Multitasking

[ng4ever]

How well does the Surface 3 multitask compared to a normal pc ? Is it laggy or slow ?

 

[xandros9]

That's hard to answer since a "normal PC" varies widely. My "normal PC" is a rather old laptop that's been treated well software-wise, but the next guy's PC could be a multimedia powerhouse, or one that's crippled by junk, etc.

With these things, it all depends on how you drive it/expectations. This tablet, and most other modern ones will handle basic multitasking like web browsing, Office work, just fine. If you get to switching between Starcraft II and heavy lifting in Photoshop though, this will not perform well.

If you're concerned, get the 4 GB model.

 

[illegaloperation]

Well, I tell people to use laptops with Intel Core 2 Duo processors as baseline.

A Surface 3 will outperform a laptop with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

 

[arjan wolthuis]

Core 2 is an aged Cpu family but still pretty good processors to use

 

[DLCPhototography]

On my 4gb version, I've been impressed with its performance in this regard. I'll play some Solitaire, then do some web-browsing (in Chrome), look at some photos, check some settings in Control Panel, check Texts (Verizon Message +), and other stuff, switching back and forth, and it behaves like my also somewhat old Desktop (Dell 630i, Core 2 Quad CPU, Windows Vista, 6gb RAM).

I'll occasionally see some brief lag (for example, dealing the cards in Solitaire, which is usually lightning fast), but it's a minor and infrequent occurrence.

I imagine if I were doing more RAM or CPU intensive tasks, this would be more of a problem, so individual users will likely have different experiences, but for the way I'm using it, it's been quite satisfactory.

 

[P_Devil]

I'll occasionally see some brief lag (for example, dealing the cards in Solitaire, which is usually lightning fast), but it's a minor and infrequent occurrence.

That's not bad since you are using Chrome which is a major RAM hog and doesn't use the Surface 3's hardware acceleration like the modern (touch) version of IE.

 

[DLCPhototography]

That's not bad since you are using Chrome which is a major RAM hog and doesn't use the Surface 3's hardware acceleration like the modern (touch) version of IE.

I've seen many comments on Chrome issues, but so far I wouldn't know about it unless I had read about it here and elsewhere.

I had a long drawn out discussion on a photography forum, where a poster was pretty strident that 4gb was simply inadequate for any modern computer, and would lag the system with any significant web surfing. It turns out he would typically have a minimum of 10-15 Chrome Tabs open at a time, while it would be unusual for me to have more than 4 or 5. The point being how one uses various programs, one's personal style, so to speak, may account for one being satisfied, the other dissatisfied, with performance for whatever hardware/software is being discussed.

I know many run away from Google's reach, and I understand that. But for me personally, the ability to have immediate access to all my email, contact information, browser links, passwords, etc., on all of my devices, Android, Windows Vista, Windows 8.1, makes me reluctant to move away from it, without significant real-world problems pushing a change.

 

[ng4ever]

I would use firefox would that make a difference?

Wish Firefox had a touch based browser but they gave up on that idea

 

[xandros9]

I've seen many comments on Chrome issues, but so far I wouldn't know about it unless I had read about it here and elsewhere.

I had a long drawn out discussion on a photography forum, where a poster was pretty strident that 4gb was simply inadequate for any modern computer, and would lag the system with any significant web surfing. It turns out he would typically have a minimum of 10-15 Chrome Tabs open at a time, while it would be unusual for me to have more than 4 or 5. The point being how one uses various programs, one's personal style, so to speak, may account for one being satisfied, the other dissatisfied, with performance for whatever hardware/software is being discussed.

I know many run away from Google's reach, and I understand that. But for me personally, the ability to have immediate access to all my email, contact information, browser links, passwords, etc., on all of my devices, Android, Windows Vista, Windows 8.1, makes me reluctant to move away from it, without significant real-world problems pushing a change.

Yea, my normal usage is a dozen tabs in IE or FF at the most, a few more typically. 4 (and now 8) GB of RAM is sufficient.
But you talk to my friend, he has a 4 GB RAM-equipped Macbook Air (loaner I think) and he hits it really hard with dozens of Chrome tabs, etc. and a lot longer uptime than my PC. I feel bad for the thing, but he didn't have any other options at the time.

