tablets: Microsoft Surface Pro - WTF?

[poloponies]

Latest on Surface Pro is that it will have battery life of about 4.5 hours. Why is it so hard fro Microsoft to do anything right?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20174...urface-rt.html

[nfl46]

Well, at least it's not price badly. $899 is pretty good.

[Dmunjal]

Originally Posted by poloponies

Latest on Surface Pro is that it will have battery life of about 4.5 hours. Why is it so hard fro Microsoft to do anything right?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20174...urface-rt.html

Blame Intel I think. It's taking them over 5 years to catch up to ARM in terms of performance/battery life. Windows RT on ARM has decent battery life.

[alphaod]

Originally Posted by poloponies

Latest on Surface Pro is that it will have battery life of about 4.5 hours. Why is it so hard fro Microsoft to do anything right?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20174...urface-rt.html

That's not bad at all. To get 8-9 hours they would need to make it thicker or use crappier processors (which I don't think they would do).

[Switchback666]

Originally Posted by Dmunjal

Blame Intel I think. It's taking them over 5 years to catch up to ARM in terms of performance/battery life. Windows RT on ARM has decent battery life.

Battery life not performance, surface pro for what its under the hood have a decent battery life also it depends on what you do with it and screeen brightness etc i assume the i5 have a low power mode incases you dont need whole performance.

[poloponies]

It's not a matter of blaming Intel or any entity other than Microsoft. It's a technology that no one has asked for that's being released too soon. The current generation of Ultrabooks and tablet PCs all have better battery life in packages that aren't appreciably bigger. Who's this being marketed to? Someone who's on the go for brief periods during the day?

[spinedoc77]

Originally Posted by poloponies

Latest on Surface Pro is that it will have battery life of about 4.5 hours. Why is it so hard fro Microsoft to do anything right?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20174...urface-rt.html

Not sure what you are confused about, IMO they are providing an ultrabook replacement at an ultrabook price with ultrabook battery life. You can't change the laws of physics, the ivy bridge units can only get so much battery life with today's technology.

If you are concerned about battery life you can get a cloverfield powered windows 8 tablet, same battery life as the ipad and runs pretty much any windows program you throw at it. With that option I find it very hard to figure out why people are freaking out.

[TheHateMachine]

Originally Posted by poloponies

Latest on Surface Pro is that it will have battery life of about 4.5 hours. Why is it so hard fro Microsoft to do anything right?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20174...urface-rt.html

You act as if it will only ever last 4.5 hours regardless of usage patterns.

Both my Surface and my iPad get 10 hours from the stress test the likes of Engadget and The Verge put their devices through. I end up getting a few days on each device with a fair amount of use before they even need charging. So the Pro will last half of a day and a half under my conditions? Sounds good to me.

The only time these benchmarks come close to representing real world use is when you are watching videos. Now where the Surface Pro would fail is if you are on a flight for more than 5 hours and want to watch videos the entire time! :P

[dazz87]

Let see. 64gb storage half the space is taking up by the OS, 4 hrs battery life (stated by M$) which in real world means 2-3 hrs... For 900 bucks shut up and take my money.......

[Switchback666]

Originally Posted by dazz87

Let see. 64gb storage half the space is taking up by the OS, 4 hrs battery life (stated by M$) which in real world means 2-3 hrs... For 900 bucks shut up and take my money.......

It takes all the space because of software pre-installed such as office mate, atleast with the surface you can delete pre-installed stuff you wont use (i assume!) on ios you gotta put up with it.

Regarding battery life whe can really comment, maybe when someone here gets it whe will have a better idea.

[MuffCabbage]

Originally Posted by dazz87

Let see. 64gb storage half the space is taking up by the OS, 4 hrs battery life (stated by M$) which in real world means 2-3 hrs... For 900 bucks shut up and take my money.......

Real world Surface RT is over 8 hours. 8 to over 10.

As for the drive space, a lot is Office, the recovery (Recover the tablet whenever without using another computer or discs), and the page file.

[dalbir4444]

Originally Posted by dazz87

Let see. 64gb storage half the space is taking up by the OS, 4 hrs battery life (stated by M$) which in real world means 2-3 hrs... For 900 bucks shut up and take my money.......

People still say M$?

[dazz87]

Originally Posted by MuffCabbage

Real world Surface RT is over 8 hours. 8 to over 10.
.

why would a Manufacturer lie about battery life on one of their device? Most times, they will lie to us telling us how great the battery life on their devices will vs. real world. Yeah the Surface will get you 8 hours, but we are talking about a x86 Processors (Pro).

[MuffCabbage]

Originally Posted by dazz87

why would a Manufacturer lie about battery life on one of their device? Most times, they will lie to us telling us how great the battery life on their devices will vs. real world. Yeah the Surface will get you 8 hours, but we are talking about a x86 Processors (Pro).

So when Apple says their Macbook Air 11" (32% fatter than surface with a lower res screen, no touch, and no active digitizer) gets 5 hours of battery...

[SlCKB0Y]

Originally Posted by dazz87

For 900 bucks shut up and take my money.......

it's 1k if you want the keyboard.

