Microsoft Surface Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 23, 2012 9:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Surface
- Windows RT
Display: Not Retina, But Still Good
Surface features a 10.6 inch, 1366 x 768 16:9 display. The physical size is a bit unusual, although the display resolution is something we’ve seen used in affordable notebooks for years now. We already know why Microsoft picked the display size (to enable better multitasking and make for a good keyboard size), but is there room for a flagship tablet with only a 1366 x 768 display resolution?
Microsoft’s response to the resolution question is that more pixels isn’t necessarily better, and that there are a number of other factors that are just as important. It also is quick to point out that a significantly higher resolution display would have increased memory bandwidth requirements, decreased UI frame rate and required a larger battery. As NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 only has a single channel LPDDR2 memory interface, driving a 2048 x 1536 panel and maintaining Microsoft’s UI performance requirements was out of the question. Apple ran into the same issue and ended up building the A5X SoC with an insanely wide memory interface to deal with it. Down the road I’d expect the memory bandwidth problem to get solved, but that still leaves a power consumption issue. Apple moved to a 42.5Wh battery in the 3rd generation iPad, a 37% capacity increase compared to the 31Wh unit in Surface. Enabling a similar panel would have pushed size and weight of Surface more than Microsoft would have liked.
Given those constraints Microsoft chose a different route with Surface. Rather than focus on pixel density it focused on improving contrast and reducing glare. Surface laminates the cover glass and LCD panel together, removing an annoying air gap that’s responsible for some reflections/glare and a reduction in brightness. Apple’s recently announced 8th generation iMac does something similar, as do a lot of high end smartphones, but Surface is among the first to do so with a ~10-inch LCD. The effect is noticeable in a contrived photo but it also results in a display that’s not half bad to look at.
With the exception of text on web pages, the lower resolution Surface display isn’t overly bothersome. I would like something a bit higher resolution although I don’t know that matching Apple’s pixel density is absolutely necessary if Microsoft can deliver elsewhere.
Apple doesn’t just rely on resolution to sell the iPad’s Retina Display, it also happens to do quite well at accurately representing colors. I put Surface through AnandTech Senior Display Editor, Chris Heinonen’s excellent tablet/smartphone analysis workflow to see how well it did:
| CalMAN Display Comparison | ||||||
| Apple iPad (3rd gen) | Apple iPad 2 | ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity | Microsoft Surface | |||
| Grayscale 200 nits Avg dE2000 | 3.7333 | 1.3826 | 3.9881 | 3.6769 | ||
| CCT Avg (K) | 6857K | 6632K | 6632K | 6407K | ||
| Saturation Sweep Avg dE2000 | 3.193 | 6.8404 | 6.8404 | 7.3617 | ||
| GMB Colorchecker Avg dE2000 | 3.0698 | 3.8957 | 4.4177 | 5.3057 | ||
Saturation
Gamut
GMB Color Checker
Grayscale accuracy is slightly better on Surface compared to the iPad, however the rest of the accuracy metrics show Apple’s tablet ahead of Surface.
This isn’t to say that Surface’s display is bad, in fact I think it’s quite good and I’d argue that it was never a problem in my testing, but it’s definitely not the best on the market today. I’m also not sure how much of this has to do with Microsoft’s panel selection vs. software calibration. None of my calibration tools work under Windows RT so I couldn’t really tell you.
I did reach out to Microsoft and they did say that some of my values in the charts below looked a little off. I’ll be rerunning data on another Surface sample as soon as I get a chance to.
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Krysto - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
So their (real) excuse for using a lower resolution is that they didn't use a more powerful chip? Ok, but the problem remains that they're using a chip that can go in $200 tablets as well, a lower resolution display, and also a much smaller battery than the iPad, and yet it still costs $500.The extra storage is irrelevant, since they need that for cover for the greater size of Windows and Office, and they shouldn't make the user pay for it. Also how do they explain the fact that Google will use a much more powerful chip (Exynos 5 Dual) and a much higher resolution (2560x1600) in their upcoming Nexus 10 tablet, and yet will still cost $500 or less?
phexac - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Yeah the more comments like this I read, the more I realize that I was too generous in my post below. Surface seems destined to be a crap release and Anand did a terrible job at presenting an honest review of it.shompa - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Is WindowsRT sandboxed?If the OS is sandboxed: how do apps access the microSD slot?
