Battery issues strike Surface users once again, with new Surface Pro 5 and 6 tablets affected

Users are reporting that their older Surface Pro models are no longer living up to their initial battery life expectations.

Surface users are of course not new to battery life issues; with Surface Pro 3 users in 2014 famously plagued with battery problems, that despite firmware update after firmware update, were never truly resolved.

It appears that the same issues have been carried through to the Surface Pro 5 and 6.

On this occasion, a raft of users are complaining on the Microsoft support site –Microsoft Answers– about issues that range from their laptops being stuck at 0% charging, to much-diminished battery capacity after only a few hundred charge cycles.

Here’s Thanatorni1994’s account of his experience with the 2017 Surface Pro 5:

ISSUE: Battery at full charge drastically degraded and swings

Conditions observed lately:

-The battery runs out within 1-2 hrs just by browsing websites/Youtube (tested on both Chrome&M. Edge)
-To fully Charge, takes only around 20-30mins (Est. full charge not accurate)
-Battery sometimes drops by a ridiculous amount E.G. by 20-30% in 1 sec.

Another user also shared his experience in the comments:

I have pretty much the same problem on a Surface Pro 5 bought in January 2018.

All indications are that the battery has fallen to 30% or so of design capacity.  This seems a very short time when MS Battery Report shows only 309 cycles.

It is notable that the Surface 5 and Surface 6 devices that these users are complaining about are only 1-2 years old.  Unfortunately, in most cases, battery performance is not protected under warranty the same way other components are.

It’s somewhat ironic that Intel’s current push for all-day battery life PCs mean there may be a stark divide between the experience of older Surface users and the next generation of devices which routinely achieve 13 hours active use battery life.

Have any of our readers been troubled by below-expectation battery performance with their Surface Pro?  Let us know in the comments below.

Source: neowin