Medium Large Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Distraction; Human-Machine Interface; Time Pressure; Troubleshooting
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe
Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Company Policy
Arrival weather reports indicated gusty winds and low ceilings; making the single direction ILS unusable. We came up with a plan to shoot the localizer and circle opposite direction; as this gave us the lowest minimums and the lowest workload. I had previously looked at the approach options before departure and in an effort to conserve battery life; I had pressed the power button; as I have done all month. When it came time to begin our descent; I pressed the power button to turn on the Surface EFB; and nothing happened; just a black screen. After dividing my attention between flying and getting the Surface to run for 3-4 min; I finally got the device restarted. I was without my own side navigation charts for 3-4 min; referencing my FO's charts across the cockpit. Landing occurred without event.Root cause is the Microsoft Surface EFB. Contributing is management's insistence on using this device despite the multitude of times it has crashed and pilots have lost situational awareness during it's extremely short test phase. Many of the crashes have occurred on my flight deck; on my device as well as my FO's; while conducting normal operations. Also contributing is the rushed timeline to get the device online and the normalization of deviance with the number of times this device crashes and zero effort made to address the issues. Pilots are just accepting that the thing crashes at least once a day. Contributing to the failure of the device is the lack of reports the company receives from pilots because of the time consuming process of submitting problem reports via the ASAP program; also the lack of training/documentation provided to the pilot group about reporting problems with the Surface EFB.
Air carrier Captain reported a problem obtaining critical flight information from his Microsoft Surface EFB in a timely fashion. He stated that the problem is chronic and is directly related to the brand of electronic device chosen by his company.