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Microsoft's 'Replacement' Surface Pro Charger Cable Is an Off-Brand, and Short (theinquirer.net)

Posted by timothy on from the complaints-complaints dept.

Carly Page writes with a story from The Inquirer, where: As part of its Surface Pro charger recall, Microsoft has chosen to replace the sleek, shapely matt[e] plastic original with a cable approximately half the length and ordered from an off-brand manufacturer, in our case China's I-Sheng Electric Wire and Cable Company. Writer Peter Gothard points out a plausible reason for the length, though: "The extraordinarily short length of the cord is presumably to discourage behaviour that resulted in the "tightly wrapped" or "repeatedly bent" cables catching fire in at least 56 separate incidents."

4 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Picture is misleading, so is affected system desc by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For the few of you that actually bothered to click on the article link, the picture shows some kind of really short cord with a plug at the end...

    I don't know what the hell that is but it cannot be the cord the article is about, because the cord MS is sending is just the cord that goes between the power brick and Surface Pro, so it doesn't have a plug.

    Also worth noting that the article summary might lad you to believe this was about the current Surface Pro, but it's not - Surface Pro 3 and older. Even then it does not apply to a Surface Pro 3 you'd buy new from Microsoft now, they ship with fixed cables already. It doesn't affect the Surface Pro 4 at all.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  2. For uninformed, article title is disingenuous by Cutriss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The AC cable for the Surface Pro series is two pieces like most laptop cables. There's a simple AC cable without ground that goes from the wall to the transformer block, and then the transformer has a fixed DC wire that goes to the tablet itself.

    This recall *only* affected the AC cable, and that cable was already pretty short (like two feet tops). The bulk of the cable length comes from the DC cable itself, and that did not shorten (because it wasn't replaced). Don't get me wrong, the DC cable has issues and needs a reinforced boot, but we're talking of a total cable length loss of maybe six inches.

    --
    "Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
    1. Re:For uninformed, article title is disingenuous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I just received 15 of them.

      The new ones are exactly the same length as the cable they replaced.

  3. Re:And, it cheaper by macs4all · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's cheaper than providing a high-quality cable which isn't as affected by wrapping

    You mean like Apple does with it's silicone-rubber cables that resist cracking...

    or providing a built in wrapping mechanism

    You mean like Apple does on many chargers.

    Now cue all the people who yank their charger cables out "by the roots" repeatedly, then complain that the cables eventually fail at the junction of the connector and cable.

    Everything has a breaking-point; but obviously Microsoft paid absolutely ZERO attention to both the problem, and what's worse, to the supposed "solution".