Other anecdote, I cycle-toured for a year camping in all kind of uncomfortable places, and my Surface Pro 7 survived. The screen is cracked in a million places from getting smashed around with all my other kit, but it still works. The Type Cover is a bit crap, though. After going through one of them while on the road (PowerToys Keyboard Manager is your friend) now I've been living in an apartment with a roof and everything, and another one died from what I can only assume to be humidity. I gave up and switched to a cheap bluetooth keyboard instead, which kinda feels more cool and futuristic anyway.

I can confirm. I’ve had two surfaces and both have had serious failures about 1-2 years into medium usage with no physical damage.

Meanwhile, all my Thinkpads and MacBooks still work today.

I'm still waiting on my current, 60 hours of use a week, mid-2019 MacBook Pro to die or have any sort of malfunction so I can justify buying a new one. Its battery life has seen better days but that's basically it.

We had similar experiences with my wife's Surface and her brother's Surface

If you havent try holding the start button for 30-60 seconds, seems like I have to do this for my surface go and surface laptop once every 6 months.

Surface Pro 4 had broken OpenGL driver. Every software that requires OpenGL (basically all CAD software) crashes on it. Microsoft has all the incentive to cripple OpenGL. A generic Intel graphic driver cannot even be installed on surface. You have to use the Microsoft supplied one. Never bought a single surface again.

Good build quality is good because it is reliable. I don’t see how the good qualifier works otherwise.

Build Quality refers to how well a piece of equipment has been made [1]. The Surface's tablet has a sleek design with a great construction, uses quality materials and a quality finish that feels like a slab of luxury aluminum and glass in your hand.

In contrast poor build quality would be a thick piece of cheap plastic that creeks and rattles to touch.

[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/build...

The cherry on top of the unreliability is the high price of repairs. Even battery replacement runs around $400 for a Surface Pro, while a MacBook Pro battery replacement costs $250

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-much-does-out-...

https://support.apple.com/mac/repair