Microsoft hits back after Surface products slammed by consumer group

Consumer report refuses to endorse any of Microsoft's laptops due to 'two-year breakage rates of 25 per cent'

Microsoft has responded to criticism of its Surface products after US-based consumer group Consumer Reports criticised their reliability.

Consumer Reports (CR) said in an article that it was removing its 'recommended' status from four of Microsoft's Surface devices - Surface Laptop (128GB and 256GB) and Surface Book (128GB and 256GB) - after its research found that 25 per cent of owners will experience problems in the first two years.

In addition to removing the recommended tags from the four products, CR said it would not be recommending any of Microsoft's Surface devices.

CR said: "Microsoft's estimated breakage rate for its laptops and tablets was higher than most other brands'. The differences were statistically significant, which is why Microsoft doesn't meet CR's standards for recommended products."

CR explained that it tested and scored the devices on a range of factors including display quality, battery life, speed and ergonomics. The data came from the assessment of over 90,000 devices purchased between 2014 and the beginning of 2017.

CR's assessment also applies to devices with detachable keyboards, for example the Surface Pro. It did however praise the Surface Pro for its performance.

In response, Microsoft defended the reliability of its products, claiming that the products' fail rates are far lower than CR's estimates.

In a blog post, Microsoft's corporate vice president of devices Panos Panay said: "While we respect Consumer Reports, we disagree with their findings. Surface has had quite a journey over the last few years, and we've learned a lot.

"In the Surface team we track quality constantly, using metrics that include failure and return rates. Both our predicted one-to-two-year failure and actual return rates for Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book are significantly lower than 25 per cent.

"Additionally, we track other indicators of quality such as incidents per unit, which have improved from generation to generation and are now at record lows of well below one per cent."

This is not the first time the Surface family of products has come under scrutiny for performance and reliability. In June Greenpeace and iFixit scored both Microsoft's Surface Book and Surface Pro 5 one out of 10 for repairability.