Microsoft Surface Pro Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 5, 2013 9:00 PM ESTSurface Pro as a Windows 8 Notebook
If you can deal with tradeoff of having a not-totally-rigid display/keyboard hinge, Surface Pro does approximate a notebook fairly well. The trackpads integrated into the covers don’t do a good job, but getting used to the touchscreen for most mousing duties isn’t a problem at all. The biggest issue with using Surface Pro as a notebook replacement is that you just can’t use it in as many sitting configurations as you’d be able to with a traditional notebook. If you can deal with that however, it’s a pretty awesome device.
When it comes to performance and response time, Surface Pro behaves just like an Ultrabook. In our performance tests it ended up a bit behind Acer’s 13-inch S7, but I’m guessing that has more to do with Microsoft having a slightly more conservative thermal profile than the larger notebook. You'll notice that in most of these tests, Surface Pro is within striking distance of Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air running Windows.
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Dekker - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
I don't even like the 16:9 ratio on desktops or laptops because it letterboxes most of the stuff I work on. Particularly, because toolbars, menus and window borders eat up masses of vertical space.On a tablet, 16:9 is pretty hopeless for the same reason. In addition, for app developers it is next to impossible to write an app that is usable in landscape and in portrait mode.
In that sense, this review is a bit disappointing as it focuses mostly on the specs (if only it were a bit cheaper, less heavy and had more battery) and not enough on the usage model and software needed to support the tablet form factor.
I would be interested to know if Anand was able to write an article while on the go or cover a conference using the Pro. My guess is that it can be done, but it would not be an experience worth repeating.
phillyry - Saturday, February 16, 2013 - link
Anand addressed the form factor in his Surface RT review, which he wrote on the RT.Da W - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Can you replace the SDD?I would take my Kingston Hyper X 256GB from my soon to be former laptop, i would only need to buy the 899$ 64GB version.
Netscorer - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
No, the SSD is soldered and you can not even access it, anyway. Your options are either to buy a 128GB version or rely more extensively on flash storage that you can add via microSD. Of course, flash is very slow, so you won't be able to drive programs off it.netmann - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
How do you know the SSD is soldered?!! Have you look inside the Surface pro? I don't recall Anand mention it in the review. I have not heard of SSD soldered to motherboard!Jaerba - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
He didn't, but the Surface Pro team just did in their reddit AMA."[–]SurfaceTeam[S] 28 points 5 hours ago
Hi, this is Ed on the development team. The internal solid state drive built into Surface is not accessible for upgrade. However, the recessed micro SD memory card slot gives you unlimited memory expandability. The SDXC slot supports the highest performance SDXC memory cards."
Netscorer - Thursday, February 7, 2013 - link
As Mr. Smith said in Matrix, it was "inevitable". No ultrasmall portable has a luxury of extra space to accommodate for mSATA port and bracket. Same goes for memory.netmann - Thursday, February 7, 2013 - link
Well, the latest update from Anand's review indicates the storage is in fact a Micron mSATA SSD. I suspected this because the MS Surface has eMMC as storage which has a lot slower performance.I do not think mSATA SSD could be soldered onto the motherboard so most likely it is a separate card that is connected to a slot on the motherboard similar to Apple MBP or Asus Zenbook, therefore it could be upgraded to a larger storage and faster mSATA. The question remains if the mSATA is a standard one or is it a propriety Blade (Gum Stick) one?
Death666Angel - Thursday, February 7, 2013 - link
The Samsung ATIV Pro has an mSata SSD which is user replaceable.thecoldanddarkone - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
I really like this review it recognizes the strength and weaknesses of the platform. I've seen a lot of really bad reviews on the surface pro. Some of the complaints are because the reviewer doesn't know how to use windows 8 (it's a desktop os, it has options, it's not Microsoft's fault you couldn't find different lock options...), others want to complain about the kickstand for 5 paragraphs and others expected it to act like an Ipad. It's not a perfect product, but it's what I would consider as a baseline product. I'm hoping this forces oem's to make better and cheaper products that are like this. That will resolve much of the software situation for windows 8, most of the scaling issues are a result of lazy programmers.