Ask Paul: January 15 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s yet another great set of reader questions, including a few that probably warrant further discussion separately.
Surface quality
bschnatt asks:

Howdy. Mary Jo's recent laptop failure made me wonder if Microsoft is still dealing with quality control issues with their Surface devices. (One is reminded of their "hot bag" problem, their Surface Book detaching problem, etc...) Do you think Microsoft is getting a handle on this, or are there signs of continuing problems with this? I guess I'm just wondering if Mary Jo's problem was just an electrical spike, or a sign of continuing QA problems. I myself have been using UPS devices (when possible) to minimize the former...

It’s always suspicious when any product fails right as it comes out of warranty. But that doesn’t indicate there’s a serious problem. We’re wired to see this kind of coincidence.

What’s the real evidence? I’m not aware of any widespread reports of Surface reliability issues now, though Surface Laptop 3 did have that screen cracking issue that seems to have quietly come and gone. And that’s about it recently, right?

Anecdotally, I’ve not had any reliability issues with any Surface product since the initial Surface Book’s “Surfacegate” issues, and I’ve used Surface Book 2 and Surface Laptop 2 pretty extensively. Mary Jo’s only had the issue with a single PC.

I don’t know for sure. But I don’t think there is a widespread/endemic reliability problem.
Fitbit v. Apple
jwpear asks:

Do you think Fitbit will recover and find a sustainable business model now that it is part of Google?

I don’t personally believe that Fitbit needed Google to find a sustainable business model, though the financial history of the company probably suggests otherwise. It seems like creating inexpensive but high-quality fitness trackers and smartwatches and selling related services should be sustainable.

Will Fitbit field a smart watch that can compete with Apple?

I believe Fitbit already has superior smartwatches. In fact, I bought one for that very reason after evaluating Apple Watch Series 6 and considering Apple Fitness+ (which has since been made available). But “superior” means different things to different people. The Versa 3 I purchased gets about 5x the battery life of an Apple Watch, it works with Android, and it’s focused on literally the only things I care about: health and fitness. It was the right choice for me, and I feel like it should be the right choice for most people.

So why isn’t it?

Apple’s market is over one billion strong, so it’s a lot more diverse than it used to be. And different people have different needs/wants. And many are into the whole Apple lifestyle thing to some degree, which means they’ll either buy anything with an Apple logo on it (if they can afford it) or at least wish they could, and Apple Watch benefits from that. And yeah, some care about health/fitness, and evalu...

Gain unlimited access to Premium articles.

With technology shaping our everyday lives, how could we not dig deeper?

Thurrott Premium delivers an honest and thorough perspective about the technologies we use and rely on everyday. Discover deeper content as a Premium member.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC