Anyone planning on getting the $499 S3 with 2 gb ram? Will it perform?

[hpham72]

I'm worried that MS seems to have sent only the 4 gb ram model to all of the reviewers. And many don't recommend the 2 gb model even though they've never used it. I've had a 2 gb Windows tablet before but it ran 32 bit Windows. Seems both models of the S3 will run 64 bit. I don't think other manufacturers have made this configuration. All of the 2 gb ram tablets I've read about run 32 bit Windows.

So my question is how will the Surface 3 with 2 gb ram perform with 64 bit Windows?
I plan on using my tablet for annotating pdfs and taking notes with one note. Watching streaming video. Office. Web. And maybe light photo editing. While I may multitask with it I don't plan to use a 10 inch screen as my main device. I have my 13 inch ultra book for that.
I'm just worried that I'll buy the 2 gb model and it'll bog down after a few months.
Thanks for any advice.

 

[MoshMast]

I've tested the 2GB model in-store and it works smoothly. For office, web or media it should be able to hold its own just fine.

However, photo editing and multitasking could becoming more taxing on the system and if you're really concerned about it the extra $100 for 4GB of RAM and 128GB drive is probably worth it.

 

[P_Devil]

Seeing as how my Dell Venue Pro 8 3000 tablet, which has an older quad-core Atom processor and only 1GB of RAM, hasn't slowed down in the (almost) year that I've owned it, I highly doubt the 2GB Surface 3 will just after a few months. I agree with MoshMast in that it should be fine for everyday activities but 2GB of RAM doesn't stretch far with multi-tasking especially when using desktop programs like Chrome (which is currently consuming 429MB of RAM on my Surface Pro 2).

I think the biggest issue won't come from performance (if you don't plan on multi-tasking too much) but rather the available storage on the 64GB model. If it's anything like the Surface Pro series, you'll only have 23GB of accessible storage. You can increase that by 8-12GB by moving the restoration partition to a USB device but that still doesn't leave a lot. Office 2013 takes up ~3GB leaving 20GB of usable storage. Throw a couple of movies on there, download an album or two, and that 20GB gets eaten up pretty quickly.

 

[Stiv X]

I have played with the 2Gb models in Best Buy and a Microsoft store. I had no concerns with it. I preordered the 4Gb/128Gb model, though. I intend to use mine for business travel and to give presentations from. I wanted the extra hard drive storage. The extra RAM was bonus.

 

[hpham72]

I was hoping to not stray too much above my initial $400 budget for a Windows tablet but I think you guys are convincing to spend the extra $100. My plan was to just use my MicroSD card to store my 20 gb of work files, like I did with my Toshiba Encore 2 Write. But extra storage is always nice. And if the tablet proves to be as useful as the reviewers are making out, maybe this will become more than just a secondary device. Thanks for the help, everyone.

 

[gtbbong89]

Hey, i was in thesame situation as you were. You should opt for 4gb. I tried the surface at BBY and Microsoft and it bricked up and experienced lag. I know that its a demo and there is heavy limitations on the demo device. But if this is the situation with the demo you dont know whats going to happen in a year.

I ended up getting the 4gb version.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[hpham72]

gtbbong89,

Did you demo the 2gb version at the stores? At least you still ended up preording! I've already canceled my previous ordered and preordered the 4gb version.

 

[Geodude074]

2 GB would only be suitable for the most basic of tasks, such as having 1-2 apps running at a time, or having 2-3 tabs open on a browser at most. Anything more and you're going to start to feel the slowdown.

$500 is way too expensive for a Windows x86 device to only have 2 GB of RAM in my opinion. Microsoft can't seem to learn, they keep trying to compare the Surface to the iPad.

There are $180-$200 Windows laptops out there that have essentially the same specs as the Surface 3, except for last year's Atom. But that's forgivable since they're less than half the price, and they come with a keyboard.

 

[vEEP pEEP]

nope

 

[Gergolos]

2 GB would only be suitable for the most basic of tasks, such as having 1-2 apps running at a time, or having 2-3 tabs open on a browser at most. Anything more and you're going to start to feel the slowdown.

$500 is way too expensive for a Windows x86 device to only have 2 GB of RAM in my opinion. Microsoft can't seem to learn, they keep trying to compare the Surface to the iPad.

There are $180-$200 Windows laptops out there that have essentially the same specs as the Surface 3, except for last year's Atom. But that's forgivable since they're less than half the price, and they come with a keyboard.