I would use firefox would that make a difference?

Wish Firefox had a touch based browser but they gave up on that idea

I've used Firefox at times when I had a 2 GB RAM Dell tablet and it wasn't bad.

 

[TechFreak1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsknvi3POMk

This may help give a better understanding what the surface 3 can do .

 

[seremify]

I've seen many comments on Chrome issues, but so far I wouldn't know about it unless I had read about it here and elsewhere.

I had a long drawn out discussion on a photography forum, where a poster was pretty strident that 4gb was simply inadequate for any modern computer, and would lag the system with any significant web surfing. It turns out he would typically have a minimum of 10-15 Chrome Tabs open at a time, while it would be unusual for me to have more than 4 or 5. The point being how one uses various programs, one's personal style, so to speak, may account for one being satisfied, the other dissatisfied, with performance for whatever hardware/software is being discussed.

I know many run away from Google's reach, and I understand that. But for me personally, the ability to have immediate access to all my email, contact information, browser links, passwords, etc., on all of my devices, Android, Windows Vista, Windows 8.1, makes me reluctant to move away from it, without significant real-world problems pushing a change.

Photography forum- i.e. people editing large DSLR photos in Photoshop? The S3 might be underpowered for more serious tasks like that.

IMO it's not unusable but it definitely doesn't feel that brisk compared to say my 2010 11" Macbook Air which has a Core 2 Duo processor. I guess what puzzles me is that my iPhone/iPad can have many many windows open in Safari yet Chrome on the Surface 3 seems to struggle with the same and maintaining smoothness in scrolling. Overall though I'm pretty happy with the Surface 3 compared to my previous T100 which just lagged and felt small.

EDIT: For clarity, my MBA is the first gen 11" Macbook Air with the 128gb SSD/2gb ram (before they made it 4gb standard) and my Surface 3 is the 128/4gb model.

 

[xandros9]

Photography forum- i.e. people editing large DSLR photos in Photoshop? The S3 might be underpowered for more serious tasks like that.

IMO it's not unusable but it definitely doesn't feel that brisk compared to say my 2010 11" Macbook Air which has a Core 2 Duo processor. I guess what puzzles me is that my iPhone/iPad can have many many windows open in Safari yet Chrome on the Surface 3 seems to struggle with the same and maintaining smoothness in scrolling. Overall though I'm pretty happy with the Surface 3 compared to my previous T100 which just lagged and felt small.

EDIT: For clarity, my MBA is the first gen 11" Macbook Air with the 128gb SSD/2gb ram (before they made it 4gb standard) and my Surface 3 is the 128/4gb model.

I believe Safari on mobile (as well as other mobile browsers) often delete downloaded/cached pages unlike desktop browsers. Meaning it can clear pages as RAM needs increase, and reload it later. Its that reloading when you switch back to a tab sometimes.

 

[tgp]

But you talk to my friend, he has a 4 GB RAM-equipped Macbook Air (loaner I think) and he hits it really hard with dozens of Chrome tabs, etc. and a lot longer uptime than my PC. I feel bad for the thing, but he didn't have any other options at the time.

Chrome on a Macbook is basically Google Safari. Chrome on a PC is said to be a RAM hog, and there's merit to the assumption. I've not had issues with it, however. Of the PCs I normally use, the least amount of RAM is 8GB, and I don't run into memory issues using Chrome. I don't keep a lot of tabs open either; usually no more than 10 or 12 at a time. I have a lot of trouble with IE not rendering sites properly. Some of the worst are Microsoft's own sites. I spend a lot of time in Microsoft's sites, and some of them work much better with Chrome than with IE.

Here's a GIF I found awhile ago that I thought was humorous:

 

[DLCPhototography]

Photography forum- i.e. people editing large DSLR photos in Photoshop? The S3 might be underpowered for more serious tasks like that.

