Worried about Battery Aging

[skstrials]

I am looking at getting a Surface Pro with i5, 8gb, and 128gb storage.

Everything looks good except that the battery is sealed and glued in. For the current owners, how do you guys plan on changing the battery later?

Does MS offer any battery replacement program?

Wouldnt it be absurd to have the entire hardware go to waste, with just faulty battery a few years down the line?

 

[xandros9]

Battery replacement down the road would be replacing the entire device. I don't think Microsoft does battery replacements, I'm pretty sure the only option is a couple/few hundred dollars for another Surface unless I'm out of date.

It is arguably absurd but on the other hand, it allows for a much thinner device and it'll last "long enough" usually. The question is whether you're willing to accept the tradeoffs.

 

[Marcin Dabrowsky]

By the time the battery needs to be swapped, there will be plenty of people offering these services. I woulndn't worry too much.

 

[Tonio78]

I wouldn't worry too much either. I keep an eye on the battery health and after about 50 cycles, there is 0% loss.

 

[anon(7901790)]

I wouldn't worry. I had an SP3 for almost four years and didn't notice any battery degradation. The SP (2017) has a better battery...

 

[xandros9]

By the time the battery needs to be swapped, there will be plenty of people offering these services. I woulndn't worry too much.

The Surface Pro has been around since early-2013 and believe me I do not see any such services. If I were to run a repair shop, I wouldn't touch them honestly because of the sheer difficulty and high risk.

 

[MBytes]

I am looking at getting a Surface Pro with i5, 8gb, and 128gb storage.

Everything looks good except that the battery is sealed and glued in. For the current owners, how do you guys plan on changing the battery later?

Does MS offer any battery replacement program?

Wouldnt it be absurd to have the entire hardware go to waste, with just faulty battery a few years down the line?

Normally I would say it is an issue, but Microsoft uses really high quality batteries. That said, if you plan to have the system functional with some battery life after 10 years, than don't expect that. But you should have ~80% of its original capacity after 4 years.

Microsoft does offer a battery replacement program, although I never used it. I don't know if they'll service your system, or send you a refurbished unit (meaning you'll need to backup your data before shipping the unit to them).


That said, I would wait for the 8th gen Intel U series CPU model of the Surface Pro, as you should have a quad core CPU and not a dual core CPU.

 

[Mahdi Ghiasi]

I've been using my SP3 for 4 years, and I'm a heavy user. The battery capacity is now at 70-75 percent of its initial capacity. Not perfect, but not bad either.

 

[1jaxstate1]

I have a Surface Pro 2 and it won't last 10 minutes off the charger.

 

[Hans Swolfs]

I wouldn't worry. I had an SP3 for almost four years and didn't notice any battery degradation. The SP (2017) has a better battery...

Same here except my SP3 is still going strong included the battery so no worries there.

 

[DQuiLon]

... Wouldnt it be absurd to have the entire hardware go to waste, with just faulty battery a few years down the line?

Well I have had a Surface Book since November 2016 (the original non-performance model with dGPU and i7)

After 1.5 years of use, my batteries (tablet+keyboard base) sit at 312 and 396 cycle counts according to the battery report. You can see that I use it almost daily... and the current capacity of the batteries together is between 85~92% of the original amount.

In my opinion, these numbers are actually very good because, having such good battery from the start, they give me a life estimates of 5~6 years, and being pessimist I will have around 60% of the original battery by that time... which is still very good for mixed usage.

I usually get between 6 and 8 hours of battery from a single charge with heavy use.... and over 10 hours of video playback and light use... so having half that in 4 years is still very good.


So far the only issues I have faced with the Surface regarding battery, were:

- Battery drain while sleeping (this was due to Windows bug + setting to keep awake and connected to wifi while asleep)

- Slow charging even with a 102W charger (original Microsoft adapter received as a warranty exchange)... recently I have experienced random slow charging, while it usually takes about 2 hours to full charge, sometimes can take over 5 or 6... and maybe this is a Windows 10 April's update bug.

The thing that worries me about the Surface Pro more than the Surface Book is that the main battery shares the same space with all other components, and the heat that comes from them.

I like that the Surface Book has 2 separated batteries and that the dGPU is appart of the CPU so the main heat sources are quite far appart... and in the worst case that the main battery fails, I can try and buy a second hand keyboard base and all would be good...

 

[jetfire21]

I have a Surface Pro 1 64 GB since launch. Battery still going strong. I did buy the Battery Keyboard to supplement the battery. I keep my data on the SD card so if it dies it is not a total loss. It just the MS chargers are terrible. I gone through at least 3 of them.

 

[BryanMahendra]

Honestly, if I buy a Surface (which I did bought a SB2), I'd say if it fails after 1 year warranty (battery, hinge, dust, etc), I'd consider it as money lost.

Sucks to do that with a $3000 device, but Microsoft has been doing the replace/refurbish scheme for so long I don't think they're gonna change.

For battery, the only thing you can do is to take care of the battery health, like:
1. Don't stress the device with lots of heat.
2. Don't charge it/plug it 24/7. Get it down to 10% once a month.
3. Use as minimal of battery cycles as possible.

Battery degradation does happen if Surface devices, just look around reddit and you'll find multiple examples. What grinds my gears on Microsoft is not they didn't allow/design Surface devices to be opened with screws (like for example the HP Elite X2 tablets). It's that they didn't apply a Battery Charging bypass feature (e.g. limiting charge at 80% battery).

