After an incident that occurred today, I wonder if some of the "Backlight Bleed" issues aren't necessarily backlight and if improper stress on the display, possibly from misfitting, are to blame for at least some of the cases?
Backstory: I recently exchanged my 2017 Surface Pro i7/8/256 model, which had no evidence of "backlight bleed" for an i7/16/512 model, which as I posted in the backlight bleed thread, did have some light area along the bottom. Particularly along the bottom left, when in landscape mode orientation.
Today, I was using it as normal, closed the keyboard cover and took it to a meeting that was literally 5 doors down. Opened the SP for the meeting and it was fine. No problems.
After the meeting was over, I repeated the above and returned 5 doors back down to my office, opened the SP and I notice something I thought at first was maybe a hair. There were a couple of people with longer hair present and I thought maybe I had picked one up on the screen. I wiped it with a microfiber to remove it, but it remained. My next thought was maybe it was an optical illusion from the lights and the blinds, so I repositioned and swiveled it. But it persisted. I then tried to dampen the cloth and wipe again, but the line remained. Puzzled I ran my fingernail over it and sure enough it was a hairline crack in the display.
There was absolutely no sign of any damage, just a very faint crack. I mean what could have even caused that kind of almost invisible damage? Nothing was in-between the keyboard cover and display, I didn't pick up any gravel, or foreign objects at the meeting, no bumps or anything during the 5 door commute from the meeting to my office. No previous bumps, drops, etc.
If anyone is familiar with stress cracks in a windshield, it looked very much like that. Running from the edge about half an inch up on the left side, to about 1/3 of the way along the bottom. Precisely where the lightest area of my "backlight bleed" was.
I called my local store and they had me bring it in. I only had the thing about 1 week. They took a look at it as well, felt along the edges and said that "that usually only happens if the metal edge of the metal frame is deformed, which it was not. They then said they really don't know what caused it, that most likely I was "just unlucky" and that it was "not normal for that to happen."
To their credit they were extraordinarily nice, exchanged it on the spot and did not count it as one of my accidental damage claims or cost me anything, since the was no evidence of any damage to the unit. Simply unexplained "not normal" breakage
The manager assured me that these devices *should* hold up to a great deal of abuse. Evidence of that, he pointed out, was the 4 Surface Pro 3's that they have in the children's area. As he put it, more than 2 years of abuse, being banged, dropped, poked, etc. by children putting them through the torture test. He said there was no way that a crack should have happened to mine, with no sign of damage, just "unlucky."
Long story short. I am very convinced that the hairline crack was a result of a stress crack. I could not possibly be more certain that it wasn't banged, dropped or that anything foreign came between the keyboard cover and the display that would cause damage during that short 5 door commute.
But the question I have is could residual stresses along the perimeter of the display, be causing some of the cases of what appear to be "backlight bleed?" or is the backlight bleed issue that the prior machine had, a completely separate issue altogether from the issue that caused the hairline crack?
In any case, I have no complaints. The folks at my local store at Park Meadows Mall were great and they were very understanding of the issue and very accommodating in resolving it. Kudos to them!
Backstory: I recently exchanged my 2017 Surface Pro i7/8/256 model, which had no evidence of "backlight bleed" for an i7/16/512 model, which as I posted in the backlight bleed thread, did have some light area along the bottom. Particularly along the bottom left, when in landscape mode orientation.
Today, I was using it as normal, closed the keyboard cover and took it to a meeting that was literally 5 doors down. Opened the SP for the meeting and it was fine. No problems.
After the meeting was over, I repeated the above and returned 5 doors back down to my office, opened the SP and I notice something I thought at first was maybe a hair. There were a couple of people with longer hair present and I thought maybe I had picked one up on the screen. I wiped it with a microfiber to remove it, but it remained. My next thought was maybe it was an optical illusion from the lights and the blinds, so I repositioned and swiveled it. But it persisted. I then tried to dampen the cloth and wipe again, but the line remained. Puzzled I ran my fingernail over it and sure enough it was a hairline crack in the display.
There was absolutely no sign of any damage, just a very faint crack. I mean what could have even caused that kind of almost invisible damage? Nothing was in-between the keyboard cover and display, I didn't pick up any gravel, or foreign objects at the meeting, no bumps or anything during the 5 door commute from the meeting to my office. No previous bumps, drops, etc.
If anyone is familiar with stress cracks in a windshield, it looked very much like that. Running from the edge about half an inch up on the left side, to about 1/3 of the way along the bottom. Precisely where the lightest area of my "backlight bleed" was.
I called my local store and they had me bring it in. I only had the thing about 1 week. They took a look at it as well, felt along the edges and said that "that usually only happens if the metal edge of the metal frame is deformed, which it was not. They then said they really don't know what caused it, that most likely I was "just unlucky" and that it was "not normal for that to happen."
To their credit they were extraordinarily nice, exchanged it on the spot and did not count it as one of my accidental damage claims or cost me anything, since the was no evidence of any damage to the unit. Simply unexplained "not normal" breakage
The manager assured me that these devices *should* hold up to a great deal of abuse. Evidence of that, he pointed out, was the 4 Surface Pro 3's that they have in the children's area. As he put it, more than 2 years of abuse, being banged, dropped, poked, etc. by children putting them through the torture test. He said there was no way that a crack should have happened to mine, with no sign of damage, just "unlucky."
Long story short. I am very convinced that the hairline crack was a result of a stress crack. I could not possibly be more certain that it wasn't banged, dropped or that anything foreign came between the keyboard cover and the display that would cause damage during that short 5 door commute.
But the question I have is could residual stresses along the perimeter of the display, be causing some of the cases of what appear to be "backlight bleed?" or is the backlight bleed issue that the prior machine had, a completely separate issue altogether from the issue that caused the hairline crack?
In any case, I have no complaints. The folks at my local store at Park Meadows Mall were great and they were very understanding of the issue and very accommodating in resolving it. Kudos to them!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram