Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Surface Pro Reviews Arrive
The release date is approaching for Microsoft's Surface Pro tablet, and reviews for the new device have started appearing. The Surface Pro differs from the Surface in that it runs a full version of Windows 8 Pro, rather than the tablet-centric Windows RT. It also has much beefier hardware specs: 4GB RAM, an Intel Core i5 CPU, and a full HD display with 10-point multitouch. Ars describes it as having the expected good performance at the expected costs of heat, noise, and battery life. "This is not an all-day machine. Surface RT probably is. But Surface Pro is not." The review praises the screen and the stylus, but points out some odd scaling issues as well. The Verge's review also mentions the scaling, and notes the strangeness of dealing with issues inherent to a Windows desktop OS — like antivirus — on a tablet. BGR looks at the big picture, calling the Surface Pro Microsoft's "declaration of war" on its hardware partners. All three reviews dwell on how the Surface Pro exists at the intersection of laptop and tablet, and doesn't quite fulfill either role. Ars says, "From the tablet perspective, Surface Pro is not acceptable. It gets too hot for a hand-held device, its battery life is woefully inadequate, and it's too thick and heavy to be comfortable to hand hold for long sessions. ... From a laptop perspective, Surface Pro falls down too. The traditional laptop has a stiff hinge to hold the screen at an angle of your choosing. ... In practice, the Surface RT and Surface Pro have a bigger footprint on my lap even than my old 15-inch MacBook Pro. And if I move a little, whomp, the screen drops off the back of my knees and folds out of sight." The Verge adds, "The real dealbreaker for me was that it's just unusable in my most common position — sitting on my couch, feet on the coffee table, with the computer on my lap."
I've read the Anan review and it mentions pretty much everything that's in the summary. Though he puts a lot of positive spin on some things - the fans and the heat for example. He says you can hear the fans but it is not a problem. And proceeds to say the case hits 40 degrees but that it's not uncomfortable for it to be that hot. I have a hard time believing that.
I think the idea has some promise but a lot of problems in this current form.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Why not buy a laptop? They weigh 5 lbs... that's light. They're usable. They run all the software desktops run because they're the same thing. Battery life can reach 6-10 hours depending on OS and model. They come with a USB port (Nexus 7 complaint).
If Google comes out with a phone or tablet it's simply fostering adoption and providing some reference for other hardware makers, if Micro$oft does it they're "declaring war" on their hardware partners. Utter stupidity.
Also, why would anyone think the Surface Pro was supposed to run on battery all day...? Clearly this is a workstation/tablet hybrid that leans farther to the tablet side.
In the longer run Intel will have move entirely into this market, and you'll find that people no longer have PCs at the office, they've got 'surface pro 3' with full blown M$ Office on it - and by that time it will run 10 hours on a charge.
Personally I thought this was going to happen sooner via systems like the Atrix phone and dock - they tried this at SIEMENS a few years back but Android was really the blocking issue, not the hardware. I love my Android phone, but as a full blown operating system it's got a long way to go.
Loading...
No, it's a heavy, non-portable tablet with poor battery life and a requirement for virus checkers, rebooting after installation, frequent security updates, and a bizarre, unintuitive OS.
The issue with the surface is, it isn't a tablet and it isn't a laptop. For the price of it, you can get an awesome ultrabook. You can also get a comparable tablet for a lot less.
I think people want a tablet that they can use a keyboard on, but I don't think that this is it. MS has tried for over a decade to convince us it's was of doing a tablet is the right way - and it has been a failure.
I haven't seen any enterprises adopting them, so I am unsure where they actually plan to sell them
I don't think the surface is a "bad idea" it is just terribly executed.
I can't help thinking Microsoft still doesn't really get design. They talked a lot ahead of the launch of this device about the fact that their goal was a design without compromise - see this for example http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/31/designing-for-metro-style-and-the-desktop.aspx
But what the mean by no compromise is entirely different from what Apple means by no compromise. Apple designed the iPad to be the a compromise-free tablet - the best *tablet* they could come up with. And it was, and is a brilliant tablet. What it isn't is a laptop. Microsoft's idea of no compromise is a device that can be both a laptop and a tablet. What you end up with is an entirely compromised product - too heavy and power hungry to be any use as a tablet, it is also impossible to use on your lap making it an entirely rubbish laptop.
Every review I've seen says the same thing:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324900204578285963270503862.html?mod=djemptech_t
"It’s too hefty and costly and power-hungry to best the leading tablet, Apple’s full-size iPad. It is also too difficult to use in your lap."
http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/05/microsoft-surface-pro-review/
"When trying to be productive, we wished we had a proper laptop and, when relaxing on the couch, we wished we had a more finger-friendly desktop interface"
http://techland.time.com/2013/02/05/review-microsoft-surface-pro-the-surface-thats-more-pc-than-tablet/
"It’s bulkier than Surface RT because its components require more interior space. Microsoft’s stated battery life is five hours, compared to eight for Surface RT. Even the AC adapter is portlier."
And it's main selling point it the fact that it's two inferior devices in one.
My god, I just used "it's" instead of "its". Slashdot is indeed making me dumber, just as I had suspect.
How is, "shorter battery life", "vents", "to warm to hold", "unstable on a lap" FUD? Look if you don't like iPads fine, don't like iPads. But don't go slamming the review for telling the truth. Microsoft creating this abortion of a device to try to marry two technologies, which are separate technologies. We can argue that iPads are too expensive and have other short comings. But there are plenty of Android tablets that can fill the gap. Heck an Asus is much better than this Microsoft device.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
$1,100???? My daughter just got a Lenovo, about 3 lbs, 15" screen, delivered for $350. Why would I want to spend 3x the money for a smaller screen and a worse keyboard?
