Why all Big Tech Hardware Manufacturing Sucks.
By: Gary Nelson
Tags: Microsoft, Google, Hardware, Mac

A plague on all your mouses

I’m OS agnostic. Not many people are, but I am. Above you will see three machines that I have worked on this year: Mac Mini M1 (Mac OS); HP ChromeBox (Chrome OS) and an Intel Nuc (Windows 10). I really like the Mini PC form factor and all of the above devices have been more than powerful enough for the work that I do. My main tool of choice, outside GMail and Slack, is Microsoft’s VSCode and the experience is pretty much the same regardless of OS (although I find the fact that the application menu is not attached to the application window in Mac OS, a little annoying). My story is not really related to the above devices, as they are each pretty good at what they do and I would recommend each as a powerful basis for any workstation setup: I just want to make it clear that I’m not a fanboy.

My journey started a year ago when I went into Microsoft’s flagship London store and purchased a Surface Laptop 3 (15" i7). Great looking machine and the addition of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), meant that it was perfect for my needs. I decided to trade up from a Goggle PixelBook to gain a little more power and a lot less bezel (The PixelBook is still one of the best devices I have ever owned in terms of form factor and typing experience). This is where things started to go wrong.

I noticed that the Surface fan would start spinning up a very low load levels and that it was incredibly loud (coming from the fan-less PixelBook, this was a real shocker). I contacted the store, who put me through to support, who told me to do some updates. I did the updates and after another couple of months, the situation really had not improved. You may be thinking that fan noise is something easily taken care of by some noise cancelling headphones (I have some, it isn’t) but one of the real issues here is that that fan noise was accompanied by throttling and that throttling meant that I was rarely getting the performance I paid for. I contacted the store again and after another series of pointless updates and diagnostics I was offered a refurbished replacement (I declined but they sent it anyway).

I asked for my money back, which is part of my rights under UK consumer law. A quick Google search had shown me that I was not the only one with the problem and so I felt that I would be better off getting a different machine without the problems.This is when things got interesting. Microsoft denied there was a general issue (despite me sending numerous links) but, worse, kept telling me that they didn’t need to give me a refund under their terms and conditions. They genuinely believe that they are above the law.

As an interim measure, fearing that the Surface would fail, I purchased a Pixel Slate i5 from eBay. I had a backup of my PixelBook Linux environment and this allowed me to get up and running in minutes. Although the Slate was rightly panned at launch, it is actually a fantastic device now that Google’s software has caught up with the hardware. The iPad Pro is great if you are a content creator, but if you are a developer, the Slate is the much better device or, at least it was. You see, many of the Slate i5s have developed a somewhat fatal problem where they stop being able to write to the drive. A quick search will show you that the problem is widespread. But Google, having consigned The Slate (and, for that matter, it’s inherently flawed keyboard case) to the attic like a Dorian Gray portrait in the hopes of keeping its image pristine, has no interest in owning the problem and if you are out of warranty, you are out of luck.

So, I now find myself on my third device and OS of the year. I’m back on a Mac after a twelve year hiatus. I’ve been let down by multi-billion dollar companies who err to treating their loyal customers with contempt instead of investigating and owning the hardware problems that they have.

In case your takeaway from this is that I should have stuck with Apple, then I should explain that the reason for that Mac hiatus is that my top-of-the-range iMac’s screen stopped working twelve years ago after just two years of ownership, it had a widely reported problem with the graphics card. I took the device to the store, they obviously claimed ignorance of any generic issue and explained that the repair would cost almost as much as a new device but, by way of consolation, they would be: “…happy to scrap it for you for free”.

Thus, whether it’s Microsoft, Google or Apple until they change their ways, I’m wishing a: “plague on all their mouses”.