I'll be skipping this and future MS hardware for a while.
Using a Surface Laptop 3 right now and everything except for the display is pretty much a dumpster fire. The display hardware is incredible in every way. 3:2 is the correct aspect ratio for laptops if you care about running visual studio or other apps which gobble up vertical real estate.
I have reloaded this thing from official image 3x and it will still randomly fuck up important things like hardware accelerated video playback and WiFi, both of which require a hard reset to resolve. There is also some really annoying bullshit with the ambient brightness adjustment feature where I have to manually disable it in the registry every time a driver or windows update hits.
The most painful problem with the machine is that WiFi is entirely unusable if you are simultaneously using bluetooth. I have had to get external dongles to resolve this.
All of that said, I have had few-to-no issues with the Surface Pro product line at work, and my sample size is 1. Might be bad luck or just really demanding expectations. I have been debating going back to Apple, but there are some HP/Asus machines that look compelling now.
As a counter point, I love my Surface Laptop 3 as my personal device.
I had a pre-M1 MacBook Air for when I'm not working and I hated its fans constantly whirring and the industrial design that hadn't been updated in years.
I dived deep into different Windows laptops having spent 10+ years away and been really pleased with the purchase. The design is very simple, aspect ratio great, and the keyboard better than the Mac I was transitioning from.
I didn't like the Dell XPS's keyboard or display, and I tried the Razer Blade Stealth 13 but it was overkill.
Having not really used Windows for years and given that lots of Windows laptops still had shockingly cheap industrial design or weird quirks (webcam at the bottom?!), the Surface Laptop 3 was unfussy and a delight to use.
whoa!! what? i can't believe that someone did that, but then, yes I can. i guess that's useful if you have to look at the keyboard while typing. in that case, the bottom based cam is just a glance up???
Lenovo Legion Y540 also did this. I was using that laptop last spring when we switched to WFH... didn't last long! Ended up moving to my desktop and using a dedicated webcam before long.
Fortunately, the replacement Lenovo Legion 5 moves the webcam back to the top.
Likewise I've wanted one for a long time but at this rate will probably never come to pass. One reason are the reportedly weird but very persistent bugs as OP mentioned.
Bigger reason is uncertainty about the Windows platform. ChromeOS and macOS both run mobile apps, which bring a vast library and a level of integration (especially macOS + iOS) that seems increasingly hard to overlook. Add to this Microsoft's goal of switching to ARM and fragmenting its ecosystem, it becomes an even harder buy.
In general, the Surface lineup seems to be ~1 year behind in hardware compared to the rest of the industry, e.g. only now switching to TigerLake and Ryzen 4000 series CPU. Hardware itself is well packaged but a hard sell for its premium price. Furthermore Microsoft is delusional to sell RAM and SSD upgrades from 8GB to 16GB and 256GB to 512GB respectively for +$200.
> Bigger reason is uncertainty about the Windows platform.
Of all platforms to be worried about, I feel like Windows is the last one here (Web aside perhaps). It wouldn't be unreasonable to try running a program from Windows XP era and have it run fine in Windows 10.
As for the ARM fragmentation, fair enough but doesn't macOS face the same challenge? Windows 10 on Arm also supports running x86 apps without recompiling too.
You're right in that Windows will still be a viable platform for the lifespan of this laptop. My point was simply there are legitimate competitors now, especially due to their leveraging of mobile app libraries.
Right now it seems Apple has a better track record when it comes to the risk of ARM fragmentation - bolstered by their Rosetta translator is pretty good and the M1 hardware. For comparison, the Surface Pro X just received x64 emulation but its performance remains generally poor (not helped by the Qualcomm SQ1 SOC).
Yeah, the Surface Laptop 3 was on the list of my considerations a couple months ago because it checked most of my boxes, but reports of odd problems (like those you've mentioned) along with a common hairline screen crack problem pushed me to buy a ThinkPad instead.
I love my ThinkPad X1 extreme. I just threw manjaro on it this morning. Other than 2m of frustration thinking I can’t make a bootable usb stick and realising I need to disable secure boot, it works amazingly well.
Strangely enough tho it says my battery is 87% good. Tho the laptop is like 3 years old now.
I'm running Arch on mine, 2.5 years old, everything works fine, and I love it. I get dells at work, and also have a mbp, but no contest - surface laptop 3 is the bar for me.
> The most painful problem with the machine is that WiFi is entirely unusable if you are simultaneously using bluetooth.
