Before I get into today’s post, a link to the piece I wrote yesterday for Reaction on Trump and October vaccine.
Right. Now. Today…
Sigh.
I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in gods. I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t even believe in luck. I belive in science and technology and the progress of humankind…
Having said that, I’m having a shitty run of bad luck…
My tablet has now died on me. Despite my vow never to buy another Surface Pro after the battery problems I had last year, earlier in the year I desperately needed a portable writing device so, teeth gritted and swearing that nothing had better happen to this one or else, I scrimped, saved, borrowed, begged, and managed to buy myself a replacement.
I shouldn’t have done it. My previous device had a problem with the battery, which Microsoft knew was a problem with that model. It’s described elsewhere on the web. This happened literally one or two months outside the 1 year warranty. I contact them and got fed up of repeatedly getting their helpdesk people telling me it was probably because I was running my screen too bright. (I like quite dim screens since I work on them all day long, plus… I’ve been using comptuers all my life. I have a damn degree in the subject. I’ve worked in the industry as both a programmer and in support tech. I know when a device has a bad battery…)
Deep breath. (Lots of these lately… Perhaps I should teach yoga…)
Now the touch screen has died and there’s nothing I can do to get it back. It suggests there’s a driver problem but the fault also occurs outside Windows, which suggests a hardware failure. I’m now doing a complete reset to factory settings, which I’d be doing anyway since I’ll be sending it back. but I have zero hope that it will fix the problem.
Thankfully, this one has failed within the warranty period but it’s shameful that this has happened. I’ve been such a huge advocate for Microsoft over the years. I’ve owned a Surface Pro 3, 2017 (the one that didn’t have a number), and now a 7. There won’t be an 8, 9, or any other number coming into this house. I’ve had it with them.
I could overlook the fact that they haven’t radically changed the design, year after year, and they still charge a premium price for a device that has bezels from the Dark Ages of touch devices. I could accept that, even straight out of the box, they still don’t have the best battery life. I loved them because it’s Windows, a nicely open operating system that allowed me to do what I want rather than what the OS maker wants me to do. Plus the pen was good and allowed me to draw in the way that suited my style.
Then, of course, it runs all Windows software, meaning my favourite drawing software, and the OneDrive syncs neatly with my main PC… Oh, yes, Word. I use it for writing and the keyboard (before they die, which, again, is too quick) is simply the nicest I’ve used before I moved to my current mechanical keyboard… (Have I mentioned how much I love this Logitech mechanical keyboard and how much my productivity has increased?)
But this is it. Next time I need a tablet or laptop (it served as both), I’ll look at HP or some other maker (though not Apple. Never Apple.)
In the meantime, I’m wait for this full system reset to finish and if the touch screen no longer works, I’ll waste my afternoon raising a ticket and packaging it up. I’ll then be without a tablet for however long it will take me Microsoft to come pick it up, fix it, and return it to me.
This is such a sad end to my faith in Microsoft. For such a long time, I really was a fan.
