Microsoft, please fix this

It’s embarrassing that it’s still broken two years later

I love gadgets. Having worked at Microsoft in Redmond, WA for a little bit (on Windows 7), I have a soft spot for the Evil Empire. Nevertheless, I’m a consumer first and an advocate…tenth, which is why I’ve bought seven iOS and four Android devices.

Excel and PowerPoint matter a lot to me. It’s the main reason I could never get used to Macs, because I have grown so reliant on keyboard shortcuts that the Mac experience feels frustratingly alien.

I also travel a lot for work, so the idea of a highly mobile, Office-capable device is appealing.

So unsurprisingly, I jumped all over the Surface Pro when it came out. Good machine, but the battery life was a deal breaker and it was too heavy for such a small tablet. Surprisingly, I also realized I hardly used anything outside of Office on desktop — the screen was just too small. And so I got the Surface 2.

Overall, I like this device. It looks sexy. It does what I need, mostly. I believe a kickstand and a detachable keyboard will emerge as the preferred form factor for mobile workers. As in, if Apple ever copied these two things, the tech world at large will fall in love.

My neighbor, an iPad owner, has to think outside the box to watch movies on the plane

Non-Surface tablet owners, trust me, you’ll love the kickstand once you get to know it

But there are two bugs that have persisted from the Surface Pro to the Surface 2 today that really piss me off.

1) It doesn’t wake sometimes, and I have to hold the power button to do a hard reset

2) It doesn’t sleep sometimes, so when I take it out of the bag it’s blazing hot and has 20% battery

The first issue is frustrating but ultimately, it’s livable. Windows RT boots pretty fast anyway.

The second is an absolute killer when you’re travelling. There’s nothing worse than settling into a long flight and expecting to be able to do some work or watch a movie only to realize there’s 20% battery left. (My situation right now.)

Come on, Microsoft. How many updates have supposedly fixed this issue? It’s still not fixed!

Ex-colleagues in Redmond, I plead for you to get your act together! Help me help you so I can actually recommend this darn thing!

Haven’t you heard? The iPad has proper Office now. A new, 13-inch iPad Air that weighs less than 2 pounds will cause me to switch immediately.

Unless the keyboard shortcuts are more Mac than Windows, I guess. Hmm…

I can rant some more, but my battery is just about dead.