They could've prevented battery wasting from 100% charging it while plugged-in/using Surface as a desktop replacement; but they didn't. It's funny how other OEMs are smart enough to implement this like Lenovo, Samsung, Dell, LG, VAIO, etc. with their Power Manager/Battery Health Extender feature.




Example of Surface Book battery degradation @reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/6zhufy/surface_book_battery_life_rules/>


Even on Windows Central, this was previously discussed like the aforementioned article by Cale H.
https://www.windowscentral.com/leave-laptop-plugged


It's not about overcharging (as people usually say), more of battery wear because of the current Volt state is what I fear in Surfaces, even Macbook (although it is more repairable).

 

[skstrials]

So just to update, for me, not being able to service the hardware was a big deal enough that I ended up going with a Thinkpad T480. It is heavier and thicker, but for the full serviceability of the Thinkpad was worth the extra heft for me.

It is possible to have thin and attractive hardware with user replaceable batteries (Thinkpad X1 Carbon). It is such a shame that MS insists on glueing in the batteries.

 

[thinskin45]

I have three Surface devices, the oldest a gen1 Surface RT that is now five years old. I have a Surface 3 from three and a half years ago and a Surface Book that is two years old. None have seen significant battery degradation, not even the RT. As long as you care for them, and don't expect decade long longevity, Surface batteries are generally not a big issue.

 

[DQuiLon]

I just checked my mother's Surface Pro 3, and its cycle count is almost 1000... with a degradation of only 3%...... not that the SP3 was good with battery life, but at least it still reaches the average 4 hours that it did 3 years ago

 

[DSR11]

Battery replacement down the road would be replacing the entire device. I don't think Microsoft does battery replacements, I'm pretty sure the only option is a couple/few hundred dollars for another Surface unless I'm out of date.

It is arguably absurd but on the other hand, it allows for a much thinner device and it'll last "long enough" usually. The question is whether you're willing to accept the tradeoffs.

At 2 of my last jobs for support, a good 20% of Surface Pro 3 setups had somewhat failed batteries after about 16-24 months as by then they wouldn't last more than 2-3 hours, and 1 failed in about 1 hour. Take those odds into account as with any other sealed tablet like system. It happens.

There are warranty services, but they do die quite quickly after the 36 month period.

 

[Wevenhuis]

If I look at the many iFixit type videos on the surface pro it will be very difficult to replace the battery. In essence if the battery fails, it is technically possible, but at a price. otherwise it will be planned obsolescence. Sad really, but otherwise the device is great. I have a surface pro 5 and 2 first gen models. All three work just fine. The batteries of the first gen models have been reduced from 4,5 to 3,5 hours of onscreen time. But otherwise the hardware is holding up fine. Going to the surface pro 5 is a different experience with the longer batterylife.
It is a pity though that the battery can not be replaced relatively easily. E-waste is a big problem, the hardwre in the current surface pro is top notch for a long while. It will be the battery that will be the limiting factor in the long run. It's especially the guilty feeling of contributing to ewaste and a waste of resources of otherwise very powerful devices which makes this battery replacement a frustrating experience. Because I have experienced that the first gen surface pro still works fine today, it will be sad to shell out loads of money to replace a battery so the device can still be used after 5 years. What I do think is better though that even if i lose 25% over 5 years with the pro 5, I still will have 5-6 hours of screen on time, which still is almost twice as long as the first gen device. I think the device would still be quite usable for another 5 years. I've replaced batteries on my smartphones and it does make a difference having a fresh battery and knowing the hardware is still great. I don't know what the right answer is, but it's something I think pc companies should still adress in high end mobile devies when thinking about design.

 

[DQuiLon]

I just checked my mother's Surface Pro 3, and its cycle count is almost 1000... with a degradation of only 3%...... not that the SP3 was good with battery life, but at least it still reaches the average 4 hours that it did 3 years ago

As an update to my original post, and the second one... My Surface Book officially turned 2 y/o recently... and I have compiled a nice graph of its Battery degradation and possible trends if this continues the same way...

Right now my device is currently sitting at around 82% of battery degradation in average between both batteries which is a bit more than what I expected, however I do use it on high temperatures frequently... but 3D modeling, rendering, and also gaming with it.

As a fun fact, the battery on the tablet portion I was expecting to degrade faster since it has more heat coming out of it when I touch it for mundane tasks (such as youtube and streaming) while the keyboard sits ice cold... but the degradation of the Battery inside the tablet is considerably lower, at around 90%... while the one on the keyboard is at around 78% (the average gives a value closer to the one on the keyboard because that one is a lot bigger)

At this rate, I expect to have a capacity of 65% of its original full charge when it turns 4 y/o... which would still be acceptable considering the amazing initial endurance.

When I watch Youtube videos constantly, right now it will last around 7 hours... and it used to last around 10... but for local video playback it reports around 11 hours which is very close to its original 12 hours (using Windows Movies app and HD mp4 files)

I wanted to paste the graph here, but doesn't let me. So I attached it instead.


PS: there were a couple of bad battery readings in the past which led me to create this file and monitor my device closely due to paranoia... However I am a bit relieved that Microsoft upgraded my warranty to a three years period after contacting them for a different issue.

 

[skstrials]

it is certainly frustrating that Surface products are built with planned obsolescence in mind. Even Apple offers battery replacement on their devices (for a fee).

Do you guys think repairability design / repair programs should be mandated by law to reduce e waste?