[G51989]

Originally Posted by dazz87

Let see. 64gb storage half the space is taking up by the OS, 4 hrs battery life (stated by M$) which in real world means 2-3 hrs... For 900 bucks shut up and take my money.......

As opposed to a Macbook air, which has a lower res, lower quality screen, no touch, same storage, weighs more, is thicker, and manages about the same battery life....and costs more money?

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Originally Posted by SlCKB0Y

it's 1k if you want the keyboard.

As if 1000 dollars is a large sum of money for a decent computing device. And its still better than a MacBook Air for the price.

[aziatiklover]

Originally Posted by nfl46

Well, at least it's not price badly. $899 is pretty good.

Mmm no! For $100 extra I get me a MBA 11" base model and I still be able to get more of the 64GB ssd left.

[lordofthereef]

Originally Posted by aziatiklover

Mmm no! For $100 extra I get me a MBA 11" base model and I still be able to get more of the 64GB ssd left.

I am just curious, why are so many people assuming that Windows 8 pro is going to take up exactly half of the SSD space? It doesn't do that in current releases (I am talking Windows 8, not RT), so we have no real reason to expect that much space to be used up.

But anyway, it's Apples to oranges. First off, the resolution on this screen is higher than a MBA. Also, it is a touch screen device, something that you cannot find yet from Apple. Am I saying t is a BETTER product? No, I don't know yet. And you are welcome to prefer the MBA, even before this is released if you wish. But your comparisons are a bit off.

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Originally Posted by poloponies

Latest on Surface Pro is that it will have battery life of about 4.5 hours. Why is it so hard fro Microsoft to do anything right?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/20174...urface-rt.html

I thought this too, at first. But then when you consider what is under the hood, it's a bit of an easier pill to swallow. Notice I say a bit, because the average consumer is likely going to look at those battery specs and say "forget it". It doesn't matter how good the rest of the specs are.

Fortunately, the average consumer also has the RT tablet to choose from. And, as was pointed out to me in another thread, this device doesn't seem to be targeted for the average consumer at all.

Anyway, a more power efficient chip is just around the horizon. I am still considering an RT tablet, but may hold out for the second gen pro, assuming we see one made. All specs are pretty impressive, but the battery life kills it for me. These days I am around a plug pretty much always, but I don't want to have to be.

[aziatiklover]

Originally Posted by lordofthereef

I am just curious, why are so many people assuming that Windows 8 pro is going to take up exactly half of the SSD space? It doesn't do that in current releases (I am talking Windows 8, not RT), so we have no real reason to expect that much space to be used up.

But anyway, it's Apples to oranges. First off, the resolution on this screen is higher than a MBA. Also, it is a touch screen device, something that you cannot find yet from Apple. Am I saying t is a BETTER product? No, I don't know yet. And you are welcome to prefer the MBA, even before this is released if you wish. But your comparisons are a bit off.

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I thought this too, at first. But then when you consider what is under the hood, it's a bit of an easier pill to swallow. Notice I say a bit, because the average consumer is likely going to look at those battery specs and say "forget it". It doesn't matter how good the rest of the specs are.

Fortunately, the average consumer also has the RT tablet to choose from. And, as was pointed out to me in another thread, this device doesn't seem to be targeted for the average consumer at all.

Anyway, a more power efficient chip is just around the horizon. I am still considering an RT tablet, but may hold out for the second gen pro, assuming we see one made. All specs are pretty impressive, but the battery life kills it for me. These days I am around a plug pretty much always, but I don't want to have to be.

Well i know i was comparing apple to orange! However, when I see the price there is no doubt I will go for a MBA! Come on $899 cereal microsoft? Look at how the RT is doing?! Aint going for $499! So this thing is DOA.

[spinedoc77]

Originally Posted by G51989

As opposed to a Macbook air, which has a lower res, lower quality screen, no touch, same storage, weighs more, is thicker, and manages about the same battery life....and costs more money?

Yeah but the macbook air has that cool Apple logo on the back, come on, that's all that matters. Specs? meh, who needs them.

[SlCKB0Y]

Originally Posted by G51989

weighs more, is thicker

Is that including the surface keyboard in your comparison with MBA?

[McGiord]

I hope they do well. Therefore Apple can catch up with a better similar Mac. Obviously these are aimed to business users, not consumers like Apple has. After a couple of iterations they could get something going on, the situation is that most businesses have contracts already in place and in average they are very slow adopting the new PCs, and replacing them are staggered and takes a full year to roll out a deploy new replacement hardware in global companies. I guesstimate that in about 3yeara we will see this kind of products at Avery airport as we see iPads nowadays, and they will be mainly for business users, company paid 'laptops'. Next news coverage, the MS Surface Pro gets TSA whatever kind of approval. The company that can help business travelers to avoid the hassles of lugging a heavy laptop and provide full PC experience will succeed in the long run in the business market.

[AutoUnion39]

Why would anyone get this over a cheaper ultrabook with a touchscreen?

[MuffCabbage]

Originally Posted by AutoUnion39

Why would anyone get this over a cheaper ultrabook with a touchscreen?

Think about what's different and why people might prefer it.

[spinedoc77]

Originally Posted by AutoUnion39

Why would anyone get this over a cheaper ultrabook with a touchscreen?

You do know it's a tablet right?