I can equip most of my family with nice laptops for the price of one Surface. :headscratch:
TLDNR summary of Anandtech review:
As a tablet it, uh... has really good benchmark results... for a tablet. If you put up with all the heat, battery life and bulk issues it's awesome!
As a laptop it, uh... has really good benchmark results... for a tablet. If you put up with all the ergonomic problems and the crap touchpad, it's awesome!
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I agree and the summary is very negatively biased. I clicked through to the BGR article expecting to find a scathing summary, when in fact it was quite the opposite.
"On an island, the Surface Pro is a fantastic premium computer that is portable, versatile and capable. It is priced fairly and it offers novel features that provide clear advantages over rival devices. But in a market where interest in personal computers is declining and Windows 8 is struggling to gain traction, I fear the Surface Pro might not be the right product right now.
The Surface Pro is not good fit for everyone, but those who do purchase Microsoft’s new tablet for work or for personal use — whether they number in the thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions — will not be disappointed."
True. However you don't want a 104F notebook sitting on your lap. It makes you sweat quite a bit and is uncomfortable. It absolutely won't burn your or anything like that. But it sucks to have a machine that warm on your lap.
Data-filled indeed. Pages of benchmark results, most of them for some obscure web benchmark (WebXPRT). The results show in so many ways that an i5 tablet is much faster than all those ARM tablets. I learned very little from that review that was not also covered in other less technical reviews. Basically Anandtech is throwing softballs at the companies that the site depends on to a large degree. I can understand that, but they do not exactly deserve praise for it. As for the Ars review, I found it excellent. The extensive coverage of the display scaling issues was the first time I ever read a comprehensive explanation of how this is handled in Windows. Very informative!
and you'll find that people no longer have PCs at the office, they've got 'surface pro 3' with full blown M$ Office on it - and by that time it will run 10 hours on a charge.
From what I've seen, I'm sure some technology execs are smoking the same thing you are. However, I see no point in the future where a tablet is going to replace my workstation. I can see myself having a tablet to augment my workstation (e.g. having manuals on a tablet instead of on paper), but the actual work is always going to be done on a proper computer.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
The hardware is interesting. But...
-it's got the battery life of a laptop
-it weighs as much as an ultrabook
-it doesn't have a proper keyboard
-you can't balance it on your lap
-it's too heavy to hold in one hand
-it's got a full blown wasteful Windows installation that eats greatly into the available disk space
-has cooling vents
To me that reads: all the drawbacks of both a laptop and a tablet
It propably is an amazing piece of kit and I honestly want something like that more than my next breath. But I would have preferred if they had gone the way Asus went with the Transformer line. Detachable clamshell keyboard with an extra battery. No need for a sleeve. Does not tip over as easily. All the benefits of a laptop and a tablet. Should have been a winner. Maybe the next batch.
Also I'm not quite sure about the choice of CPU.
I love the convergence of tablet and laptop. That is a truly, truly great thing. But normal laptop innards conveniently rearranged will not quite cut it. We are currently moving away from the old Intel x86 architecture and into happy RISC land for a reason. My Transformer has replaced my notebook for all but heavy typing and dev work. For everything else I actually prefer the plucky little bugger and take only that with me on business trips. No worries.
20 minutes into the future
Forget the Surface Pro - get an Atom-based Win8 tablet. I'm quite satisfied with mine (ATIV Smart PC): easily gets 10 hours of battery life during PDF annotation or OneNote (usually more - I haven't gotten it below 50% in a workday yet), sufficiently thin and light so as not to be noticeable in a bag, and Wacom stylus tech.
I'm coming from a Thinkpad X41T, which had a bit more CPU grunt than that ST-4121 of yours, and the Clover Trail Atom is quite a bit faster than the Pentium M in the X41T... so you should be fine in terms of processing power as well.
Ever hear that old joke that a camel is a horse designed by committee? Surface is the new horse. It's not quite a tablet, it's not quite a laptop, it's not quite...I don't know what the hell it is I just know I don't want one. It's too hot, it's too heavy, the battery life sucks (compared to an iPad anyhow), and it's way too expensive. If I wanted to run old Windows programs then why not just get a laptop at about half the price and not have to deal with the overheating issues? This thing is DOA.
Commas don't go, where you think they go.
"There can be little doubt that union activities lead to continuous and progressive inflation." F. A. Hayek
Metro apps follow strict sandboxing, backgrounding, multitasking, and power management rules, which allows Microsoft to make some performance guarantees about Windows RT systems. As soon as you start installing legacy applications which can sit in the background and suck up as much juice as they want, all battery life claims are compromised.
If you want full Windows in a long-battery package, there are Atom chips for that which last over 8 hours.
I haven't had to play with it, but our desktop support folks say that the XP virtualization in Windows 7 is fairly seamless. If they did something like that for an ARM version to have backwards compatibility I could see it working out. I don't know if that's even feasible though, since I assume hardware virtualization is a pretty big leap from OS virtualization.
Be careful to not confuse virtualization with emulation. To run x86 apps on ARM you'd need emulation which is an altogether different thing than virtualization. (at least in the common IT use of the terms) Unlike virtualization, emulation is very CPU-intensive so they'd be cutting the battery life of the RT down to at most that of the Pro while providing the user experience of a Pentium II. Their real mistake is taking their chance to start with a clean slate (ARM, RT) and slapping the Windows brand on. If they hadn't done that, every RT review wouldn't have an obligatory paragraph about how the thing runs "Windows" but it can't actually use any of the software you already have.
I see many parallels too:
Apple: iPod/iPhone/iPad
Microsoft: Zune/Windows Phone/Surface
Yes indeed. Many parallels.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.