14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft officially presented the new Surface Pro 3 tablet during a press conference in New York on May 20 and the company gave away some review units in order to allow media outlets to try it out before the public launch.
It appears, however, that some of these review units are coming with a battery issue that's causing the tablets not to turn on and, in some cases, to fail to recharge.
Jordan Guthmann, in charge of Microsoft reviews at Waggener Edstrom, Redmond's very own PR firm, said in a short tweet yesterday that the company is aware of this issue and an update is projected to be released before the official launch to make sure that all Surface Pro 3 tablets are working as expected.
“We're aware and issuing an update before GA. The power of updates!” he posted yesterday.
At the same time, the Surface team at Microsoft explained in an AMA session on Reddit that devices running into battery issues while under warranty will be fixed free of charge. If these issues appear after the warranty period, you might have to pay no less than $200 (150 euros) for a new battery.
“We’ve built a great battery into the product. IF the battery fails during the warranty period, we’ll replace the battery. IF the battery fails after the warranty period, you’ll call Microsoft support and arrange for the battery to be replaced. The cost will be $200 USD,” the Surface team wrote.
According to the same posts, Microsoft designed the Surface battery in such a way that it would support frequent recharges for more than 4 years, so many users are actually very unlikely to experience such issues.
“The batteries on our Surface products are designed with some of the highest charge cycles for consumer electronic devices. This means that the battery can get charged daily (5 days a week) for over 4.5 years and still maintain 80% capacity,” they said.
A damaged battery can be replaced, the Surface team added, but only by authorized personnel, so you should try to do it for yourself. The company recommends everyone buying a Surface Pro 3 to contact Microsoft as soon as possible to make sure that their devices are replaced under warranty.
“The battery can be replaced, but not by the user. The process would be to contact support and send the device in to have it replaced. If the battery life becomes an issue you should contact Microsoft support.”
The Surface Pro 3 is currently available for pre-order in the United States and some other countries across the globe, but shipments won't begin sooner than mid-June and even August for the top-of-the-range models.
As a quick recap, the Surface Pro 3 comes with multiple CPU options, namely i3, i5, and i7, up to 512 GB of storage space, a 12-inch display and a digital pen to make drawing and writing easier.