Surface Pro 2017's battery life is really impressive!

[Tsang Fai]

My company just received a Surface Pro 2017 for testing.

I just did a quick comparison of its battery life against a Surface Pro 4.

Testing environment: Edge opened with 4 tabs of same web sites (with animation and ads)
Testing time: 4 hours
Battery level change: Surface Pro 2017, 100% -> 71%. SP4, 100% -> 33%

Both are i5 models. The only difference is the SP2017 has 8GB RAM vs. 4GB RAM of the SP4.

Though my test was very simple and not so comprehensive, I can say that the battery life of SP2017 far exceeds that of SP4.

Will do more extensive testing.

 

[onlysublime]

Anandtech's spec sheet has been updated and the new battery is bigger than it was expected to be.

The Surface Pro 4 had a 39 Wh battery. The new Surface Pro has a 45 Wh battery. So in addition to having a more efficient processor family, it has a bigger battery, and Windows 10 has gotten better and better with battery optimization.

 

[david90531]

That is super exciting!! Must be even a bigger improvement compared to my SP3 then

 

[neten17]

10 hours mark seems achievable, that's great!

 

[onlysublime]

ifixit has a teardown of the new Surface Pro. the new Surface Pro has 4 batteries and is now confirmed to be 45 Wh versus the 2 batteries of the Surface Pro 4 that totaled 38.2 Wh. That's an 18% increase in capacity. So that combined with the improved efficiency of Kaby Lake is why the battery life is much better with the new Surface Pro.

 

[Keeptechcoolandsimple]

oh... man... i wasn't really thinking of upgrading from my surface pro 4, but now I'm not so sure...

 

[Rainar Angelo]

One of the most important aspects is the battery and if it lasts as long as people are saying (you included) it could be a deal breaker for many (who already love the form factor i.e.)

 

[anon(10237065)]

That's incredibly impressive.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

That's certainly an impressive improvement. My Pro 4 does me just fine, so the new Pro would certainly be spectacular. Especially with that "instant-on" feature that I hope comes to my Pro 4 in the future. I'm not sure if it's possible with my Skylake though.

 

[GG002]

Ooh! I thought it was already amazing to get 5-6h with my (ageing) SP3 i5! Nice to see how far the SP-series has come!

 

[Rainar Angelo]

That's certainly an impressive improvement. My Pro 4 does me just fine, so the new Pro would certainly be spectacular. Especially with that "instant-on" feature that I hope comes to my Pro 4 in the future. I'm not sure if it's possible with my Skylake though.

IFKR? That instant on-off feature! Boy, tech is making us more impatient

 

[Rainar Angelo]

Ooh! I thought it was already amazing to get 5-6h with my (ageing) SP3 i5! Nice to see how far the SP-series has come!

Meh! My laptop gives 2 hours XD

 

[kodos78]

My experience with my SP 2017 is that I can now use it all day as a tablet without worrying about battery drain or it running out of juice. I use it mostly for Word, OneNote, myTube, Edge, some occasional programming (mostly using a REPL and VSCode), Logos Bible Software, and such.

Yesterday was the first time I did not have "range anxiety" since having a Surface Pro. It didn't drain while sleeping and it was available all day for what I was doing. I certainly couldn't say that about my SP3!

And it being fanless was wonderful. To me, this is the first Surface Pro that hits the ideals of the Surface promise.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

IFKR? That instant on-off feature! Boy, tech is making us more impatient

Yes it is haha. My girlfriend is not tech savvy at all and she tends to swear vehemently at her phone (which I just bought her) any time it even remotely slows down (which is quite often, as it's Android). I that instant-on feature really does sound nice.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

My experience with my SP 2017 is that I can now use it all day as a tablet without worrying about battery drain or it running out of juice. I use it mostly for Word, OneNote, myTube, Edge, some occasional programming (mostly using a REPL and VSCode), Logos Bible Software, and such.

Yesterday was the first time I did not have "range anxiety" since having a Surface Pro. It didn't drain while sleeping and it was available all day for what I was doing. I certainly couldn't say that about my SP3!

And it being fanless was wonderful. To me, this is the first Surface Pro that hits the ideals of the Surface promise.

That's why it's not the Surface Pro 5, it's just the Surface Pro. I feel like we won't be seeing a new Surface Pro for a while haha. It might be two years before Microsoft decides on a new model. Maybe a processor refresh next year though.
Microsoft hit it out of the ballpark with this one.

 

[bergakker]

Wow that is good news. A colleague of mine just got one - I'm so excited because soon he'll bring it here for me to play with!

 

[convergent]

I did finally get to take my nSP traveling this week. In a 24 hour period I used it for about 4 hours and it had 59% battery life remaining after; which equates to about 10 hours of life. For about 2 hours I was using it on a plane for editing Powerpoint decks, marking up a PDF, and doing email. The other 2 hours was at a conference and in my hotel room doing similar work, as well as browsing the internet.

It was nice to also be able to use it through take off and landing on the plane. And the form factor worked great on tray table and in my lap.

I'm really happy with this thing.

 

[kodos78]

I also have been pretty pleased with my SP2017's battery life. My last SP was a SP3 and the battery life on that wasn't so good. I'd always have to take a charger with me. Now, with the SP2017 I don't have "range anxiety" and feel like I can use it without packing the charger. Which btw, is smaller, which also makes it easier to tote around.

I save my ThinkPad P50 now for the serious business that my little i5/8/256 SP cannot handle! (But then I have to lug around 6lbs of equipment -- including the mammoth charger).