I have seen many Windows Phone/Androids that have to reformat the system and reinstall everything to get the apps to "see" the microSD.
Can you install apps to the microSD?
scorpian007 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
You can't install apps to the microSD card, it's only for media (photos, videos, music).phexac - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
This really seems to me like a tablety take on the netbook, and those turned out to be underpowered pieces of crap. MS looks to be going down the same road with an OS that tries to be like a desktop OS, but that can't really run all the OS programs. When it tries to run Office, it starts choking.We have no retina display.
App launch times are horrid for a tablet.
I really don't see the point of this device. If I am going to type or actually produce something, I am going to do iton my macbook air. If I want a tablet, I really don't care about a crappy attachable keyboard for $130+. If you say well I want a cheap laptop, well then you are back to the netbook argument, except the Surface is 2x or more the price, in the same price range as most fully-featured laptops, except it actually doesn't even have a fully functional desktop OS. This is a device typical of Microsoft, which never seems to think about how people will use the device and what they will want to use it for. They come up with a device that tries to straddle the fence on everything, and as a result ends up doing everything shitty (and with a shit screen, given the retina display and other displays following it being out there). Reading this review leads me to see complete and utter failure for MS in this device. And this is the reason they are making Windows 8 into an abomination? Pretty sad honestly, though not really unexpected.
N4g4rok - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
"App launch times are horrid for a tablet."There weren't any numbers relating to App launch time. He made a statement about them being a little longer than he expected. How does that equate to 'horrid'?
andrewaggb - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
he also said switching once they are 'open' is really fast, so this might be ok.TheBasicMind - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
I think Microsoft really have something. Though I did wince reading you tried to adjust trackpad scrolling by resorting to the registry. I see the registry and access to it as part of a MS mindset that is not about openness or any positive philosophy (like LINUX), but instead about fear of having missed something. It opens up an untestable number of configurations a world of potential system problems and pain. I've not missed it in any way shape or form since moving my computing away from MS. And it is part if a computing past I have actively and willingly left behind. This is the company where still in Word, after several generations of releases, if you leave the document map open while editing cross references, you are guaranteed to have a badly corrupt document within 2 hours of working on it (GUARANTEED). How many combined years of user pain does that represent?.The only explanation for this fundamental lack of quality control is that it became like a messy room, which when mess was left long enough, just became a part of the background (I did abandon after Vista and have heard from many sources Windows 7 was a big improvement). I know other OS's have their problems (though in my experience, nothing like MS's offerings) I'm sure Surface is different (it has to be for the sake of MS). I think it may well hit the right spots for me. However over the years, the MS brand has become a kind if giant anti-brand for me and MS have to overcome that as well. They have a very high mountain to climb. So for me it will be surface 2, if and only if Surface 1 is a roaring success.Jxpto - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
"Switching between applications is faster on Surface/Windows RT than any competing mobile platform. There’s no double tapping of anything, no pressing and holding, just an edge gesture swipe like you’re flipping through pages of a virtual book".That's not accurate at all... You don't even need to move your hand to the edge to switch between apps in the iPad. It's just a 4 finger gesture... And also just a four finger gesture to bring the task switcher... Or a not her gesture to go to the home screen. So in what is the Surface better regarding this??
turnipmaster - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Firstly, out of 32GB, the OS require at least 10GB+, so we know that this is no lightweight solution.The load times seem outrageous, my trusty Lumia 710, after a reboot, loads the Nokia maps app in ~2 seconds, this on an old Arm A8 based SoC. My Nexus 7, has the same Tegra 3 as the Surface as is damn sight faster at opening apps.
The wisdom of a psuedo facsimile of Windows 8, that can't run legacy / x86 apps yet obviously brings additional performance demands over a mobile focused OS, like WP8 is lost on me. If MS knew this, why didn't it chose a higher spec SoC, they haven't even used the fastest Tegra 3, the T33 would have been a nice boost over a regular Tegra 3.
I personally think WP8 could have been tweaked to be awesome on the surface, but Microsoft intended to use it to push their weird vision of Windows 8 RT. It is a shame that performance detracts from a cool device with a lot of potential, especially as Apple has blind-sided them, with a big boost to the iPad's performance with the A6X.