Microsoft took a hit earlier today when Consumer Reports basically said Surface products are unreliable. Now Microsoft is firing back.

Consumer Reports had previously recommended Surface products, but removed the recommendations after collecting enough data for its reliability metrics:

Microsoft responded to the Consumer Reports article, saying its numbers didn’t line up with the company’s actual return rates and customer experiences. Surface Head Honcho Panos Panay has since penned a short blog post , elaborating a little on the company’s position. Here’s the key snippet:

Anecdotally, I’ve been using Surfaces as my primary computers for years, and have not experienced any major long-term issues.  But while Microsoft has a right to defend itself, Consumer Reports is testing against a wide variety of competitors, while Microsoft has an obvious data bias. The company says its return and failure rates are lower than Consumer Reports’ estimated 25 percent, for instance, but won’t say by how much.

It’s worth considering that Microsoft is still relatively new to the hardware game, and its unique form factors mean its tackling more complicated engineering problems than most. But ultimately consumer want reliable hardware, and that trust takes years of consistency to build. The best the company can do now is make even better products and try to prove Consumer Reports wrong in the long term. Just ask Tesla .