Can We Trust Surface? (Premium)

I'm routinely asked whether we can trust Microsoft Surface. It's a fair question, given the reliability issues that previous-generation devices suffered from.

So, let me tell you where I stand first.

I do trust Microsoft explicitly. For all of the nonsense we've complained about over the years, this company is still far more trustworthy than companies like Apple or Google. It's not even close.

With Surface specifically, I know that Microsoft made some bad decisions, and I believe that they have fixed them. Those fixes include work to improve the products that were the most problematic---Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, most recently---and ensuring that newer products like Surface Studio, Surface Pro (2017), Surface Laptop, and Surface Book 2 do not suffer from the same issues as their predecessors.

We simply do not have enough data on these newer devices to know for sure: Surface Studio sells in infinitesimally small numbers, and the others have simply been in the market for too short a time. Anecdotally, however, I can say that I have received almost no complaints about any of them. That was most decidedly not the case with Surface Book and Surface Pro 4.

But even those two devices improved over time. My own experience mirrored what was happening in the real world, with two Surface Books never working reliably and one Surface Pro 4---and a newer Surface Book, the Performance Base version---having almost no problems at all. It was always a mixed bag, but it does seem like reliability improved over time. The complaints have mostly wound down, it seems.

So I trust Surface. Great. But trusting something and recommending it to others are two different things. For now, I will fall back on the Consumer Reports defense, and just say that my ability to recommend these things without reservation will come about should enough time go by without any major issues reported publicly.

But I feel good about it. And the one thing about Surface devices, almost to a one, is that they do engender a strange and almost Apple-like devotion from their users. Microsoft's customer satisfaction numbers don't surprise me, because I returned to Surface Book again and again over the past year, even when there were issues. There is just something about it.

Surface Laptop is the same. I find myself looking at this gorgeous device again and again. I'm just drawn to it. Logically, this is a laptop with one lousy USB 3.0 port, folks. I should ignore it for that reason alone, should use more capable devices instead. But ... it's beautiful. They are going to sell millions of them as-is.

I can't say with any degree of proof that the 2017 Surface PCs are more reliable than their predecessors. But I do believe they are. I do trust that they are.

That's where I'm at.