Wouldn't that be a problem of Windows itself? For me bluetooth has been a mess on every Windows machine. It's a miracle if something works and to get something working you even need to buy a dongle with a specific chip on it...
When you have good Bluetooth hardware, modern Windows versions seem to be pretty good with Bluetooth. Playing back on Bluetooth speakers or having Bluetooth mice or game pads seems to work pretty well. The most frustrating part is the issue of switching between Headset Profile and A2DP with bluetooth headsets. That always seems like a nightmare and prone to lots of frustrations.
I've definitely experienced what a bad Bluetooth adapter on Windows is like though. Things just failing to pair for no apparent reason, things randomly disconnecting, the thing seeming to forget all previous pairings, etc. I think that's usually been due to poor drivers. Earlier versions of Windows didn't really have much Bluetooth support out of the box, most of the stuff seemed to be implemented by each hardware vendor at the time. Compatibility issues were so common. This has largely seemed to go away especially when using modern Intel WiFi/BT chips and modern Windows.
I had one Asus laptop that required me to occasionally toggle Bluetooth off and on again to reconnect my mouse. The rest of my laptops and my desktop's USB Bluetooth dongle have worked without issue for my mice and headphones. I don't think it's a common issue, but I'm just one person!
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi work together with no issues on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme. I'm using Wi-Fi on 5GHz. Haven't tried it on 2.4GHz; I imagine there could be more potential for interference there.
I mostly use Bluetooth with Apple AirPods. I tried running Ubuntu on the ThinkPad but it had the same problem I've seen on other Linux machines: the AirPods would only pair as headphones, not as a full headset with microphone.
I like Windows better anyway on the hardware, especially its support for different scaling factors on multiple monitors. So I run Linux in a VM or use WSL2.
I have, because I’m really stupid and bought a ax200 card from Amazon that apparently didn’t have BT on it... bought another one and it works totally fine.
I don't own a Surface laptop, but my sister bought a Surface Pro (2 or 3, I'm not sure) a couple of years ago. She has already replaced the original charging adapters twice. The batteries also don't work unless they are plugged in. I think she also complains about wifi connectivity issues.
I thought Surface devices are built well, but after seeing my sister struggle with her Surface Pro, I have decided to not take the risk.
I have had a Laptop 3 for a while and haven't had most of these problems (I'm frequently using a bluetooth xbox controller + airpods pro + wifi on it). The ambient brightness thing is so goddamn annoying though! It's not an MS thing specifically (I know Dell XPS has it at least, too) but it is just the absolute worst.
Sorry to hear that. I've had a Surface Book, SB2, SB3, and looking forward to Surface Book 4 and Duo 2. The moment I got my original Surface Book, I felt like it was "the future" of laptops. I know the price tag puts a lot of people off, but it's essentially a tablet and a laptop in one device.
My Surface Book 2 is one of the purchases I regret the most.
The tablet mode is decent, although a USB port would have been nice. The display is fantastic, although a bit too reflective.
Using the machine is another story, battery life isn’t as exceptional as it’s made out to be, and it’s slow (even web browsing on Edge or Chrome is janky on anything other than “Better performance” mode).
> I have reloaded this thing from official image 3x and it will still randomly fuck up important things like hardware accelerated video playback and WiFi
Using a Surface Laptop 3 to write this, have had it since it came out (I guess maybe a little under a year now?). It's one of the most reliable laptops I've ever used.
I have only noticed sync issues on a few live streams. Never on any local media.
My issue is that the video is completely black (or green in VLC). Disabling hardware acceleration resolves, but then it runs like garbage and cant resize with high quality interpolation.
Using a Surface Laptop 3 right now and everything except for the display is pretty much a dumpster fire. The display hardware is incredible in every way. 3:2 is the correct aspect ratio for laptops if you care about running visual studio or other apps which gobble up vertical real estate.
I have reloaded this thing from official image 3x and it will still randomly fuck up important things like hardware accelerated video playback and WiFi, both of which require a hard reset to resolve. There is also some really annoying bullshit with the ambient brightness adjustment feature where I have to manually disable it in the registry every time a driver or windows update hits.
The most painful problem with the machine is that WiFi is entirely unusable if you are simultaneously using bluetooth. I have had to get external dongles to resolve this.
All of that said, I have had few-to-no issues with the Surface Pro product line at work, and my sample size is 1. Might be bad luck or just really demanding expectations. I have been debating going back to Apple, but there are some HP/Asus machines that look compelling now.