Surface Pro 8 has been absolutely nothing but problems.

Honestly, I think that I’ve finally had it with my SP8 and Microsoft. After a near flawless experience with my SP3 (i5, 8gb ram, 128 hdd), I’m very disappointed with my experience. When I say flawless, I mean SP3 was an absolute workhorse for 7.5 years, getting me through bachelors and masters degrees, multiple contract jobs, several research projects, several consultation projects, board committee work, running volunteer community development groups, etc.

I went back to school during the pandemic and bought the SP8. This degree will take 5 years so I doubled down and purchased my SP8 (i7, 16gb ram, 256 ssd) with a signature type cover keyboard at a cost of $3000. I had such a good experience with SP3 and I wanted this new computer to have the processing power and longevity needed to get through this degree without issues.

Oh boy was I ever wrong about SP8 as it’s been nothing but issues for most of the time but especially since Windows 11 build 22H2. The typecover while showing as connected is unresponsive on boot up at least half of the time, and it happens at random. The keyboard is connected, actively charging and charging the pen but the keyboard won’t work. Microsoft insists it’s a hardware issue but it’s a software issue because I’ve been able to fix it and get the keyboard working again several times. This is a widely reported issue happening across multiple versions of surface and it’s a combination issue with Windows 11’s more automated features and Windows 11 deleting the type cover driver filter. Because of that the computer then doesn’t recognize the keyboard, Windows 11 automatically switches to tablet mode and there’s no way to toggle it back.

The accelerometer driver has a similar issue with being randomly deleted affecting auto-rotate. The feature becomes greyed out and you can’t manually toggle it out of landscape mode. I like to read and mark up pdf research articles in portrait mode and there’s no way to make it work when this happens. Extending from the accelerometer issue, sometimes my computer just starts randomly switching back and forth between landscape and inverted landscape modes with no way to stop than to hard reset. I actually have this on video and have no problem sharing if anyone wants to see it.

I had the issue fixed for about a couple of months and it was the longest I went without experiencing this issue with the keyboard and accelerometer. That is, until 22H3 downloaded earlier this week and suddenly the issue is back. I woke up early this morning to read a couple of research articles before work, and I’m now sitting here rage typing this **** out on an iPhone and not getting any work done. I’ve quite seriously had it.

I have had this happen before research/writing sessions, meetings, research consultations, workshops, important zoom calls, etc. and it’s absolutely disappointing and embarrassing.

It really sucks because I loved my SP3, I love the form factor and being able to easily switch from typing to using the pen, but I am so disappointed with this product that it takes the wind out of my sails rather than motivating and enabling me to get my work done. At just 2 years in, it has had a mere fraction of the use my SP3 had.

Microsoft’s solution is to buy another $300 type cover keyboard and/or send it back, pay $900 and they’ll send me a refurbished one. I would sooner throw it at a wall and buy a MacBook than sink another $900 into this lemon of a product.

I have to figure out what I’m going to do now because I can’t keep doing this anymore. I’ll take any advice from anyone with knowledge who’s willing to give it. My advice to anyone thinking about buying a surface computer: FECKIN RUN! FLY YOU FOOLS!