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Surface Pro 3 Handily Outperforms iPad Air 2 and Nexus 9

Posted by timothy on from the but-can-it-take-pictures dept.

An anonymous reader points to an interesting comparison of current tablets' peformance, as measured with the Geekbench benchmarking tool, which boils down various aspects of performance to produce a single number. The clear winner from the models fielded wasn't from Apple of Samsung (Samsung's entrants came much lower down, in fact), but from Microsoft: the i5-equipped Surface Pro 3, with a Geekbench score of 5069.; second place goes to the Apple iPad Air 2, with 4046. The Nexus 9 rated third, with 3537. One model on the list that U.S. buyers may not be familiar with is the Tesco Hudl 2, a bargain tablet which Trusted Reviews seems quite taken by.

8 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Breaking news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Laptop out performs tablet.

    I have both the ipad and surface pro 3. They are not comparable tools.

    1. Re:Breaking news by markdavis · · Score: 3, Interesting

      >Laptop out performs tablet.

      Yep, hardly "news". If it contains a fan, which the Surface 3 does, then it is not a "tablet" and in a totally different class. A quick Google on "heat" or "noise" or "fan" along with "Surface 3" returns a zillion hits about people upset with the noise, and/or heat.

      My use for a tablet = very long battery life and low heat. I use it for simple browsing and casual gaming. And in no way would I want it to run any form of MS-Windows, either (of course, my laptops, desktops, servers, routers, and other devices all also run Linux, so I am certainly not the "typical" consumer, by any means).

    2. Re:Breaking news by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If it contains a fan, which the Surface 3 does, then it is not a "tablet"

      That's a criterion you just made up. Your statement is approximately equivalent to "a tablet without a USB port is not a tablet". Or, "a tablet that runs an actual operating system that can run ProTools cannot possibly be a tablet because reasons".

      I have a desktop system without a fan. Does that make it "not a desktop"?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  2. If a tree falls in the woods... by jtara · · Score: 5, Interesting

    IOW, who cares?

    In any case, the spin is opposite to reality. The remarkable thing here is that an iPad Air2 nearly matches the performance of an I5 notebook replacement...

  3. Not the whole story by pushing-robot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Geekbench's own numbers put the iPad Air at 4528, only 10% off the i5. Which is astounding, because five years ago Intel's ULV CPUs were hitting 2000-2500 on the same benchmark while Apple's new A4 was 200.

    The flagship ARM CPUs cost a tenth as much as Intel's chips, consume a fraction of the power, and have been roughly doubling performance every year while Intel has virtually plateaued*. If that trend continues, by the end of this year they'll have surpassed Intel on virtually every metric.

    Of course, AMD reached pole position a decade ago until Intel's Core 2 decisively took back the lead. Intel may repeat history with Skylake; if not, the computer world could get a lot more interesting over the next few years.

    (*on clock speed and IPC they're been scarcely improving 10% a year; IPW is increasing somewhat faster but still well behind ARM designs)

    --
    How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
  4. Re:Hey Microsoft, nobody cares. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    there are millions and millions who bought those and DO in fact want one of these however

    I have two surface pro 3's. They're by far, hands down, the best tablet for music production and performance. They run full-blown ProTools, VST plugins, Ableton Live, and the full suite of Native Instruments software. I have USB ports for my external audio hardware and MIDI and the touch interface is delightful for on-screen faders and drawing waveforms and envelope curves.

    I don't care if I'm a niche. I love my Surface Pro 3's. Somebody finally made something exactly the way I need it.

    You cannot produce professional music on any iPad. All of the external hardware are toys and the music apps are nothing but gimmick.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  5. Re:That's fine and all by quenda · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can also run a full OS_X on the surface 3. Makes more sense than IOS or Android on that hardware.
    Wifi not working yet, but as lumpy said, wifi doesn't work in Windows 8.1 either, half the time. (fix the bugs ffs!)

    http://www.insanelymac.com/for...

  6. Re:How is this relevant? by aralin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When you hold the Surface 3, in both hands, you are blocking half of the air flow, I am wondering how fast is the speed going to be after an hour with partially blocked air flow. Because if I need to have it set on a table, it is not a tablet, but a laptop.

    --
    If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.