Battery Life, sucks...

unstoppablekem

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I'm a diehard Microsoft/Windows/Windows Phone/Nokia ******. I own a Lumia 920, a Surface RT, and a 2010 MacBook Pro (getting the new iMac and putting Windows 8 Pro on it).

So today, they announced Surface Pro pricing and more. Most stuff was good. I think the pricing was good, some don't. But here is something we all have to agree about. It has ****ty battery life. Microsoft confirmed it has half the battery life of the Surface RT. Now that is very disappointing.

What is your take on this?

Microsoft Surface Pro to get half the battery life of Surface RT | Microsoft - CNET News
 

Dos101

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Maybe wait until some reviews come out specifying actual battery life? Microsoft tweeting that it's half that of Surface RT doesn't give us too much info.
 

cddigi

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Kind of upset by this. I was hoping for at least 6 hours from it. I really want to upgrade from my RT to the Pro for the digitizer to use in school. I have the Adonit Jot Pro, but the angle stops at about 30 degrees and I'm constantly going past it. Ordered a GoSmart stylus that goes down to 10 degrees, so hopefully that solves most of my issues. A 4-5 hour device is going to have me hurting for battery life. But maybe some reviewers will find some settings to change that will get it past the 6 hour mark for me.
 

tissotti

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Yeah that battery life is horrible. Not that i was expecting anything amazing from i5, but with that quite thick body and all i was hoping for a 6 hours or more. I think the only way you should get first generation core tablet should be in a configuration like transformer Book where you get the proper keyboard with another battery.

MS not going for more aggressive pricing and that battery life sealed the deal for Asus Vivo tab for me.
 

theefman

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Not much they can do unless they make it heavier and thicker. Haswell chips will fix all of this next year for the Surface 2.
 

tissotti

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Pricing is competitive (it's an ultrabook), battery life unfortunately is to be expected (blame intel).

Don't get me wrong. The price is exactly what you would expect... the thing is with MS not paying licensing costs and trying to push the platform i thought they would have taken a risk here and price it more competitive.
But then i guess it's a bit of a juggling game with Microsoft as it needs to keep its OEM's happy as well.
 
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Steve Ridges

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I'm chomping at the bit to get one. When I had my iPad, if someone had asked me if I was willing to give up some run time, add a couple of mills thickness, and pay $200 more for OS X and essentially have a real computer, I'd have done it.

After playing with the Surface RT tablet for a weekend, it's really a work of art. I can't wait to get the Pro. Maybe all this negative talk will make MS throw in the touch cover for free or something.
 

gedzum

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I'm surprised amazing was an option in the poll :winktongue: jk..It will be interesting to see some reviews regarding battery life. If it gets 5-6 hours, I think that will be acceptable considering the hardware. The Surface Pro and ASUS' offering are the ones I got my eye out for, looking forward to what they can produce.

I agree with theefman, it might not be a few iterations before we see a more refined Surface product.
 

doomtuba

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It's gonna have comparable battery life to the 11" MacBook Air which is 4-5 hours which should be good enough for it's size.
 

Dos101

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It's gonna have comparable battery life to the 11" MacBook Air which is 4-5 hours which should be good enough for it's size.

Exactly, why people expect better is beyond me. Once it goes on sale I'm just waiting for all the complaints about fan noise and temperature.
 

ricardios

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Check out the Acer w700 tablet. Battery life is 7 to 8 hour range. 11.6" 1080p screen, i5, 4gb ram. Very comparable to surface pro.
 

mt219

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was kinda disappointed with the battery life. hope it's better than what they say. it's making me hesitate on getting one when it comes out now.
 

GoodThings2Life

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Here's my perspective on this... take it for what it's worth.

Today, I have a Dell Vostro V131. It has a 65W extended battery. It runs a Generation 2 i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD, so in other words, it's comparable to the Surface Pro aside from the fact that Surface Pro has a generation 3 processor and a 48W battery. Of course, this screen is 13" instead of 10" too, so keep that in mind as I continue on...

The Vostro is advertised as having 4-6 hours of battery life with this extended battery. That was definitely true when I ran Windows 7 (averaged about 4.5), but when I upgraded to Windows 8, it nearly doubled to more like 8-9 hours, averaging 8 hours to the 20% mark (I never let my system go lower). Now, I say that, but there's the usual conditions of usage being applied... I dim the display to about 40% (not precisely, but about), I keep Wi-Fi on and use a Bluetooth mouse, but this isn't running full video or anything power hungry... it's just general web surfing and general work. Call it "casual use" with no "sleep" time. That, in my opinion, is absolutely phenomenal battery life. Nothing short of spectacular and amazing for a full-time system of these specs.

Surface Pro obviously has a smaller battery, but it's also BIGGER than the Surface RT battery. My Surface RT generally goes about 9-12 hours of active use (I haven't done any official tracking but 10 hours is a fair average), and goes DAYS on idle/standby use. It's actually improved since the various firmware updates that have released. So, here's what I'm expecting from Surface Pro.

I expect the 3rd Generation i5 processor and graphics chipset to be BETTER than the 2nd Generation processor I have today in terms of power consumption/management. I also expect the smaller screen (even at higher resolution) to consume less energy than the bigger display. I expect Microsoft to also take advantage of new motherboard and other chipset options to eek out some additional improvements in Windows 8. In the end, with a 48W battery, I expect Surface pro to have 5-7 hours of battery life with the same usage as my Vostro.

I anticipate that Microsoft will market it as 4-6 hours, and of course, mileage may vary from user to user. If that's a problem for you, then absolutely, don't buy it. If that sounds good for you, and you like everything else about it... go for it. Same as any other spec comparison. I'm not sure on the "average life" of other ultrabooks, but real world experience as an IT guy tells me that when you approach 8-10 hours for any full-time device, it's amazing and a realistic high is that 6-8 range.

Of course, if you're automatically claiming that it "sucks" without any basis of fact or based on a tweet, you might be an idiot... or at the very least, you need to be more realistic.

I'd love to know that I *can* be on battery all day for work, but the reality is I literally NEVER need it that way. I'm always at my desk, I'm always plugged in, and I go mobile for only brief periods during the day.


PS-- I'm still waiting for the launch to decide if I'm getting one. I desperately want a tablet with Type Cover and an active pen digitizer for OneNote usage... but I feel my system must get 5 hours on battery to be useful to me. I'm actually more concerned with other factors like fan noise and whether or not 128GB is enough storage for me.
 

ninjaap

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Wife says she wants the Surface Pro as soon as it it's released. So I says "yes ma'am!" Right now we're sharing my VAIO laptop, which only has 2 hrs battery life. So this would be way beyond our expectation.
 

crystal_planet

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I can predict the future.

The Surface Pro will be released and will garner twice the complaints that the RT did. Most folks will forget that it will be able to run legacy programs, run full Windows 8, have an Intel processor etc and will think of it as just a tablet. Invariably they'll compare it to other tablets and complain about thickness and poor battery life. Someone will also complain that it should cost the same as a Nexus 7, because it's a tablet and therefore exactly like the Nexus. Also some idiot blogger (*cough* Siegler *cough*) will claim how much superior the iPad 4 is (you just can't beat the retina display doncha know).

You wait. It's coming.
 

ninjaap

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They can ***** all they want, fact is the Surface Pro is full pledge Windows 8 machine, which means it will get every single update all other laptops, ultrabooks, and desktops will be getting.
 

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