Check out our full review of the Microsoft Surface Pro tablet.
If you were planning to use your new Surface Pro tablet indoors most of the time – in other words, close to a power point – then news via one of Microsoft’s official Twitter accounts that the device’s battery has half the strength of the Surface RT’s may not bother you too much. But if you were planning to take it out and about with you, on planes, trains and automobiles, it may give pause for thought.
Sure, if the Surface RT’s battery life was around 20 hours, then 10 hours on the Pro device would still be more than good enough for most users. But it’s not. When DT’s mobile expert Jeffrey Van Camp put the Surface RT through its paces for his review last month, he found he was getting between 8 and 9 hours before it needed juicing up. Even the mathematically challenged will not have taken too long to work out that that translates to between 4 and 4.5 hours of battery life on a Surface Pro. Pretty measly, huh?
Incidentally, in his review, written well before news of the Pro’s battery life broke, Jeffrey wrote: “Microsoft isn’t going for the gold on the battery life.” Prescient words, indeed, Jeffrey. By the looks of it, it’s not even on the podium, with competitors like the 9.7-inch iPad, Amazon’s 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD and Google’s Nexus 10 claiming battery time upwards of 8 hours.
News that the Pro version of Surface has “approximately half the battery life of the Surface RT” was posted on Thursday on Microsoft’s Surface Twitter account in response to a question from another Twitter user.
This came just hours after pricing details for the tablet – which launches in January – were released by Microsoft: $900 for the 64GB model and $1,000 for the 128GB model. Both versions feature Windows 8 Pro, an Intel Core i5 processor and a 10.1-inch 1080p HD display.
Are you considering picking up a Surface Pro? If the information in the tweet proves accurate and the battery is indeed more laptop than tablet, are you going to look elsewhere, or is it not too much of an issue for you?
[via engadget]
First off I have both iPad and Android tablets, and like both for various reasons. I can see and understand why comparisons are made between the two. Windows 8 still has a lot of proving to do but I do think it has potential as a desktop OS and as a mobile OS.
Grouping and comparing the iPad, Android tablets and Surface RT makes sense. Their cpu’s and various other components, while different, are similar in the fact that they are designed for lighter duty mobile use. Surface Pro really does not fit in this category and should not be compared to as such.
In brief, Surface RT uses an nVidia Tegra chip running at a 1366×768 resolution. Surface Pro uses the Core i5 and runs at 1920×1080. Of course Surface Pro would not last as long. It’s using a more power hungry cpu and is pushing out more pixels. These comparisons should be more apples to apples. What sense does it make to criticize a product’s battery life when the differences in components (and intended use scenario) are so far apart?
FYI, Lenovo plans to release their own Surface Pro tablet but with an Atom cpu. It’s promising 10 hours of battery life (though it’ll be more like 7-8 hours) for their tablet.
You would think laptop, cell phone and tablet manufactures would realize that people want devices that last 8 to 12 hours on a charge. I would rather carry a little heavier device than run out of juice.
as long as you can add a better battery and if they include the keyboard, this could be a winner