How do I speed my Surface RT up?

[SoullessOnyx]

Hello, my new Surface RT can be rather slow especially on the YouTube website, I could tap a button and could have up to 10 seconds of waiting before my RT notices that I clicked it, also could someone give me advice on how to make the battery last longer? Thank you.

 

[spaulagain]

The original Surface RT is slow. It uses the old Tegra 3 processor and is just not powerful enough. I currently own a Surface RT and have similar issues. I've had it for over a year now and am selling it to upgrade to the Surface 2 which is much faster.

 

[SoullessOnyx]

The original Surface RT is slow. It uses the old Tegra 3 processor and is just not powerful enough. I currently own a Surface RT and have similar issues. I've had it for over a year now and am selling it to upgrade to the Surface 2 which is much faster.

Oh right, that makes sense! Thank you. ��

 

[spaulagain]

As far as battery is concerned, I usually get 2 days or more. So I think it's pretty good. I got more before 8.1, but it's still pretty solid.

 

[RajeevT]

Check out the following thread: http://forums.windowscentral.com/mi...face-2-what-tips-tricks-do-you-have-tell.html Most tips applicable to the OS should work fine on the 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Generation RT tablet too.

 

[rkarolak]

Oh right, that makes sense! Thank you. ��

Sure, the RT is the slowest of the bunch, but it isn't THAT slow. It's greatly improved throughout the updates, especially since 8.1. If it's taking 10 seconds to respond to a tap than there is something else going on. Maybe try backing up, restore to factory settings, upgrade, then restore.

I browse and use YouTube and Amazon video through IE all the time and don't feel that it's particularly slow or stalling.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Also there are some pretty great YouTube front end apps in the app store that could help as well.

 

[prlundberg]

Two things that have made a big difference on mine:

1. Make sure you have at least 5 GB free disk space.

2. Enable Privacy Tracking Lists on IE. When in IE, swipe in from right, then select settings, privacy, and follow instructions from there to add lists. You may have to periodically turn them off to get some sites to work right, like those with embedded video.

You may also want to use an app for YouTube. I use Hyper and it works fine, MetroTube is very similar and well regarded.

Doing these two things has kept mine usable, for the most part. But still, it's outdated hardware and IE11 is a poor browser IMO, so don't expect too much.

 

[RajeevT]

IE11 is a poor browser IMO, so don't expect too much.

I personally find IE11 to be one of the best, if not the best, touch capable browsers available right now, and on better hardware than the Surface RT it does very well indeed. Only thing it suffers from is insufficient third-party extensions.

 

[prlundberg]

I personally find IE11 to be one of the best, if not the best, touch capable browsers available right now, and on better hardware than the Surface RT it does very well indeed. Only thing it suffers from is insufficient third-party extensions.

A lot of things are better on better hardware. But on the Surface RT IE is terrible, and because it is RT there are no other options. I find it unusable without tracking protection lists enabled.

 

[RajeevT]

A lot of things are better on better hardware.

Of course, so then don't blame the browser, blame the hardware on which it runs. Even good software will naturally struggle on inadequate hardware, and the presence of the latter doesn't make the former automatically poor.

I find it unusable without tracking protection lists enabled.

Just goes to show you how much of an adverse effect ad-heavy sites have on our browsing experience. Not only that, effective ad-blocking is a resource intensive activity, with current implementations often sucking up huge amounts of RAM and raising CPU usage by several notches. For details read the following Mozilla blog post which sparked off a firestorm, as well as Wladimir Palant's response and a Chrome developer's comments on Reddit:

https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/05/14/adblock-pluss-effect-on-firefoxs-memory-usage/

Even if AdBlock Plus could run on Windows RT the Surface RT would struggle, and on sites that bombard users with ads perhaps even the Surface 2 would as well. I can clearly see the effect when browsing with Chrome even on a not too old Android tablet with AdBlock Plus installed (which was removed from the Play Store by Google for obvious reasons).

 

[Philip Hamm]

Of course, so then don't blame the browser, blame the hardware on which it runs. Even good software will naturally struggle on inadequate hardware, and the presence of the latter doesn't make the former automatically poor.



