Holy shit I wanted to throw my wife's SP4 at a wall countless times on our vacation these last two weeks.
One of my good friends purchased the original RT, then the Pro - but after four replacements for a variety of issues, ended up getting a refund on the original. He jumped back in on the SP3, which took another exchange until working correctly - this time WiFi issues.
He then got the SP4, and said it was much, much better save for some occasional sleeping/waking issues. My wife got her SP4 about two months ago, and sure enough - sleeping/hibernating/battery issues plagued the damn thing. Fortunately, right before our trip, a bunch of software and firmware updates hit, that were supposedly the final true fix for all the problems.
Fuck this device. It just absolutely cannot be trusted to "sleep" properly. It got to a point where I'd have her over my shoulder, we'd both intently watch me click start-power-sleep, and then wait a few seconds. Screen blank. Wait. Then we'd close the cover.
Need the device a few hours later? Won't wake. Won't turn on. Hold power button for a minute, resets. Battery is fine sometimes, other times it's pretty much dead.
Sometimes I'd reach in the bag and everything was hot from a device that was supposed to be sleeping the whole time.
Sometimes it slept just fine, but it has severe battery drain issues. If I put my MBP in my bag at 100%, three days later it's still at like 80% or more. This thing would be at 15-20% the next day.
I tried hibernating, and that helped - but the battery drain was still a real issue. Turning it completely off worked toward the end once I had "given up," but the on the last day, the boot-up took a solid three minutes as I was waiting to grab a confirmation number in a hurry.
Basically, it always worked... once it was on and we were logged it, it was fast, responsive. Light. Has a great screen. Honestly, a fantastic device. But the reason we went with this form factor - and why we took it on our trip - is that when we need to check something, we need to check it right then. Right in that moment. A laptop that is "ready" in three or four or five minutes is a frustrating pain in the ass.
Thought maybe it was just this device, so when I got back in town today, called my friend and he said his has a similar issue still, it's just not AS annoying because his sits on his desk at work, open and docked most the time Mon-Fri, so it's not as noticeable.
Anyway - just need to rant. I'll be taking it up to the MS store for a review or replacement this week when I can find the time. Maybe the second one will be better. But if not, for me at least, this is almost unusable.
Which, admittedly, is a shame, because when it's working, it's really fantastic. The device feels great, I love the functionality, and it really is a spectacular travel device otherwise.
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