A few months ago, non-profit product rating organisation, Consumer Reports, decided not to recommend the latest Apple MacBook over concerns about its battery life. After Apple addressed the issue, Consumer Reports gave the notebook its stamp of approval. Now Microsoft, and in particular its Surface lineup, has come under fire from Consumer Reports, with reliability being cited as the reason for their lack of recommendation. 

According to Consumer Reports, they surveyed roughly 90 000 Surface product owners, with 25% of them reporting an issue within the first two years of ownership. Consequently, with breakages being encountered, primarily in the second year, Consumer Reports decided to remove its recommendation for the company's lineup. 

Microsoft, however, are not buying Consumer Reports' claims. Corporate VP for Microsoft Devices, Panos Panay, noted that the company did not agree with Consumer Reports' statistics. "Today’s (10 August) Consumer Reports survey is disappointing. While we respect Consumer Reports, we disagree with their findings. Surface has had quite a journey over the last few years, and we’ve learned a lot," said Panay.

Adding, "In the Surface team we track quality constantly, using metrics that include failure and return rates – both our predicted 1-2-year failure and actual return rates for Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book are significantly lower than 25%."

At the moment, there seems to be a standoff between the two. Whether or not Microsoft can reverse the recommendation, as Apple did, remains to be seen, especially as Consumer Reports' claims are harder to pin down to one aspect. All this, however, shouldn't be of real concern to South Africans, as Surface-branded hardware is yet to be made officially available in the country by Microsoft.