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Microsoft Confirms Surface Book 2 Can't Stay Charged During Gaming Sessions (engadget.com)
The Verge mentioned in their review that the Surface Book 2's power supply can't charge the battery fast enough to prevent it from draining in some cases. Microsoft has since confirmed that "in some intense, prolonged gaming scenarios with Power Mode Slider set to 'best performance' the battery may discharge while connected to the power supply." Engadget reports: To let you choose between performance and battery life, the Surface Book has a range of power settings. If you're doing video editing or other GPU intensive tasks, you can crank it up to "best performance" to activate the NVIDIA GPU and get more speed. Battery drain is normally not an issue with graphics apps because the chip only kicks in when needed. You'll also need the "best performance" setting for GPU-intensive games, as they'll slow down or drop frames otherwise. The problem is that select titles like Destiny 2 use the NVIDIA chip nearly continuously, pulling up to 70 watts of power on top of the 35 watt CPU. Unfortunately, the Surface Book comes with a 102-watt charger, and only about 95 watts of that reaches the device, the Verge points out. Microsoft says that the power management system will prevent the battery from draining completely, even during intense gaming, but it would certainly mess up your Destiny 2 session. It also notes that the machine is intended for designers, developers and engineers, with the subtext that it's not exactly marketed as a gaming rig.
How about a nice game of TicTacToe?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
That is spelled WOPR.
War
Operation
Plan
Response
The only way to win is not to play.
Nope. Takes too much from battery.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The only win is if you don't buy it.
Batteries are one of those things that Microsoft has a tough time getting right in their hardware products. The Xbox One Controller "Play and Charge Kit" absolutely sucks. The rechargeable battery it comes with doesn't charge after about 3 months, giving you ~20min of play time before the controller dies. Might as well keep using AA batteries and not waste the money. Same issue with the Xbox 360 play and charge kits. Back in the day the Zune had battery issues as well. I guess we can add the Surface Book 2 to the rooster of Microsoft doing batteries wrong.
Who actually green lights a power supply that can't keep a device charged under full load?
Seriously.
Starting at $2,499 ($1,499 for the 13.5-inch model), the 15-inch Surface Book 2 is $100 more than a comparable MacBook Pro and is at the very high end of the laptop market.
I thought only Apple sold overpriced laptops? Turns out if you want the power that used to be only available in a desktop and in the form factor of a portable device then you have to pay for it. The article even ends with a comment that the choice between Apple and Microsoft is mostly over OS preference not price/performance.
It seems part of the problem here is the choice of USB-C for charging. That connector is limited to 100 watts. If they want to make a laptop that sucks down more than 100 watts under heavy load then they should have used a different connector for charging.
They mention the lack of ThunderBolt on the Surface Book 2, this reminds me of the previous rantings on Slashdot of being unable to tell a USB cable from a ThunderBolt cable. I looked into this and found this complaint is just ignorance. The people that hold the rights to the USB icon will only allow it's use on cables that meet the USB spec, if you don't see that symbol on the cable then the cable might not be able to pass a USB signal. Same for ThunderBolt, if it has the ThunderBolt symbol then it's rated for ThunderBolt. There's even symbols for the different speed ratings of cables, so complaining of a USB cable not being "super speed" is just not checking the markings. Complaining about being unable to tell a USB cable from a ThunderBolt cable is no different than complaining about being unable to tell cables apart with the old 25 pin connectors. You can tell the serial cables from the parallel cables from the SCSI cables by looking for the cable markings. If your cable doesn't have markings then you are not only an idiot but you are a cheap idiot for buying cheap cables and then complaining you can't tell them apart.
When it comes to the different power ratings of USB-C cables and power supplies I'm not sure I see a problem here either. I'm pretty sure all the power supplies will have markings indicating their maximum wattage ratings. Unlike trying to use a 10 amp 120 volt extension cord to plug in a coffeepot it's not possible to melt the USB-C cable for exceeding the power rating of a cable. The cable will have a chip telling the power supply what it's current carrying capacity is, not have the wires for high current, or simply not have any power wires at all. If you are melting USB-C cables then you have a serious failure, either in the hardware or in mental capacity for thinking you can use a no name unmarked cable to charge a 100 watt computer.
If people complain about a computer that came with a 100 watt power supply and that power supply can't keep the computer charged then who's the bigger idiot? The people that designed the computer this way or the people that bought it? The $2500 price tag just adds to the idiocy.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Why would you try to play games other than FreeCell or Minesweeper on a Surface?!
It's not the USB C connector, Macs with the older MagSafe one have the same problem. It's a design decision.
What same problem? Being unable to maintain a charge with the included charger under load? I did not know that was an issue. I'm not saying it didn't happen, only that I have not heard of it elsewhere and I have not experienced it myself. I have two MagSafe laptops, one ten years old and the other five. Both stay charged from 85 watt chargers. This tells me that the laptops and chargers were designed with matching power draw to power supplied.
The issue is that they want to sell a small, under-powered charger. It has to be thin and light weight, rather than appropriately spec'ed. If they really wanted to they could sell a more powerful charger and just use two USB C ports to supply 200W.
I recall from previous uses of two USB cables to draw sufficient power for a device that the USB Implementer Forum frowned on this practice. I know it's been done, that's without doubt. Calling this good practice does seem suspect. I'd think offering a single charging connection to meet all power demands would not only be logical but also not appear as a hack to get around a poor design decision. The Surface family of devices also use the SurfaceConnect port, does that provide more than 100 watts? I've been looking and I can find very little that is definitive on this port.
This also means that if^H^H when your battery is dead in a couple of years your Surface won't work properly any more.
That's far from unique to Microsoft.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
How about a nice game of TicTacToe?
Yes, playing this game would certainly give away that you were a Jill Stein voter.