Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsmajor, major, major letdown
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2018
No, I wasn't let down by the laptop itself. Rather, I didn't even have the chance to be let down.
I got this as a Christmas gift for my wife, whose 6-year-old Macbook Air needed replacing. I myself am a happy Surface Pro user (multiple generations) and a fan of what Microsoft has been doing with their OS and hardware. So I convinced my wife to try the Laptop 2 -- I knew the Surface Pro or Surface Book wouldn't be what she needed, but the SL2 could be just the ticket.
Especially based on reviews -- everyone gushed over how straightforward and effective this machine is, while being beautiful at the same time.
So I order one for her. Have it shipped all the way to the Philippines. It takes a couple of weeks, and I'm all excited to get her moved to her new machine. Finally, the box arrives. She opens it, marvels at the industrial design of it, thanks me for her new toy. Then she hits the power button.
And it goes into a Windows logo boot loop. No other hint of activity -- no attempt to load the OS, no spinning circles, no booting into safe mode, no UEFI screen, not even a BSOD. Just that damned Windows logo boot loop. I try all sorts of hard reset key combinations, spend hours creating recovery disks and trying to get the machine to run. I spend hours chatting with Amazon reps and Microsoft reps. All sorts of little things go wrong, on top of this major letdown.
In the end, the machine still won't run. Maybe the replacement on the way will be better. But as "first" experiences go (my wife's first with the new generation of Microsoft machines, and My first with the Laptop line) (and being a happy, happy customer of the Surface Pro line) -- this was incredibly, unendingly painful, and frustrating.
Microsoft has no business shipping a $1000+ machine that doesn't even work out of the darned box. This, for me, is a major burn as both a Microsoft and Amazon customer.
Zero stars if I could give it, because I had pretty high expectations, and was severely let down.
