Microsoft Surface Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 23, 2012 9:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Surface
- Windows RT
Battery Life
Surface features an integrated 31 Wh battery, which is larger than what’s in the iPad 2 but smaller than what Apple used for the iPad 3. Charging duties are handled via a 24W power adapter with a custom magnetic connector.
Of all of the aspects of Surface, the charging connector feels like the least well executed. For starters, the connector is quite long – about twice the length of a MagSafe connector. Secondly, the magnets in the connector aren’t all that strong so the attraction to Surface isn’t very confidence inspiring. The third issue is alignment. Because of the 22-degree beveled edge on Surface, you have to approach mating the power connector to the tablet very carefully. More often than not I’d have the connector match up but not fully connect. It usually required a few minor adjustments to get the connector to actually start charging. My final complaint is about the power indicator LED on the connector itself. The LED only glows white and gives no indication of whether or not the device is done charging. Furthermore, it doesn’t even glow all that bright, making it hard to tell in daylight whether the device is even getting power. I’m pleased with virtually all aspects of Surface’s physical design, but the charging port and connector need to be redone for the next generation.
The power adapter itself is larger than the 10 – 15W units you get with most tablets in this price range, but it is also a considerably larger power supply. You can take Surface from completely empty to fully charged in a little over 3 hours hours. You can also get Surface up to 50% power, while using the device, after just over an hour of being plugged in. Microsoft wanted to prioritize real world productivity scenarios where you had a limited amount of time to charge but also needed to use the device. The larger power adapter and not gigantic battery were the right balance to meet those needs.
The power brick features a Windows RT logo, but is otherwise clean. The surface of the adapter is a nice soft touch plastic. The two prongs for US models stow away neatly in the adapter. The power cable is nice and long at around 1.5m. There’s no built in cable management other than a little U to keep the connector attached to the end of the cable.
To measure battery life I put Surface through our 2012 tablet battery life suite. All tests were run with the display calibrated to 200 nits and with Surface, its Touch Cover was attached.
Overall battery life is pretty competitive with the iPad. In lighter use cases Apple pulls ahead slightly, but if you look at our updated web browsing test the heavier CPU load pushes Surface ahead of the third gen iPad. It’s not clear how the 4th gen iPad would stack up in this comparison.
Video playback is also decent for Surface, although Apple manages to pull ahead with the win there as well. The bigger accomplishment is that we’re seeing a Windows device with battery life that’s comparable to other tablets running mobile OSes designed from the ground up.
Microsoft has the right OS platform to be competitive in this space. With some more power efficient hardware I could see a future iteration of Surface moving its way up these charts.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
235 Comments
View All Comments
kyuu - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
Apple reviews came a week or more after the product was released, not pre-release. Also, they're doing a separate review of WinRT. Unlike Apple, the OS and hardware do not go hand-in-hand (i.e. there are OEMs), so reviewing the hardware and OS separately makes sense.amdwilliam1985 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Where is the thumbs up button when you needed one.It's been a while since I've enjoy Anand's writing(too much Apple lately). Read every single word in this great article. My emotion was like a roller coaster reading through the pages. I was sure I'm going to get one at the beginning of the article. And then reading about the "good enough" screen, the power/battery connector, the HDMI port, I was like, maybe next generation. Then moving on with software integration and office, I have my hopes up again. Finally seeing Atom performance preview and the upcoming core x86, I'm definitely holding my horse/breath.
Thanks again for an hour of great reading. I'm in NYC, so I'm planning on seeing the surface on the launch day/evening with my girlfriend.
thomas-hrb - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
I wonder what the maximum size MicroSD card the surface can handle. 32/64 GB is a bit small for a device that I would like to replace my laptop with. But if it could take a 64GB MicroSD like http://au.sandisk.com/products/mobile-memory-produ... then that resolves my issues.Although I intend to hang on for the pro version, as I have a lot oc x86 software I would like to run.
Chris-Simmons - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
All Surfaces use microSDXC so they can take up to 2TB as per the microSDXC spec. I believe the largest microSDXC card available currently is 128GB but that is only for commercial customers, 64GB is the largest for retail. We are just waiting on larger cards to become available.jibz - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Quick question I didn't see answered in the review: how easy is it to use as a multi user device? One thing that has always bothered me with an iPad or any other tablet is that I can't have different accounts for different family members. So if I install GTA, it'll be available for the kids, I don't have my own bookmarks in my browser, etc. How is Surface/Win RT doing from that point of view?WP7Mango - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
I can give you a detailed answer...Firstly, setting up for multiple users is very easy. The main user is the administrator and the administrator can add further users in the Settings page. Once a user is added, then it's just a case of that new user logging in using either a password, a PIN, or a picture password.
Each user has their own settings, their own apps, their own Start screen layout and background image, their own email accounts, their own contacts in the People hub, their own social network accounts, their own app data, their own bookmarks, etc etc. When one user installs an app, if another user subsequently wants to install the same app then it doesn't get downloaded again - instead, new seperate app settings are created for the new user. So if you are playing a game for example, then your saved games will be seperate from another user's saved games. If you delete a user, only their data is deleted and yours remains intact.
Bottom line is that multi-user works very well.
kyuu - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
Thanks for the detailed answer on that!karasaj - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
You mentioned that typing speedily on Surface could bring up some heavy CPU usage: do you think that this really hampers Surface's user experience (would it be an issue) or is it merely an example of MS office 2013 nearly taxing Tegra to its limits?I.E. when typing speedily did CPU usage go up but it remained smooth, or was there a noticeable slowdown? The only things I can imagine doing with Surface are MS office, netflix (HD video), and youtube/IE. Do you think any of those feel too slow/laggy to be detrimental?
VivekGowri - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Based on my experience with the VivoTab RT (nearly identical hardware/software - Tegra 3 + Windows RT) it's the latter - I saw weirdly high CPU utilization, but no typing lag. Anand mentioned getting some with the Surface, but nothing too drastic if I remember right.karasaj - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Fantastic. I'm not too worried about high cpu usage as long as there's no lag, although it does seem like that establishes a "lower limit" for RT hardware. Do you think this high cpu usage would have a worse effect on battery life than say the wifi browsing battery life test for example? (I feel like no, but cpu usage shouldn't be too too high there)