbox One they always try to tell you what you should want rather than what you DO want.
I agree (as I indicated above). At the moment it's apples and oranges (so to speak) because of the relative newness of the Surface releases. Sales rates in a rapidly changing space are only of interest to Sales people.
> Once the surge sales is done count the numbers of both and you will find Apple is much more popular.
I'll wait and see. If MS is correct, the enterprise will warm to the Surface offerings enough to make it a real race. I don't think we can predict it yet.
In the consumer device market you're very likely correct; MS is a perennial underdog there.
I agree, they may get respect by doing a recall and owing up to the issues.
Online sales. What piece of the pie is that regarding total sales? Makes the headline sound a bit misleading at best, without the qualifier.
Microsoft’s SOP, roll out in beta. They’ve done it so long their customers are used to being product testers.
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Yeah there were so many problems with 1010Data's approach and presentation that even the Register -- not known to be a great fan of Apple -- pretty much declared the difference meaningless. I figured I'd leave the Apple-side debunking to you. :-)
The only problem with AntennaGate is that it was primarily a dis-information FUD campaign orchestrated by the competition with the help of Android's owner Google. The Antennas on the iPhone worked well and did not attenuate any more than any other phone available at the time when covered by a hand. This was easily demonstrated. The iPhone model when introduced throughout the rest of the world with NO MODIFICATIONS to the antennas had ZERO problems with dropped signals. The antenna design actually was BETTER on this model iPhone than all previous iPhones and the model went on to sell far more than any other without modification.
AntennaGate was a problem created by an incompetent report issued by Consumer Reports who used Apple's own signal strength bars as if they were scientific measure of dB signal strength instead of an algorithm driven representation of relative signal strength exactly the same as every other cell phone's relative bars. Apple had changed their algorithm with their new model to more accurately represent the actual proportional signal strength instead of wighting lower signal strengths higher to make them look higher as the others were doing and even Apple had been doing in the past. As a result, the graphic representation of bars would show only three bars on Apple's new phone, when the others would be showing four or even five bars of signal. CR made the assumption that the new iPhone was receiving LESS of a signal when in actual fact, it was receiving a BETTER signal then the other phones because of the exterior antennas. . . even if they were being bridged. (Again, demonstrated by REAL experts with REAL scientific testing equipment.) CR did not know that a setting on the phone could substitute a digital display in exchange for the Bars chart. . . showing the actual dB of signal strength being received. . . So they merely used a comparison of bar charts to rate the phones down, starting the whole AntennaGate!
You know I will rip the misuse of statistical methodology, too. . . which is what they are doing here. I think that the concept that Microsoft has is flawed. Minimal battery and minimal graphics capability in the tablet section is not a good idea, and for maximum functionality, you have to have a surface to rest the Surface on and make it into a laptop at minimum.
This is one of the statistical methodologies I have problem with . . . Trends should not be shown by discrete points, but be lines over time. This is a set of points connected by meaningless, arbitrary lines intended to obfuscate the information by implying the trend is NOT discrete points. They've also represented the data as Year To Date, safely excluding last year's holiday season. Why? Because there would have been a HUGE spike for both Apple and Amazon swamping Microsoft. This is a classic move to make one set of data look better (usually the one paying for the study) look better.
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