Surface issues? Splitting Touch Covers and audio glitches reported

While at this stage the problems aren't being reported in any great number, Microsoft are bound to be concerned about reports of a number of issues regarding its new Surface tablet its accompanying Touch Cover keyboard.

With any new gadget or device you buy, you expect that over time it’ll begin showing up marks and nicks. But when things start to look a bit shoddy after just a couple of weeks – usually a time when you’re still carrying it around like you would a newborn baby – then of course it’s cause for concern, as much as for the manufacturer as for the owner.

So no doubt Microsoft will be studying with interest a number of comments that have started to appear on a Surface forum in recent days regarding its Touch Cover accessory, the new ultra-thin keyboard/cover which can be used with the company’s recently launched Surface tablet.

Accounts of the edge of the cover “peeling” and “ruffling up” along the magnetic edge where the Touch Cover connects with the tablet have been reported in the forum, while a piece in The Verge claims that a split in the same place exposes a wire.

Currently, there are only a few Touch Cover owners in the forum remarking on the issue, but if it turns out the keyboard/cover has a design fault, it could become more of a problem for the Redmond-based computer giant in the coming weeks.

Commenting on the issue in a statement issued on Friday, a company spokesperson said, “Microsoft makes every effort to ensure our customers receive a high quality product. We are in active contact with our customer support operations and are aware of a small number of instances of material separation.”

Meanwhile, The Next Web has reported a number of Surface owners experiencing “random mute events” where the audio switches off for no apparent reason. According to PocketNow, the culprit may be the Touch/Type Cover keyboards, which are “misreporting a press of their ‘mute’ keys.”

While this is certainly no ‘Antennagate‘ moment for Microsoft (for a start, the problem is with an accessory and not the main device), the company will doubtless be examining these early reports carefully in an effort to ascertain what action, if any, needs to be taken to eradicate future instances of these problems occurring.