Many Surface Pro 3 customers are reporting sudden degrade of battery life
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As per Microsoft, the batteries on Surface devices are designed with some of the highest charge cycles for consumer electronic devices which means that the battery can get charged daily (5 days a week) for over 4.5 years and still maintain 80% capacity. Many Surface Pro 3 customers are now reporting on Microsoft forums that they are seeing sudden drop in battery performance on their devices. It seems some Surface Pro 3 devices were shipped with defective battery units.
Check out the forum post by a Surface Pro 3 owner below,
My wife’s Surface Pro 3 is about 18 months old, and we have seen the battery life just tank on it in the last 3 months. Running powercfg /batteryreport shows the following:
Installed Batteries
NAME X898289 MANUFACTURER SIMPLO SERIAL NUMBER 1162811908 CHEMISTRY LION DESIGN CAPACITY 42,157 mWh FULL CHARGE CAPACITY 144 mWh CYCLE COUNT 130 Battery capacity history
2016-04-17 – 2016-04-24 19,698 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-04-24 – 2016-05-01 15,069 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-05-01 – 2016-05-08 12,148 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-05-08 – 2016-05-15 10,091 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-05-15 – 2016-05-22 7,678 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-05-22 – 2016-05-29 5,717 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-05-29 – 2016-06-05 4,091 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-06-05 – 2016-06-12 2,770 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-06-12 – 2016-06-19 1,077 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-06-19 – 2016-06-26 551 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-06-27 502 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-06-28 272 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-06-29 144 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-06-30 144 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-07-01 144 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-07-02 144 mWh 42,157 mWh 2016-07-03 144 mWh 42,157 mWh From searching this forum, it looks like Microsoft has a serious issue with these Surface Pro 3 batteries, specifically the SIMPLO model. I spoke with support today, and even referenced the Reddit post that other’s have found about the $200 replacement for batteries, and they did not budge off their position that it would be $450 + tax to exchange this unit out of warranty. And they could provide no more than a 90-day warranty on the new replacement, no thank you!
During a Reddit AmA, Surface Cheif Panos Panay said that if the battery fails during the warranty period, Microsoft will replace the battery. If the battery fails after the warranty period, you can get it replaced from Microsoft Support for $200 USD. Even when Surface Pro 3 customers pointed out this info from Panos Panay, Microsoft Support has refused to change the batteries for $200. We reached out to Microsoft regarding this issue and got the following response.
We are aware of some customers reporting a scenario with their Surface Pro 3 batteries in which the system is reporting lower battery capacity than expected. This is a top priority for our team, and we are working quickly to understand the root cause. If you are experiencing this scenario, please contact Microsoft customer support.
Hopefully, Microsoft will resolve this issue soon for the affected Surface Pro 3 customers.
