An Arm and a Windows

One of the advantages of being an independent blogger is I have no qualms sharing issues that I encounter with my Windows RT device. Sure I'd like to see devices like the Microsoft Surface and Asus VivoTab succeed, but if and when things come up I'm going to talk about them.

When I first started using the Surface, I was impressed with the build quality. The VaporMg body really is something. The Surface looks and feels like a serious device, not a toy. With that said, I've encountered two hardware issues, one of which has totally changed the way I feel about the durability of my Surface.

My first issue with my Surface came with my Type Cover. I had received the Surface as a birthday gift, and on the recommendation of a colleague decided to sell my laptop and use some of the proceeds to buy the Type Cover. As soon as I purchased it I set things up and started working, and immediately I noticed a few small bumps on the Type Cover's touchpad. I tried wiping them away with a cleaning cloth, but I could not manage to get the bumps off. I didn't mind too much, though, and so I decided not to do anything about it.

About a week later, my touchpad basically seemed to go on the fritz. Every time I'd put my finger on the touchpad, the mouse pointer would begin shaking. Then when I'd try to point the pointer towards something it would jump randomly around the screen. This rendered the Type Cover half as useful, and so that night I brought it to a nearby Microsoft Store to have them take a look.

One of the store's staff tried my Type Cover out and could not get the issue to repeat, but he did notice the bumps that I wasn't able to remove. He pulled out a plastic card and tried to scrape it off himself and was also unsuccessful. He thought that it might be glue from the factory, and it seemed like it was the first time he'd seen anything like it.

He swapped me out for a brand new Type Cover, and I was on my way. No big deal, but I was feeling pretty good about being a Microsoft customer at that point.

Fast forward to a week ago. I pulled out my Surface and noticed that the screen was acting really weird. The Start Screen was zooming in and out on its own, and the screen was responding to my touch pretty inconsistently. I had no idea what was going on until I looked closer and notice a very faint, hairline crack along the left side of my screen.


I had not dropped the Surface, and I kept the device inside of a padded case, inside of my padded messenger bag (not to mention the fact that I had the Type Cover protecting the screen!). Talking with some friends later the only thing I can think of that could have cracked the screen might have been the low temperatures lately, but I really haven't made it a practice to leave my Surface in my car for extended periods of time.

After how my issue with the Type Cover was handled, I wasn't too worried, but I called ahead anyway to make sure that I wouldn't be in for any surprises when bringing my Surface in to be looked at. I walked in, got brought to the person who seemed to be the manager (employees kept asking her if it was okay for them to take a break), and she took a quick look at the Surface. She began to work on her terminal and, after a few minutes, told me that it would cost $299 to repair the device since I didn't have Microsoft Complete (2 years of insurance against EVERYTHING), and the base warranty only covered hardware defects, not issues like screen cracks.

I was pretty devastated.

I think she could tell, and so she thought about it for a moment, and then took another look at the crack, and said, "Honestly, this doesn't look like you dropped it, so I'm going to swap this out for you." She grabbed a new Surface, reset my old one in front of me, and handed me the new one sans power connector.

So, long story short...Surface owners...

GET MICROSOFT COMPLETE.

It covers everything, including accidents. And even if it didn't, if my Surface's Gorilla Glass could crack without dropping the device, who knows what kind of device or design defect might be the cause of this. I haven't seen a lot on forums or blogs about anyone else reporting this issue, but in my mind $99 is more than worth the peace of mind.

Here's a video of what the screen crack was doing to my Surface: http://youtu.be/abNQks8n-ds