Fewer Than 1 in 100,000 New Surface Devices Go Wrong, Microsoft Says (zdnet.com)

A reader shares a ZDNet report: Microsoft has shaken off claims that its Surface range is unreliable and said that fewer than 1 in 100,000 of new Surface devices have gone wrong. The ratings service Consumer Reports raised a question mark over the reliability of the Surface line as a whole earlier this year. At the time, Consumer Reports surveyed 90,000 subscribers and found that 25 percent of Microsoft laptops and tablets will give owners problems by the end of the second year of ownership. Ryan Gavin, Microsoft's general manager for Surface, challenged the finding and said that the Surface devices are getting more reliable with each new generation. "One of the things you're seeing is the reliability of our products over time, with every generation getting better and better and better." Reliability issues among newer devices, such as the Surface Laptop and Studio, had been reported for only a fraction of devices, he said. "We're talking about incidents per device of less than 0.001%."

Comments

Misuse of statistics and methodology

[UnknowingFool]

Consumer Reports bases their numbers on surveys of Surface owners. Criteria from MS seems less reliable as feedback from telemetry and customers which is different.

What we hear from our customers, however, and from the telemetry data that our customers want to share with us, is that Surface devices have never been more reliable and with every generation we release they get increasingly so," he added.

Consumer Reports goes out of their way to contact owners and get feedback from them it seems. Yes, some don't respond. MS relies on customers contacting them to complain which isn't always the case. Also telemetry data relies on customers wanting to allow access to the data and that the data shows problems. For example if a device's wifi goes out, how will it report it has a problem with wifi?

Where is the independent corroboration?

[OneHundredAndTen]

It matters not what MS says, for they are a very interested party. I.e. anything they say in this respect must be taken with a very healthy dose of skepticism. What does the independent evidence say?