IMO it's not unusable but it definitely doesn't feel that brisk compared to say my 2010 11" Macbook Air which has a Core 2 Duo processor. I guess what puzzles me is that my iPhone/iPad can have many many windows open in Safari yet Chrome on the Surface 3 seems to struggle with the same and maintaining smoothness in scrolling. Overall though I'm pretty happy with the Surface 3 compared to my previous T100 which just lagged and felt small.

EDIT: For clarity, my MBA is the first gen 11" Macbook Air with the 128gb SSD/2gb ram (before they made it 4gb standard) and my Surface 3 is the 128/4gb model.

It was at DPReview, and the context was working with Raw files from DSLR cameras. But this guy went way beyond that, implying that 4gb of RAM was flat-out inadequate for any modern computer, even for web-surfing and non-demanding tasks.

On the subject of working with Raw Files on the Surface 3 (I have an 18 megapixel Canon 1D Mark IV), I use FastRawViewer which allows me to very quickly view my images, with a little bit of editing capability (adjust exposure and white balance). I also installed Photoshop CS6, and it ran surprisingly well. It takes a little while to generate its preview images (as it does on my Desktop), but editing in Camera Raw was quite quick. I would use this in the field for a few select images, while using FRV to quickly cull out the unacceptable images.

 

[P_Devil]

I've seen many comments on Chrome issues, but so far I wouldn't know about it unless I had read about it here and elsewhere....

I do think how a person uses Chrome plays an important role but that doesn't stop it from being a resource hog. Right now I have Chrome (43.0.2357.81) up and running with a single tab that is this website. There's a GIF down below but that's it. Chrome is currently using 482MB of RAM and 10% of the CPU in my work desktop (an old dual-core 2GHz Pentium processor). That's fine for a desktop where I don't care about power usage but the RAM is a little unsettling seeing as how I only have 2GB of it. I just now opened another tab that is just a grid of 8 websites I access a lot. CPU usage increased to 15% and RAM consumption went up to 648MB.

I opened this same website in IE 11 on my work computer and it is using less than 250MB of RAM while CPU usage jumps between 0-5%. I would never use the desktop version of IE (mainly for the benefits you listed) but still, it goes to show that Chrome isn't the most efficient browser. Plus it kills the battery life of my Surface 3 but the modern version of IE doesn't. I can get a solid 6-9 hours of internet surfing with modern IE depending on what I access while I'm lucky to get 4 hours with Chrome. So that is my "significant real-world problem" with Chrome. It's a powerful tool but it does come at a cost. Plus I'm not fond of Chrome's touch input controls, they seem wonky at best.

But I do think that 4GB of RAM is enough for general usage, people who don't conduct complex tasks don't need more than 4GB.

 

[seremify]

I believe Safari on mobile (as well as other mobile browsers) often delete downloaded/cached pages unlike desktop browsers. Meaning it can clear pages as RAM needs increase, and reload it later. Its that reloading when you switch back to a tab sometimes.

That's true- I know it's not the same as truly keeping multiple tabs open but it seems to be a pretty good compromise as it doesn't make the current tab lag.

ps. I kept watching that Chrome animated GIF wondering if anything different would happen lol.

 

[illegaloperation]

It was at DPReview, and the context was working with Raw files from DSLR cameras. But this guy went way beyond that, implying that 4gb of RAM was flat-out inadequate for any modern computer, even for web-surfing and non-demanding tasks.

Surface 3 (not Pro) - Enough Power for Adobe Bridge/Camera Raw??: PC Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

So this guy is using the world's worst browser (Google Chrome) and thinks that 4GB of RAM is ill-adequate?

Someone needs to tell him to switch to a different browser.

 

[DLCPhototography]

Surface 3 (not Pro) - Enough Power for Adobe Bridge/Camera Raw??: PC Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

So this guy is using the world's worst browser (Google Chrome) and thinks that 4GB of RAM is ill-adequate?

Someone needs to tell him to switch to a different browser.[/ATTACH]

Yup = that's the thread. You go ahead and tell him; I found it a tad frustrating to deal with him!

 

[ng4ever]

Thanks guys interesting discussion !

 

[d0m1]

I use spartan (edge) most of the times on my 2gb surface 3 running W10 insider preview because it runs much smoother than Firefox or Chrome..