Just goes to show you how much of an adverse effect ad-heavy sites have on our browsing experience. Not only that, effective ad-blocking is a resource intensive activity, with current implementations often sucking up huge amounts of RAM and raising CPU usage by several notches. For details read the following Mozilla blog post which sparked off a firestorm, as well as Wladimir Palant's response and a Chrome developer's comments on Reddit:

https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2014/05/14/adblock-pluss-effect-on-firefoxs-memory-usage/

Even if AdBlock Plus could run on Windows RT the Surface RT would struggle, and on sites that bombard users with ads perhaps even the Surface 2 would as well. I can clearly see the effect when browsing with Chrome even on a not too old Android tablet with AdBlock Plus installed (which was removed from the Play Store by Google for obvious reasons).

Hilariously, ads are why in the early days of the iPad it was so fast. So much ad stuff was done by Flash in those days that the absence of Flash made any browser scream on iPad. Unfortunately ads are not mostly Flash any more so the iPad has the same trouble.

I have no complaints as to browser performance on my Surface. It's not as fast as I'd like, but it's fast enough.

 

[RajeevT]

Unfortunately ads are not mostly Flash any more so the iPad has the same trouble.

Unfortunately for us the ad networks and spammers are often one to two steps ahead of the good guys, and learn to adapt quickly.

I have no complaints as to browser performance on my Surface. It's not as fast as I'd like, but it's fast enough.

I find it ok as well with a few chosen TPLs loaded, and after having used all the other major tablet browsers I can easily say that I find IE11 to be inferior to none in its touch friendliness or performance (hardware permitting, of course). By far the major reason sites break with IE is because many old ones and even brand new ones are coded by cretins who dare to call themselves web developers, with no standards adherence and employing buggy browser-specific detection routines and hacks. No wonder when IE changed its UA string so many of these sites broke, and many hacks that long since have not been required end up having a negative effect now. Of course clueless users blame the browser and not the site, and thus the requirement for IE to have compatibility lists or even be forced to implement non-standard proprietary features. You should see the amount of WebKit targeting web developers do nowadays, and these are the same guys who railed against IE requiring specific hacks. Instead of catering to one or the other camp if they just stuck to standards we'd have an all-round improved browsing experience, thanks not just to better sites but better browsers as well.

 

[Coreldan]

Yeah... the way I made it faster was to get Surface Pro 3 lol. I love my Surface RT but after 2 years and loads of updates, it just can't really keep up with me anymore. For most single things it manages fine, but then there are certain sites that just put it into a crawl even without multitasking, such as YouTube or WPCentral.

 

[RajeevT]

I love my Surface RT but after 2 years and loads of updates, it just can't really keep up with me anymore.

I must say though and no doubt you noticed this too, Windows RT 8.1 really was great for this model, both in terms of boosting performance and reclaiming disk space previously gobbled by the OS. Tells you just how unoptimised RT 8.0 was for the ARM hardware it was launched on.

 

[Coreldan]

I must say though and no doubt you noticed this too, Windows RT 8.1 really was great for this model, both in terms of boosting performance and reclaiming disk space previously gobbled by the OS. Tells you just how unoptimised RT 8.0 was for the ARM hardware it was launched on.

Actually when it comes to performance 8.1 never felt like a boost to me, that's where the downfall in performance started in my opinion, but I just figured that the hardware and software were originally balanced around 8.0, so maybe that's why it became slower with 8.1.

I did wipe the device a few weeks back in hopes of that helping, but not really, so I just decided to retire the device

 

[RajeevT]

Actually when it comes to performance 8.1 never felt like a boost to me, that's where the downfall in performance started in my opinion, but I just figured that the hardware and software were originally balanced around 8.0, so maybe that's why it became slower with 8.1.

Strange, my experience tallied with that of all other owners I know of in that the tablet got a decent performance boost with 8.1 and the update also freed up a fair amount of disk space.

I did wipe the device a few weeks back in hopes of that helping, but not really, so I just decided to retire the device

Still a good option for many things including music and video playback I'd say. If it's of absolutely no use to you send it over! ;D