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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maximumGPU - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
it might not be the best of both worlds but for a lot of poeple it beats carrying a laptop AND a tablet.LetsGo - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
But you can't use it in your Lap so its rubbish as a laptop, and you can't use it as a tablet because its too heavy. so really its a portable desktop replacement with a digitizer.amdwilliam1985 - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
It really depends on your point of view, what you see as shortcoming is exactly opposite of what I have in mind. I guess everyone has different needs, and NO one size fits all, of course unless you're iSheep, then one size does fit all.Anyway, I would love to give up my Samsung Galaxy S3(4.8" screen) and Google Nexus 7(7" screen) for the upcoming Galaxy Note 3(rumored 6.3" screen).
*YES, I will be holding it next to my face to make phone calls, I'm already doing it on my Nexus 7 with wifi-calling.
*YES, I can do it next to those iTiny with 3.5" or 4.0", so they can laugh at me, or I can laugh at them, lol.
*YES, I am able to fit it into my pocket, I am currently carrying both S3 and N7 in my pockets.
*NO, I do not have oversize pockets, they can easily fit into my work trouser and my jeans.
*NO, I do not care about your opinion of me.
*YES, I believe you over care about what other people thinks.
"It's amazing that some people will do anything to 'fit in' while others will do everything to 'fit out'". -some "wise" guy
beginner99 - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Considering the hardware the price makes sense but it just feels too expensive. For $999 I expect the full type cover at least.The best thing about this is the USB port on the power brick. So you can live with 1 charger and leave the one for smartphone, eReader and other gadgets at home like when you go on vacation.
Jaerba - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Thanks for the great review, Anand. It confirmed my worries about the battery life and kickstand/lap usability, so I'm wondering if there's a possible battery keyboard dock on the horizon, like the Helix or Transformer Prime have. Can you even do power transfer through the magnetic clip?It seems like that one accessory would fix all of the major issues.
Byte - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Been waiting for this since my compaq tc1000. awesome screen, but one q, is it big enough to be able to play starcrft2? Not sur ehow ivy handles sc2 but I'm hoping haswell will be able to handle it.althaz - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Yes it plays Starcraft 2. I have played SC2 on identical hardware and it works fairly well, obviously you'll not be playing on High or Ultra settings.This is one of the reasons I'm picking one up as soon as is humanly possible. Portable Starcraft machine? Check. Football Mananger PC on the train? Check. Angry Birds/web-browsing from the couch? Check. Can run visual studio and photo shop? Check.
Winner! (I don't care about battery life past 2-3 hours and find the weight quite acceptable, ymmv).
tdtran1025 - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
So it's the fastest tablet out there, but for what? RT is sluggish, Windows 8 did not take off like MS expected it to, what else is there? Maybe XBox 720 will rescue MS.amdwilliam1985 - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
RT will be fine when they get tegra 4 or Snapdragon S4 pro in the next iteration along with more apps.Windows 8 is doing just fine, they're having decent market shares, I also bought a copy for my 5 years old (athlon x2 @ 2.5ghz) and it works great :)
I do plan on getting that awesome Lenovo Yoga to take full advantage of touch.
MS has more than xbox, they have the heart of business world.
The world can live on if suddenly facebook or Apple cease to exist, but the world will crumble if Google or MS falls. Just my 2 cents, probably why Apple(fashion) stocks UPs and DOWNs like crazy, because it can easily be replaced.
Simple test here, imagine tomorrow morning if your iphone/ipad/ipod ceased to exist, huh, just pick up some other replacements. Now imagine, tomorrow windows ceased to exist, lol, god forbid.
duploxxx - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Scrolling in web pages, application install time, file copy time, everything is just significantly faster on Surface Pro than on any competing tablet. Oh, and it boots (from full power off) in less than 10 seconds. It’s really the combination of the great CPU performance and fast SSD that deliver the responsiveness of the Surface Pro.cpu performance that's all nice, questionable if it is really needed vs the reduced battery life, you get, higher cost, weight and size. but anyhow.
NO GPU performance benchmarks? Is it really usable with the downscaled GPU ghz, typical issues with even general adobe flash games crashing with these kind of gpu, afterall that is where some of these tablets end up, a kid playing on internet games....