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All the cool tech guys at my work use Surface Pro 3s. I was fortunate enough to get a Surface Pro 4 and I was pretty excited to shift back to PC for my work computer after primarily using a Macbook Pro since 2008. Upon booting, a backlit smudge appeared beneath the Surface logo. The problem is that this particular model (i7, 16/512) was extremely hard to come by for whatever reason. Therefore, I had to wait about a month before I could exchange it. I ended up transferring all my data and work files and using it for the time being. Unfortunately, that stupid smudge was something that couldn’t be unseen and haunted me with every use. The picture attached shows the smudge and also exposes the amount of light bleed (which I’ve come to accept) - that or it’s some artsy painting of a lighthouse amidst a forest of fog with weird light sources.

When the Microsoft Store finally had them back in stock, I spoke with a tech at the Microsoft Store and he suspected it was glue or something that dried where it shouldn’t have. I’m just glad he saw that it was indeed defective. I had it exchanged for a new one.

The second Surface Pro 4 worked well for about a week. My installs were Office, Chrome, and Steam (Undertale, KOF XIII, KOF Dream Match 1999, and Broken Age). It was during holiday break. In any case, blue screens began appearing for no reason. The errors didn’t offer much and the Internet didn’t yield a direct solution. Nothing I did necessarily triggered them, they just hit within an hour of use, until it started happening within the first few minutes. A handsome tech guy at work with great biceps suggested that it was a hardware issue. This is further supported by the fact that it blue screened during recovery.  Back to the Microsoft Store it is then. First, the tech told me that I must have let it run out of power during updating the device. Yes, it must be! Because I am an idiot. I purposely drained the battery on the stock software until it was 2%. I thoroughly enjoyed using the broken, un-updated software with glitchy touchpad and then updated the firmware so it would die during the update. Anyway, the tech then claimed that was a driver issue, which it does resemble. I told him that I suspected it was a hardware issue, but he insisted on re-imaging it. It wasn’t long into the re-imaging process that it must have blue screened because he called me and told me that he ran into some complications and that he’d just swap it for a new one.

Enter Surface Pro 4 number 3. The tech suggested that I stay and install all the updates at the store to ensure the update goes smoothly (implying that I had no idea how to update a computer). It was already about 5pm on a Friday and just wanted to go back home. I rejected his kind offer and sat in traffic for a little less time than I would have. This Surface lasted the shorted time yet. Almost immediately, the screen would just go black. The weird thing is that it didn’t provide an error or even shut off; the screen would just go black and power was still being used (you can see the keyboard backlight in the picture). I found two threads online with similar issues and it looked like another exchange was in my future. I didn’t bother installing much because it was useless. I went back to the Microsoft Store and, wait, let me interject here that Microsoft Stores are not as common as Apple Stores. The closest Microsoft Store is 30 miles from my home, but traffic can make it up to an hour and half drive. Okay, back to the story. I went back to the Microsoft Store and exchanged it one more time. This tech was actually very cool and understanding. At first he suggested rolling back the display driver, which worked for about 15 minutes. The best part was when he literally said, “Well, that looks like it fixed the issue”, and the device went to black. So awesome. He approved the exchange, checked serials, and grabbed a unit from a different shipment (it turns out the blue screening unit was also from the same shipment).