Have a 1 TB Surface Pro 2017? Forget about Symantec Endpoint Protection

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Remember how I warned you about the new Surface Pro 2017 with the “1 TB” SSD? Ends up it’s two 512 GB SSDs, running Storage Space so you just think it
[See the full post at: Have a 1 TB Surface Pro 2017? Forget about Symantec Endpoint Protection]

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Elly, HiFlyer, Ascaris

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Friends don’t let friends buy Surface.

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woody, Elly, flackcatcher, MrJimPhelps, HiFlyer, Pepsiboy, GoneToPlaid, BobbyB

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anonymous wrote:

People buy surface machines because they don t read Ask Woody

Precisely!

HF

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May be thats why theyre so expensive your getting 2 Disks for the price of one? lol
Might just cross that off my xmas list sounds like the online support isnt very good apparently doesent know the difference between Defrag and TRIM and in any case would you trust a $3000US fragile, glued, sealed for life and beyond upgrades and repairs, laptop to the Rugby Playing members of the Baggage handling team at your local airline?

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HiFlyer

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People buy surface machines because they don t read Ask Woody

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Elly, HiFlyer, Pepsiboy, GoneToPlaid, BobbyB, woody

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You all know what? The original Surface commercial with the stomping and angry girls pretty much hit the nail on the head — if you, in hindsight, interpret their attitudes as a strong recommendation to NOT buy a Surface product. Given Surface’s track record, in terms of 3rd party reliability ratings (which Microsoft denies) and in terms of flawed updates for Surface, all of the competition will inevitably win. I choke on the fact that the very same applies for Windows Phone, Windows 10, consumer confidence in Microsoft, and so on. It is what it is. No matter how you slice it, Microsoft would appear to be the next Chrysler since the writing (at least presently) is on the wall for those who can see it. Microsoft continues to falsely exude a combination of sheer arrogance, ignorance, stupidity, and delusional behavior such that they refuse to look at the writing on the wall which spells out how other corporations failed. It is what it is.

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Elly, AlexEiffel, flackcatcher, Rock, HiFlyer, woody, Pim, Cybertooth

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Woody wrote:

I swear I don’t understand why people buy Surface machines. We’ve seen sooooooo many problems with them.

Not everyone can see that, apparently.  I was on Windows Central yesterday where I read an article about how Consumer Reports is keeping the new Surface model off their recommended list (long before they’ve accumulated enough data on that model specifically to judge) because of the unreliability of their sibling Surfaces, in contrast to J.D. Power, which rates it favorably.  There was another article by the head guy over there (their Woody, as it were) tearing apart the Consumer Reports methodology, along with many commenters who vow now to shun Consumer Reports.  The readers have called CR an Apple shill, even though they apparently recommended the Galaxy x over the iPhone y, and there were endless accusations of bias and CR being beholden to the highest bidder (kind of the exact opposite of what their business model is supposed to be).  Apple shill, sellouts, irrelevant (because only old people read it, apparently, and we know how terrible they are), and all other sorts of things.

CR claimed that one in four Surfaces will have a serious enough issue to need repair within two years… that claim is at the heart of the firestorm.  Given my previous experience with mass-produced consumer goods, I don’t find that unbelievable at all– the part I find a little strange is that this is a relatively bad result.  Given my previous experiences with mass-market consumer electronics devices as complex as a Surface, I would have guessed the entire range of two-year failures to be higher.  Apparently, Apple devices manage one in ten over two years.

As I see it, if you’re going to make a sealed piece of consumer electronics, particularly something as expensive as a Surface (relative to comparable goods from other vendors), it has to be exceptionally reliable and have an industry-leading warranty.  Surfaces have a pedestrian one-year warranty, though; even my nine-year-old Asus laptop (which is eminently repairable… I just had it opened down to the motherboard to repair a crack in the case yesterday) managed twice that, back in the day.  To me, having a measly one-year warranty in this day and age smacks of a lack of confidence in their own product, which appears to be justified.

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Bill C., Elly, AlexEiffel, GoneToPlaid, flackcatcher, johnf, Rock, HiFlyer, woody

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Agree 100%.

The Windows fanboi base has bashed Consumer Reports – but their anger is misplaced. CR is just echoing what subscribers have reported to them. JD Powers isn’t in the same business. When CR makes recommendations for new model cars (see this month’s issue) they consider the earlier versions of that model, and what consumers have reported about their experiences.

I think that’s great. Exactly as it should be. I rarely agree with CR’s computer recommendations (for one thing, they’re invariably three months behind the market). But I take their observations very seriously – precisely because their reliability data is rock-solid.

Surface has been a string of disasters. It’d be remarkable if MS could produce a generation or two that’s reliable. Wonderful. But until that happens, there’s no way I’d recommend a Surface to anybody.

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Elly, AlexEiffel, flackcatcher, Ascaris, HiFlyer

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For what it’s worth PCMag’s reliability survey has, over the years, shown a few clear winners among a sea of high percentage of issues manufacturers. I remember seeing Apple often at the top and Asus. The rest looked a lot more close to one in 4 or 5 with issues. I’m not sure the latest Asus are as reliable. HP and Gateway were terrible if I am not mistaken.

 

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I can think of so many other options that are better and give you more flexibility. To me the Surface is more of a aesthetic thing sort of like Mac’s. You buy one for prestige not because they are the best notebook.

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Bill C., Cybertooth, AlexEiffel, HiFlyer, woody

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That echoes what I have seen at work. I never had anybody ask me for a specific laptop except with those Surface thing. Some people try to have me buy one for them. I guess the marketing works at some level. They have seen people at the airport with them. They look good. It is perceived as a business prestige item.

Unfortunately for them, they always get a no.

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Bill C.

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I’ve noticed these SP’s on TV shows (mainly cop shows) along with the Win 10 logo screen on some shows.  People not in the know probably buy them because of the subliminal note and also the thinking that “if they use it, it must be pretty good”.  On TV it’s just another prop that MS has most likely paid them to use.

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It appears that the Surface is Microsoft’s Edsel.

“It certainly didn’t help that the first Edsels “were delivered with oil leaks, sticking hoods, trunks that wouldn’t open, and push buttons that … couldn’t be budged with a hammer.” – John Brooks’ book, Business Adventures.

At launch, the car was too expensive, had design issues and used up too much gas. The executives who led the project expressed to Brooks no recognition of their countless mistakes. J.C. Doyle, an Edsel marketing manager, blamed the buying public. He tells Brooks that he was flabbergasted that the American consumer dared to be so fickle.

The Surface, not dead yet …

– Sales of the first generation Surface (2012) did not meet Microsoft’s expectations.

– In July 2013, Steve Ballmer revealed that the Surface hasn’t sold as well as he hoped. He reported that Microsoft had made a loss of US$900,000,000 due to the lackluster Surface sales. It was revealed that even the marketing costs had exceed the sales.

– Surface was profitable for the first time in fiscal year Q1 2015. The Surface division scored $888 million for Q4 2015 despite an overall loss of $2.1 billion.

– iFixit awarded the Surface Pro its worst ever repair-ability rating, but CEO Kyle Wiens claims that it is due to incompetence rather than deliberate design choices.

– Consumer Reports stops recommending Surface systems due to reliability issues (August 2017). This has put Microsoft on damage control. Microsoft believes it has fixed these issues and that return rates have decreased over the past 12 months as a result.

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Have a 1 TB Surface Pro 2017? Forget about Symantec Endpoint Protection

This is the sort of thing that gets overlooked when you disband your testing dept and let the developers do all their own testing.

Testers, because of their depth of experience in that field, probably would have thought about making sure that 2x500gb drives running Storage Space wouldn’t be an issue with something like Symantec Endpoint Protection. In order to even have that thought, you need to have LOTS of experience.

Speaking of lots of experience, how much you want to bet that Microsoft is hiring lots of junior programmers/developers, in order to save money? There’s no way that these junior programmers are going to have the depth of experience necessary to think to check for potential Symantec Endpoint Protection issues.

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Rock, HiFlyer

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This is their new approach, why make a reliable product that is fully tested before it is sold, when you can sell it, have telemetry and complaints report back to you what you didn’t do right the first time and fix it in the next release. Wash and repeat.

 

Pathetic really.

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HiFlyer

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_Reassigned Account wrote:

I can think of so many other options that are better and give you more flexibility. To me the Surface is more of a aesthetic thing sort of like Mac’s. You buy one for prestige not because they are the best notebook.

As the proverb goes, “a fool and his money are soon parted.”

Or as someone said, Surface is for people who have more dollars than sense.

 

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HiFlyer

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Surface is great when you only look on it.

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Cybertooth, HiFlyer

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Many US companies who use Windows Enterprise or Pro would also purchase over-priced or “luxury” M$-Surface devices for themselves and their employees because the costs of purchase can be deducted as company expenses, similar to buying luxury company cars for company executives.

US company/corporate tax rate on profits above US$335,000 is about 40%. In effect, in most cases, whenever a company purchases a “luxury” Surface device or luxury car, the US government is paying 40% while the company is only paying 60% for it.

Hence, most US companies are very generous with such purchases since high price usually equates to high quality, but not so for high-priced Surface devices which more likely equate to profit-gouging opportunities for M$, similar to M$’s Win 10 Ent and Office 365.

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HiFlyer

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I wonder what will happen when Desktop Support in these companies begin reporting how unrepairable the Surface is? I imagine that Surface sales will go down at that point, and they won’t come back, because people will remember.

Ages ago, I did desktop support in a large company. We had two IBM Thinkpads: the 760 and the 380. The 380 was a very solid machine, but hard to repair. The 760 had bugs, but it was very simple to repair. In fact, whenever someone would turn in one of these computers for repair, we would remove their hard drive, put it into another identical computer, and send them on their way immediately; we would then do a service call with IBM on the defective computer.

To put it real simple: dat ain’t gonna happen with the Surface. You can’t do ANY repair with them. As soon as you begin to disassemble one, you will have destroyed it.

I promise you, companies will not pay top dollar for long for these throwaway laptops.

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HiFlyer

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