I may have missed some earlier comments similar to yours, but you seem to be one of the first people in 12 pages of comments to mention the REAL battery life of Surface tablets -- with the Surface Pro 4, it is at most 6-7 hours (probably more like 5.5 on average). A few of my friends own them, and I was curious, so I have regularly inquired...to see if there were any improvements due to software updates. Over the course of 1+ year of my asking, none of them has seen battery life improvements. I believe that Microsoft previously claimed 9 hours battery life for the Surface Pro 4. So that 6 hours instead of 9 hours life = 67% of the claimed battery capability.
Estimating the same 67% 'real-life' performance on this new claim of 13.5 hours...would give you 9 hours of battery life with the new Surface Pro! Still far less than I get on my iPad Pro's (minimum 10 hours, but usually more like 13-14 hours, depending on brightness settings; and this is with LTE/cellular always ON).
I do think that the Surface Pro is an interesting and beautifully made product - if I really wanted a Windows machine, I probably would buy the NEXT iteration (when they call it the "5", if that's what they're planning). I think that no USB-C and their hideous wall-wart power block/connector are a real failure for a Windows machine and a laptop-replacement or alternative. USB-C would allow the use of power packs like we can use with iPads and Macbook/Pros thanks to the power source -- this is a real benefit to users, particularly if one does need to have some reassurance that you won't run out of power when there's no access.
Regarding the CPUs, the i5 and i7 -- are these the renamed M5 and M7 lines? or are they real i5 and i7s (prior to MS changing their naming conventions)?
Absolutely correct on battery life. My surface pro 4 will get 6-7 hours with average use, something like watching a video on medium brightness will get me closer to 8-9 hours. As a consumption tablet, videos, pictures, web browsing it's probably somewhere in the middle, 7-8 hours. If someone likes the ipad because it gets better battery life, I get it, I totally get it and they should buy an ipad. I'm hoping Microsofts claims of 13.5 hours in reality means I will get 8-9 hours using it as a desktop, and 9-10 hours as a consumption device. To get a full OS for that long, I'm more than happy with those numbers.
I also agree that the SP4 wall wart is terrible and often wish they had something like the ipad. Definitely something they can improve upon. USB-C I'm mixed on, I don't have any USB-C devices I use so really don't care. But by the same token it would be nice to future proof it. It's amusing and ironic that in Apple-fashion they provide a USB-C dongle.
But once again it depends on your needs.
[doublepost=1495585598][/doublepost]
Yes, it has a tablet mode, but the vast majority of apps are designed for the standard windows interface they are not optimized for touch. They've just enabled a touch layer as an extra function.
Do you mean legacy programs are not optimized for touch? You would be surprised at how well windows UI scaling works, but still I'm not denying that they are not optimized for touch. Although some of the big players out there ARE optimized for touch, such as Microsoft Office, most of Adobe's products, etc. These are programs I'm talking about, full desktop programs you can't get on the ipad. It's more than enabling a touch layer, the developers have changed the UI around to be both desktop and touch friendly, and if they haven't then the way windows scales things helps out quite a bit.
Just to differentiate windows apps ARE just as optimized for touch depending on the developer, of course that's a small point because of the dearth of apps for windows.
