Microsoft posts note to customers 'for any frustration' with the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book

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Earlier this afternoon I answered a question on #AskDanWindows about the Surface Book and whether I'd recommend it right now. I said the hardware was some of the best I have used, but the software was lagging behind with too many bugs and issues. I'm optimistic Microsoft will fix these soon, but for those who are dropping that much money, it offers little consolation.

Tonight, Microsoft has posted a note on their support forums for the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4. The note is an acknowledgement to customers that they are listening to their feedback and that they are "sorry for any frustration this has caused".

The message is posted by John_F, who is well known in the forums and is a sort of mea culpa about the latest Surface devices and it follows today's earlier reversal for the OneDrive debacle:

"First, a big thanks to all of our customers for your open and candid feedback on Surface Book and Surface Pro 4. For those of you who've had a less-than-perfect experience, we're sorry for any frustration this has caused. Please know that we're reading your comments and hearing you loud and clear. Your input is incredibly valuable in helping us address your questions with timely updates and fixes. Since launch, we have aggressively pursued the most pressing feedback. We have already issued a number of updates via Windows Update and are working to issue additional updates and fixes as soon as possible to further improve the overall Surface experience. To ensure that you have received the most recent updates, we recommend you check out our support page with instructions on how to download and install the latest Surface and Windows updates. Surface Book update history can be found here and Surface Pro 4 update history can be found here."

Recently, we posted how Microsoft is aware and working on the Connected Standby, which besides the now fixed Intel Display driver issue, is likely the number one complaint by owners.

We posted a temporary workaround for users who are experiencing this problem by simply forcing the device to hibernate instead. Microsoft said they did not expect a fix to that bug until early 2016, which has left many customers feeling sore.

How to force the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book to hibernate to save your battery

At the very least, they should have shipped with Connected Standby disabled and enabled it later through and update when it was good and ready.

Hopefully, everyone is learning from this experience. While the Surface hardware is better than ever things like the new Intel chipset when combined with the still nascent Windows 10 proves that Microsoft has a lot of work left regarding quality control.

Source: Microsoft

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.