Microsoft Surface Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 23, 2012 9:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Surface
- Windows RT
A Plethora of Ports and Storage Options
One area where Surface is a significant departure from the iPad is in its IO and expansion. The iPad features a single dock (and soon to be Lightning) connector, while Surface looks more like a laptop (or Android tablet) when it comes to IO.
There’s no port for syncing, you get content onto Surface via WiFi or a more traditional method. Surface has a single USB 2.0 port on the right side of the device. You can plug almost anything you want into this port, including USB storage devices of course. Behind the kickstand is a single microSD card slot, giving you another option for expansion.
On the left edge of the device there’s a micro-HDMI out port that can be paired with a Microsoft made VGA or HDMI dongle (both dongles have a 22-degree connector on them to mate flush with Surface). I tested HDMI output with Microsoft's dongle and unfortunately the result wasn't very good. The 1080p output had a lot of issues with scaling quality (as you can see from the shot below) and there was a lot of tearing on the screen with a big impact on UI frame rate. I reached out to Microsoft for an explanation but have yet to hear anything.
Finally there’s a standard 1/8” headphone jack along the top of the device.
Power delivery comes via a custom magnetic connector along the lower right side of Surface.
Given that the internal storage is an eMMC solution, performance from the microSD slot with a good card should be fairly comparable. In practice I could read and write a large sequential file at roughly 10.5 MB/s using a SanDisk microSD card.
Copying from a fast USB stick to Surface’s internal storage gave me transfer rates closer to 17MB/s. There are a few vendors for Windows 8/RT eMMC devices, I’ll be paying close attention over the coming weeks to figure out who makes the best. I know Microsoft and Intel (among others) have been playing close attention to the eMMC providers with hopes of weeding out those that deliver honestly unacceptable performance.
While doing background file IO I didn’t notice any of the stalling/pausing that we’ve seen on some of the more recent Android tablets.
Update: Many have asked about how much storage is taken up by the Windows + Office 2013 installs. The screenshot below shows the directory size for both C:\Windows and C:\Program Files, the latter is where the Office15 install files are included (and yes winword.exe is still the Word executable).
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You're looking at roughly 6.47GB for Windows RT and then another 830MB for Office for a grand total of around 7.3GB.
USB Compatibility
Microsoft is particularly proud of its single USB 2.0 port on Surface. Although USB ports have been featured on several Android tablets, their support was typically limited to flash drives, keyboards and mice. With Windows RT, Microsoft wants to bring more of the traditional Windows experience to tablets. Had Surface been x86 based, you would be able to plug in virtually any USB peripheral and it would just work. As the first version of Surface is based on an ARM SoC, driver support is a little more limited but still pretty decent.
USB drives obviously work as you’d expect them to. Even SATA to USB adapters worked fine when plugged into Surface. Other smartphones and tablets also worked, although their level of support varied. For example, you can plug in the iPhone 5 and have it come up as a supported device for moving pictures to/from. However USB tethering is not supported by the class driver included in Windows RT. You can even plug an iPad into Surface and get the same level of support.
Printer support is pretty decent, although the Epson Workforce 910 I tried didn’t actually have specific driver support under RT. Although development for the desktop side of Windows is limited, manufacturers can supply Windows RT drivers to enable support for some more obscure devices. Unfortunately when it comes to those devices you’ll have to play the waiting game as there’s simply not a lot of third party Windows RT drivers available for download today.
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milkod2001 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
With zero X86 apps compatibility Surface RT is just another tablet with keyboard running on outdated T3 with average/crappy display . All that for 600 bucks :(tipoo - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
With full Microsoft Office and a keyboard that's a few millimeters thick, plus great xbox integration. Depends on what you prioritize.A Geologist - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
I’ve been following Anandtech pretty much since you started and this is the first time I’ve felt I needed to comment, and then actually made the time to leave a comment. First off thanks as always for an excellent review. I think the review is pretty clear that this product is intended to be Microsoft’s interpretation of a tablet class device. Everybody who’s complaining about a lack of features seems to want this to be a laptop or ultrabook replacement, which it clearly isn’t, and everybody who’s complaining about the screen seems to want it to be an iPad. To all the people complaining about journalistic bias, most of the criticisms you bring up are directly quoted from the article. Do you not see the clearly untenable position you are arguing from? If you possess the ability to read and understand what is written, it’s fairly obvious that the features, strengths and limitations of the Surface RT are all well written about.I hope I speak for the silent masses who don’t normally participate in the vacuous echo chambers that are web comments sections (I will admit that there are some very good commenter's on Anandtech though), whey I say thanks for the informed, intelligent, insightful and accurate reviews and news articles that make Anandtech the great site that it has been over the years.
IKeelU - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
You spoke for me, that's for sure. Though I'm no stranger to commenting, most of the comments to this article are baffling/hateful. It's playing out like some weird black comedy and all I'm missing is the popcorn.faizoff - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
I agree with your comment @A Geologist.If you look across the comments there are those who find the review biased towards Windows and want more issues to be reported. There are comments that find the review biased towards Apple.
So it's become 'pick your bias and show your selected outrage.'
I have always liked the reviews done on this site and regardless of what OS or device I use or prefer I enjoy reading features and charts and experiences and get a really good perspective of products.
damianrobertjones - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
"The biggest issue I have with recommending Surface is that you know the next iteration of the device is likely going to be appreciably better, with faster/more efficient hardware and perhaps even a better chassis. "Then you might as well not buy an iPad or most certainly shouldn't have purchased an iPad 1
turnipmaster - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
The iPad 1 didn't offer a noticeably inferior user experience than it's closest rivals at launch thought, especially as it didn't have any:)AEdouard - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
It's a sleek device, but I really wonder if anybody can crack that market considering the huge barrier to entry that is the ecosystem. Apple is so well established in that space that Microsoft should have taken the Google route and try to get some space by pricing the device really low.On top of that, the Surface has a few issues :
1. That screen looks nice, but the resolution is lacking. This is a geek erection shrinker and could reduce early adoption by us nerds
2. There is some performance issues, even in the main UI. Hard to accept that when vanilla jellybean on the Nexus 7 and the iPad are always smooth (in the main interface at least)
3. Lack of apps (that chicken and the egg thing)
But I hope Microsoft can pull it off. I really like the UI and the push for more functionality on tablets.
N4g4rok - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
"1. That screen looks nice, but the resolution is lacking. This is a geek erection shrinker and could reduce early adoption by us nerds"I think most nerds would be looking at the surface pro as it is. Any higher resolution, and that Tegra would have a hard time. And a faster SoC would have driven the price up.
elerick - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
I expected no less, great review! I am an exchange admin with my company, is there any way to review the functionality within a enterprise environment? At present we are forced to use a middle ware for "activesync security" can we expect any advancements with data security on the surface?