Surface RT slower after 8.1?

[Jeffrey Fox]

I happily updated my Surface RT to 8.1 on the day it came out, but I'm not entirely convinced that my Surface RT is a better machine for it. I was really hoping that apps would speed up and generally be more responsive, but I really feel like its the opposite now. For example, today I was trying to work on a pretty big Power Point presentation (300+ slides, if this makes a huge difference) and listen to some Xbox Music at the same time and the experience was unpleasant. Power Point was slow to respond and generally felt laggy, the crisp typing experience I loved when I got the Surface is gone to be replaced with seeing it 2-3 letters behind while I'm typing. Turning off Xbox Music made a minimal improvement, I think. It honestly could have been in my head and nothing actually got better.

Its just one example, generally it seems like apps load slower, games are muuuch slower and Internet Explorer crashes somewhat frequently. This is not the update I was looking for, please tell me I'm alone and something can be done to improve my experience.

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

It is the opposite for me. Mt surface does feel much better windows rt 8.1

I am enjoying it lot except for the internet explorer crashes. Of course today I have been using internet explorer and it hasn't crashed on me yet.

The surface isn't going to get too much notably different as far as speeds in most cases since the processor is a bit outdated but I haven't noticed any lags aside from a slight lag using metro ui internet explorer

 

[katakulli]

My surface rt runs MUCH better with 8.1, dont know what the problem is on your device. Install all the updates available, there were several office updates yesterday.

 

[Jeffrey Fox]

I'll check my updates right now, at this rate I may see if a recovery is needed.

 

[austen0316]

I feel that the mail app is much slower

 

[Joe Dubya]

I was actually thinking 8.1 faster. I've been running the beta for a few months and it was glitch-y and slow, so the 8.1 official is much better. However since I am not comparing to the 8.0 your experience may be different and my memory may be playing tricks with me. Personally LOVE this 8.1 RT

 

[Jeffrey Fox]

There have been several patches to RT 8.1 and it is feeling better. I'm still not impressed with the new Xbox Music app's speed, I was hoping for much better. And IE 11... oh my word that could use work still

 

[prlundberg]

And IE 11... oh my word that could use work still

It was bad for me too but then I enabled tracking protection lists and it's great now, although going back 3+ pages can still sometimes glitch. Some website videos and other random stuff also doesn't work, but it's easy enough to toggle on and off once you have them setup.

In Metro IE Charms\Settings\Privacy

 

[lbaxter]

It was bad for me too but then I enabled privacy tracking lists and it's great now, although going back 3+ pages can still sometimes glitch. Some website videos and other random stuff also doesn't work, but it's easy enough to toggle on and off once you have them setup.

In Metro IE Charms\Privacy

Does this prevent the constant crashing of the app? That's been one of my biggest complaints since updating to 8.1 (that, and the buggy-slowness you described).

 

[inteller]

it doesn't prevent crashing it prevents extreme lag and hanging because it ignores all of the ads and tracking cookies Google et al are trying to shove down your throat

 

[prlundberg]

Does this prevent the constant crashing of the app? That's been one of my biggest complaints since updating to 8.1 (that, and the buggy-slowness you described).

The tracking protection lists mostly improved performance, which also happened to help but not eliminate crashing prior to the updates. The updates last week are what eliminated the crashes for me.

 

[lbaxter]

The tracking protection lists mostly improved performance, which also happened to help but not eliminate crashing prior to the updates. The updates last week are what eliminated the crashes for me.

I installed those updates too, but didn't get much relief from the crashing. Right now, I'm just resetting to sell. I'm thinking of upgrading from RT anyway.

 

[dkp23]

Nothing in my usage after update tells me whether RT is slower or even faster, RT was slow and laggy to begin with and still continues to be so. If there is an improvement or slowdown after the update, it will probably be very minimal.

Realistically, RT was gimped on the specs and will always be a sluggish device.

 

[Luminatic]

Exactly the opposite is the case with my surface RT, ismbecame much smoother. I have only upgraded yesterday though and cannot say anything about the longterm effect of the upgrade. One thing I immediately noticed is how much more responsive things like resizing and moving of tilesmare now.

 

[giulia regan]

Yes it is, for me.I am a light user, browsing a few social media ,photos, music, trying to watch telly but not a good experience ,I have noticed that since the update to 8.1 not much has improved for me, in fact the opposite is true ,I don't use office ,I only bought the key board because my daughter's laptop was on the blink and I thought she might need it..... the pages loading from one search to another is really pretty slow and with all the updates in the world is not improving, so much goes wrong very often, page freeze apps and the rest crashes, not to mention the dreaded message this programme is not supported this app neither...I love the metro style ,touch screen is definitely for me, but give us a brake, I payed ?399 for this thing ,is not on. OH just another annoying thing comes to mind the window opened at the bottom rather than top not a good move, also they use to close by themself after 3 days if not used, now you have to close them one by one when you remember after noticing that the computer is even slower, just me?

 

[calfee20]

Go to this thread and read post #20. http://forums.windowscentral.com/mi...sistent-sluggish-performance-surface-rts.html