7 Ways to Save the Microsoft Surface
6. Lose Core i5 and Beef Up Battery Life
The Surface with Windows RT lasted a decent but unspectacular 7 hours and 43 minutes in our battery test, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi on 40 percent brightness. Sadly, Microsoft says that the upcoming Windows 8 Pro version will have half as much endurance. That would mean less than 4 hours of juice, which is unacceptable for a tablet.
Why does the Surface Pro have such a pitiful rated runtime? Part of the blame goes to the Core i5 processor under the hood, which simply guzzles more power than the ARM chip inside the RT version of this tablet. If I were Microsoft I would switch gears to an Atom CPU. This would allow users to still run desktop apps while offering longer battery life. Sure, you'll give up some horsepower, but the Surface isn't really designed to be your primary PC. Besides, an Atom-powered Surface Pro would also likely be cheaper. For example, Samsung charges $699 for its Atom-enabled Ativ Smart PC, and $899 with the keyboard dock. The Surface Pro will start at $899 without a keyboard.
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December 11th, 2012 at 8:57 am
Excellent comments! Specially the one about ditching the desktop completely on the RT version. It´s just too confusing to have 2 interfaces, specially when one of them is so limited.
December 11th, 2012 at 9:57 am
Makes a lot of sense, though I would ditch the camera period BUT keep the Desktop UI. Finally understanding there were 2 UIs, for different purposes, was an epiphany moment. Too much stuff on the web focuses on comparing Windows Rt to iOS to Android machines. These miss the key issue. There is no perfect tablet out there and there never will be. In the abstract comparisons are always apricots to oranges to bananas. Every individual has to figure out what their needs are and then look for the tablet that comes closest to meeting those needs. For me it was time to move on from XP on an Asus netbook. I have some productivity needs, don’t game or watch movies, but do want to surf, read and write emails and read books/magazines on a device. Having started with MS in the dark ages of MS-DOS, I’m just accustomed to things like office. So the Surface RT made (and makes) sense. Perfect? Hell no! Frustrating to learn? For sure! However, the instore personnel are great. And I would prefer access to Dropbox, Firefox and/or Chrome. In the final analysis, it comes closest to meeting my needs.
Thanks for an objective and sensible overview. A nice balance to all the fanboy comments of all stripes as well as to the always-ready-to-erupt flame wars.
December 11th, 2012 at 11:46 am
Probably too late to save Surface RT. Announcing Surface Pro at the same time was a mistake. Why buy something that the manufacturer tells you is obsolete?
Surface RT with a smaller screen and no keyboard or desktop would have sold better as a $300 tablet.
Surface Pro with the large screen and included keyboard, Windows 7 Pro and no touch screen would sell well at $600. Users are being loaded with features they don’t need and don’t want to pay for. Besides that you have to learn to use a UI that will surely change again in a year.
W7 Pro s a better OS than W8 for productive users. W7 Pro has true legacy application support (XP Mode). W8 does not support pre W7 apps.
Why spend $1200 for Surface Pro, then spend $100 to downgrade it to W7 Pro, so that you don’t have to spend $2000 to upgrade your CAD apps?
For the same money, you can buy a Samsung series 9 Ultrabook with W7 Pro that has better battery life, runs your old apps, and doesn’t require you to waste a week of your valuable time learning a new UI? The 11.6 inch model is comparable in size and weight.
A swiss army knife does nothing well.
The cost of the machine is less than half of the total cost. Lay out the tasks you want it to run. Total the cost of the new app software you will need to run on it. Estimate the amount of hours you will take to learn the “new” UI and multiply them by what you sell your time for. Add it all together and decide if you can afford it.
If you use it for entertainment with free apps and your time is worth nothing, go for the cheap tablet.
December 11th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
you are a complete idiot. W8 runs every W7 app. The Surface RT runs Windows Store apps.
December 11th, 2012 at 7:19 pm
I would just blame the OS….lol.