I was in love with my Surface, even after they took a month to repair it for warranty, but come on, having it die the day after the warranty expired, with no consideration for a replacement, has made that a one-and-done consideration. I sure did like fanless computing though.

As a lifelong non-Mac guy (mostly unix, and then linux, since the days AT&T were sharing their code around college campuses), I'm about to go to the dark side and embrace the fruit simply because I think the whole deal will be better.

I unfortunately can only affirm with my experiences: well engineered exterior feel, but plagued by unreliable hardware. My Surface Pro 4 managed to simultaneously experience flickergate and battery expansion, and the soft surface of its keyboard crumbled where my wrists touched it. Its refurbished warranty replacement then pulled off the signature die-a-month-out-of-warranty. The bottom half of a Surface Book in the family also died without any recourse (with no official replacements sold).

Naturally, the unsupported, glued-down screens also make them some of the least repairable devices on the market. At least they had the sense to make the SSD removable—aside from saving you if spontaneous failure catches you out of a backup (as Microsoft will wipe all devices sent in for repair), it's also the only part salvageable from a "PC" of such form factor.

That said, the Dells we've had seem to very reliably suffer from broken hinges.

> Surface lineup has been making good strides

Making laptops and tablets was anecdotally a business MSFT didn't particularly want to be in but the OEM options for business workplace were that embarrassing the bar had to be raised by someone.

That’s why I had heard they entered the market as well. But that basically proves the point of the original question doesn’t it.

And it seems even Microsoft’s “people should be aspiring to this, come on OEMs do better“ models have plenty of problems.

I have only had bad experiences with the surface lineup and I really wanted to like them. I lost a lot of money to MS as they refused to repair saying it was my own fault that they broke. One came broken from the shop as in that I bought it in an Orlando MS shop, opened it up in front of the shop and it was broken. I thought I needed to charge it, so I went to the hotel; when it was still broken 48 hours later, I had to leave (fly back home) so I sent it in for warranty repair 4 days after I bought it. Got an email a few days later that ‘this damage is not covered by warranty’. The thing was broken straight out of the shop; sure my fault I did not walk back in and ask if this was a charging issue but how did they blame me for it? I had this 3 times in different warranty stages with Surface products; all 3 lost because they refused to honour the warranty. Never had any issues with Apple; they always replaced anything under warranty (even if it wasn’t covered officially).

I think Microsoft's been getting better in handling reliability and support. My Surface Laptop 3 has been rock solid after almost two years of use.