Microsoft Surface Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 23, 2012 9:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Surface
- Windows RT
WiFi Performance
Microsoft made an unusual choice for Surface’s WiFi hardware, it uses a Marvell AVASTAR dual-band MIMO (2x2) 802.11n wireless network controller (88W8797?). Marvell tends to be one of the more cost effective players in the industry which could help explain Microsoft’s choice.
Despite the rarely used silicon, WiFi range on Surface is quite good. Subjectively I was able to hold on to 2.4GHz signals at greater distances than I could on both the 3rd gen iPad, ASUS’ Transformer Pad Infinity and even compared to the VivoTab RT based on some short time I had with the device. Surface also maintains good distances on 5GHz however the performance drop offs are far more significant.
The sweet spot for Surface’s WiFi appears to be around 40 feet away from an AP, with minimal obstructions (doors/walls are fine). Within this range in my testing I was able to maintain speeds of around 20 – 40Mbps. Add another 20 or so feet and you’ll see performance cut in half again.
Although range is good on Surface, at the outer edges of coverage you’re looking at 2 – 4Mbps, which is only really enough for casual web browsing.
The only real downside to Surface’s WiFi performance is its peak performance. I wasn’t able to get beyond 42Mbps when copying files to the device from a local server on the network. It’s possible that I was limited by some file sharing protocol overhead, but without a good suite of network performance tools for Windows RT it was the best I could do for now.
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MadMan007 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Nice article, but something struck me as odd after getting a bit into it - why do you refer to this device as 'Surface' as if it's a person instead of 'THE Surface' like every other device? Are we going to start seeing reviews saying 'I like Macbook's new screen'?melgross - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Apple does the same thing with the iPad, simply referring to is as iPad. I don't understand this either, but it's their choice.jjj - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
pushing the positive spin quite a bit on this one.NO ecosystem, buggy software ,can't be used with the keyboard on your lap like the Transformer or any laptop,poor keyboard , high price,the software takes a lot of the advertised storage,access to only one app store and bulky hardware.
guidryp - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Yeah. I read several other reviews (Verge, Wired, Tech Crunch) and this one seems like a whitewash in comparison.Most point out that there is very little software and most of it is buggy. They also mention how uncomfortable it is to use as a tablet.
Half assed as a tablet.
Half assed as laptop.
Very little software...
Buggy
For MS/Windows fans, at least get yourself an x86 so you can run real Windows software to cover the deficiencies.
doobydoo - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Did I miss the CPU / GPU benchmarks section, which generally come with every tablet review?tipoo - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
There probably aren't that many that can be run outside of a web browser for it, the app store is pretty sparse right now.michal1980 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Anand is showing that he cares far less about MS now then apple.kyuu - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
Nope. But there's not much benchmarking software that can be run on WindowsRT, outside of web-based ones. Plus, Tegra 3 is a pretty known quantity at this point.trexpesto - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
one heck of a drop test 30,000 feet!glynor - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
So... I'm seeing mixed information out there. The port looks like a regular micro-HDMI port. But Microsoft seems to call it a proprietary port in their marketing, and they sell the adapter.But PC Mag says they used an off-the-shelf micro-HDMI adapter and it worked.
But then, you got terrible (I'd call it unusable) quality out of their adapter.
What's going on here?