All Surface reviews read like this. "It's pretty good, except for this long list of things that are terrible about it."
Tolerating the Surface Pro
11–20 of 63 posts
Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro
#12I don't see battery life as being a small problem on a tablet. My ipad mini (with LTE) has become my primary communication device because I can use it intensively and forget to charge it for days at a time. 12 hours usage in addition to several more days of standby with all the features (push email etc) enabled means I go to my ipad over my blackberry that can't last a day or my mba that can't last a day. 3-4 hours f…
“3-4 hours for a portable tablet device is just pathetic.”
True, but I wouldn’t call the Surface Pro ‘tablet portable’. It’s fairer to compare it with a notebook. With TypeCover, the Surface Pro is 2 centimeters thick, while a MacBook Air 11" has an average thickness of 1 centimeter. The Surface Pro is also a little heavier than a MacBook Air. Curiously, both devices have the same CPU, GPU, SSD, and RAM – but a MacBook Air 11" is $30 cheaper and has 5,5 hours of real world battery life.
If we were to compare Surface Pro with a 10" iPad, it would look even worse. The Surface Pro is twice as thick, 3 times as heavy, has one-third of the battery life, has a screen with a lower resolution, and it’s $300 more expensive.
Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro
#13I don't see battery life as being a small problem on a tablet. My ipad mini (with LTE) has become my primary communication device because I can use it intensively and forget to charge it for days at a time. 12 hours usage in addition to several more days of standby with all the features (push email etc) enabled means I go to my ipad over my blackberry that can't last a day or my mba that can't last a day. 3-4 hours f…
I don't know what he's doing to get that kind of battery life. I've had my SP for a few months now, and it consistently gets 5-6 hours of actual usage, even heavy things like streaming HBO. It's not 12+, but there's a Core i5 behind the glass, and my Core i5 laptop doesn't get half that running time.
Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Essentially, yes. I convinced work to buy me a Pro after around a decade of being Windows free... and I'm underwhelmed. I like the hardware. But having two entirely separate interfaces is really terrible. Like he pointed out, it's no longer intuitive how to interact with the device, you have to constantly switch between input modes which is extremely annoying.
I think the point he makes about hanging in to it in a hope that Microsoft is going to improve it is the key. Looks like with windows 8.1 they are making a lot of changes based on the feedback, and giving that release away for free. Microsoft better stick to this fast iterative update process if they want people to bet on the new OS.
The problem there is that the changes we're hearing about for 8.1 (bringing back the Start button, letting you boot straight to the desktop, etc.) are all changes that will move 8's center of gravity closer to the traditional Windows experience and farther from the new Metro experience. And from the article it sounds like the new Metro experience is the only one that really feels right on Surface.
Making it easier for people to skip Metro will only result in fewer developers writing Metro apps, not more, so it's hard to see 8.1 as a positive for Surface users. They need the Windows world to be more Metro, not less.
Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro
#15So the gist is "good hardware, really really unacceptably crappy software experience" > I bought the Surface Pro to use as a backup laptop: a secondary presentation device in case my main laptop bit the dust. I make a living teaching people via PowerPoint. For a long list of reasons, I can’t really switch presentation tools, and the iPad doesn’t cut it as a secondary presentation device. The Surface Pro does. This is…
Especially considering that the RT fits that particular use case pretty well all on its own, and does have excellent battery life as well.
My only gripe about the RT is that even though I like the UI better, it's every bit as useful (and useless) as an iPad.
Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro
#16I don't see battery life as being a small problem on a tablet. My ipad mini (with LTE) has become my primary communication device because I can use it intensively and forget to charge it for days at a time. 12 hours usage in addition to several more days of standby with all the features (push email etc) enabled means I go to my ipad over my blackberry that can't last a day or my mba that can't last a day. 3-4 hours f…
My battery life is no where near that terrible. I'm not sure what he has running constantly, but I can GAME on my Surface Pro for 5+ hours without plugging in. It's still bad for a "tablet", but not any worse than my HP Elite Book with the same specs.
Same here. I just put a Surface Pro in one of my Customers' user's hands last week. I tried it out for a couple days as my primary machine and got 5 hours out if the battery the two times I elected to run w/o AC power.
Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro
#17I don't see battery life as being a small problem on a tablet. My ipad mini (with LTE) has become my primary communication device because I can use it intensively and forget to charge it for days at a time. 12 hours usage in addition to several more days of standby with all the features (push email etc) enabled means I go to my ipad over my blackberry that can't last a day or my mba that can't last a day. 3-4 hours f…
“3-4 hours for a portable tablet device is just pathetic.” True, but I wouldn’t call the Surface Pro ‘tablet portable’. It’s fairer to compare it with a notebook. With TypeCover, the Surface Pro is 2 centimeters thick, while a MacBook Air 11" has an average thickness of 1 centimeter. The Surface Pro is also a little heavier than a MacBook Air. Curiously, both devices have the same CPU, GPU, SSD, and RAM – but a MacBo…
The MBA 11" is 0.68" thick. The Surface Pro is 0.53" thick. The Type Cover adds .23"; the Touch Cover only .08".
It gets the same run time per charge.
It weighs less, not more; less than 2 pounds versus 2.38.
The difference is that you can snap off the optional keyboard in a split second if you really care about thickness -- well, that and the fact that it's a tablet with a touch digitizer behind the glass too.
Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro
#18I don't see battery life as being a small problem on a tablet. My ipad mini (with LTE) has become my primary communication device because I can use it intensively and forget to charge it for days at a time. 12 hours usage in addition to several more days of standby with all the features (push email etc) enabled means I go to my ipad over my blackberry that can't last a day or my mba that can't last a day. 3-4 hours f…
I don't know what he's doing to get that kind of battery life. I've had my SP for a few months now, and it consistently gets 5-6 hours of actual usage, even heavy things like streaming HBO. It's not 12+, but there's a Core i5 behind the glass, and my Core i5 laptop doesn't get half that running time.
Brent the author here. I'm doing basic productivity work while listening to music, doing email, and leaving Twitter & Hipchat open. Engadget and The Verge both noted sub-4-hour battery life in their reviews too. I'm glad you're getting more life though.
Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro
#19My boss uses a Surface Pro like a laptop and is happy with it.
Add a good quality wireless mouse and a USB 3 hub, leave the keyboard at the desk and you've got a docking station as good in practice as anything on the market.
Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro
#20So the gist is "good hardware, really really unacceptably crappy software experience" > I bought the Surface Pro to use as a backup laptop: a secondary presentation device in case my main laptop bit the dust. I make a living teaching people via PowerPoint. For a long list of reasons, I can’t really switch presentation tools, and the iPad doesn’t cut it as a secondary presentation device. The Surface Pro does. This is…
Especially considering that the RT fits that particular use case pretty well all on its own, and does have excellent battery life as well. My only gripe about the RT is that even though I like the UI better, it's every bit as useful (and useless) as an iPad.
I had a lot of problems when I tried to use the Surface RT for that use case. Here was my review: http://ozar.me/2012/10/why-im-returning-my-microsoft-surface...