Few surface rt questions from a new owner

[John Kinney]

Hey guys. I just had a few questions i was hoping some of you may be able to answer. i recently bought a surface rt. the first one was slightly warped (one of the corners was bent up) so i took it back. the second one was straight, but at the bottom of the screen it has a few low spots. have any of you noticed this about yours. i know the build quality is usually good on these. i could consult microsoft but i'm not sure the issue is big enough for them to replace it and don't want to chance getting a refurb. i also can't take another tablet back to best buy!

was also curious whne we might see some basic apps such as chrome and youtube. i just feel limited at times like i'm sure many of you do. im hoping the surface 3 runs maybe the new tegra chip with legacy app compatability but who knows.

lastly, i was curious what some of you are doing for performance and battery. i've read a multitude of threads but no suggestions seem definitive. mine is brand new and runs well for the most part, but occasionally gets sluggish at times in addition to the battery suffering a bit. thanks for the help.

 

[gandhirushi]

I purchased a factory refurbished off of eBay and it rocks. Yes it occasionally lags but for most part its snappy. No issues on the hardware side for me. This is windows rt so forget about legacy app support.. Its not gonna happen. Get a surface pro for that. Battery life on mine is pretty good but certainly not as great as iPad. Forget about getting chrome or YouTube or any official app from Google anytime soon. Google thinks the worldwide adoption of windows 8 and rt in general is not enough and they will not put resources into building apps for it as yet. I dont quite agree but it is what it is. Time will tell. Enjoy.

 

[joe_easton]

I think there is a chance that Chrome and YouTube will come to Windows 8 (but probably not Windows Phone). They already have a search app. Windows 8 is too big already to ignore but Google will ignore it until other browsers start eating into their market share. When IE and Mozilla more used on Win8, then Google will know they have to make apps. I suspect YouTube will quickly follow.

I like IE but for a YouTube app, there are many options out there. I like MetroTube.

 

[Jack Janik]

Sounds silly, but turn on Bluetooth. You'll notice a significant increase in battery life. As for performance, just try to not run more than five apps at once and you'll be fine, (in my experience at least).

 

[John Kinney]

Thanks for the replies. I did read that about the bluetooth but it really does help huh? Also, as far as shutting apps down. I heard that even if left open if they aren't used for a while they shut themselves down. does this actually happen or do you sitll have to manually force them? Thanks.

 

[Jack Janik]

Thanks for the replies. I did read that about the bluetooth but it really does help huh? Also, as far as shutting apps down. I heard that even if left open if they aren't used for a while they shut themselves down. does this actually happen or do you sitll have to manually force them? Thanks.

Well, I think after you reach a certain number of apps, because when I plug in my surface I'll sometimes forget to close all my apps, but when I wake up, they're still there. I'm going to startup as many apps as I can and see what happens..

Ninja edit: After 6 apps are running in the background, it will close the least recently used app as you start up an additional app.

 

[wiseguywood]

I like IE but for a YouTube app, there are many options out there. I like MetroTube.

Agreed, MetroTube is a great app for the Surface RT and for Windows Phone 8. As good an experience for YouTube for now.

 

[HarisA1]

Have any of you guys had a problem with the official twitter app on rt? It takes forever to open more than a full minute it has the bird icon with the blue screen around it for like a min 30secs. Anyone else or just me I tried installing uninstalling

 

[prlundberg]

We'll probably never see an alternative to IE for browsing. Unfortunately, that is a big weakness of RT. Microsoft has not given any indication they will ever open up the APIs for competitive browsers, and in fact went to court to protect their right to keep them locked. For that reason alone I probably won't buy another RT tablet, even though I really like it otherwise.

Hyper and MetroTube are the best YouTube apps and very similar to each other.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that the Tegra 3 is over 2 years old now, and even when new about the best you could say about it was "adequate". The SRT is not going to perform the same as a new Surface 2 or an iPad Air. My battery life has been pretty close to advertised, but it really suffers when doing updates and syncing photos from SkyDrive. And the SRT updates a lot.

I have also noticed on mine that it tends to deform along the bottom edge. The bottom corners bend up. Not much, but enough that you can see a curve when it's on a flat surface. It seems to do this just in normal use. I am able to carefully bend it back but eventually it happens again, presumably from the way we hold it. It wasn't like that when new.

 

[joe_easton]

Have any of you guys had a problem with the official twitter app on rt? It takes forever to open more than a full minute it has the bird icon with the blue screen around it for like a min 30secs. Anyone else or just me I tried installing uninstalling

I've never timed it but it is slow to open. We r due for an update

 

[HarisA1]

Yeah we need an update for bug fixes too