I know that I am comparing Windows RT and "full" Windows here, but still: If my Surface 2 (Windows RT, 2GB RAM) can handle several multitasking apps and 8-9 tabs withouth any real slowdown, I'm pretty sure the Surface 3 (full Windows) wont have issues either... I even used my S2 with 5 (!) apps multitasking (with an external monitor, which was able to have three apps opened on it - somehow not possible any more... - and two more on the Surface screen...Slowdowns? nope... I do pretty much everything OP wants to do with his Surface 3... but with my Surface 2... and never had any slowdowns or anything like that (except when I have no free space or have too many heavy sites loaded on 10 tabs or so...)


Still: If you want to be sure take the 4GB model... that's for sure...

 

[theefman]

Running with 2GB on my DV8 Pro just fine, just have to know you cant run loads of resource hungry programs at once, however I run Metro IE with 5 tabs, music, Netflix, photos and do various other things and it still works. If you're not intending to do much the 2GB should be fine.

 

[SL2]

2 GB can certianly be a limitation, as well as 64 GB storage. I'm surprised that it ships with 64-bit.
32-bit and 3 GB would be such a no-brainer, but a lot of tablets only have 2 GB RAM.

If I'd get the 2 GB version I'd be prepared to chop down the installation size, and switch to 32-bit if possible (dunno about drivers), but I guess it's no point in buying a new tablet that may have limitations from day one. Just pay that extra $100.

It's possible to make the installation smaller, if you know what you're doing. This is the latest W8.1 Pro version from november, If I did it for a tablet it would probably be 1 GB larger or so, the pic is just to show what can be done.
Install size is excluding hibernation, pagefile, needed drivers and updates.

Edit: That's 2.27 GB used on C:, and 344 MB RAM used.

 

[Tsang Fai]

2 GB would only be suitable for the most basic of tasks, such as having 1-2 apps running at a time, or having 2-3 tabs open on a browser at most. Anything more and you're going to start to feel the slowdown.

$500 is way too expensive for a Windows x86 device to only have 2 GB of RAM in my opinion. Microsoft can't seem to learn, they keep trying to compare the Surface to the iPad.

There are $180-$200 Windows laptops out there that have essentially the same specs as the Surface 3, except for last year's Atom. But that's forgivable since they're less than half the price, and they come with a keyboard.

Microsoft is not comparing Surface with iPad anymore... but MacBook. And such comparison is not solely made by Microsoft - we can see more & more people (and also tech reviewers) comparing Surface vs. MacBook. Regardless of the flavour of OS, the price of Surface 3 is way cheaper than MacBook. Even Surface Pro 3 is cheaper than equivalent MacBook models. So I can't see any reasonable judgement for saying Surface 3 is expensive, given its build quality, support of pen, and most importantly the generally positive reviews of Surface Pro 3 (so that we have sufficient ground to believe Surface 3 is also a nice device, despite the less powerful spec).

Well, comparing Surface to iPad is still meaningful in the sense that, you spend nearly the same amount of money but you get way more functionality, pen support, larger screen size, SD expansion - iOS apps can never be as useful & productive as Windows desktop programs, never.

There are still lots of people wanting to do productive tasks and they don't care much about playing games. But they bought an iPad and found it is not the device they really want - these people should seriously consider switching to Surface. iPad is obviously a wrong choice for this group of users.

 

[EspHack]

I couldn't care less for the 64gb disk, the 2gb ram nonsense is what bothers me, it should be 4gb for all models as a minimum

 

[xTmX Korrupt]

The two things that will bothers me about the 64gb model:
Like it has been previously stated in this topic, the amount of free space left is not much at all, which for me is okay but after so many updates, there is not much you can do with programs installed. Which brings to my second issue, apps cannot be installed on SD cards.

 

[Man0fSteel]

Do we know if apps can be installed on SD card with Windows 10?

 

[3earnhardt3]

People need to stop the RAM fear game, 2gb is more than suitable for this device as the flash storage and CPU will bottleneck the 4gb version. If the applications you are planning on running require 4gb of RAM then they likely require a core i3/5/7 anyway. The extra 64gb storage is MUCH more important, but likely not worth $100. MicroSD and micro usb3.0 flash drives are much more cost effective and can be mapped to system libraries for a seamless experience. I've been using the horribly spec'd Acer W3 for the past two years and it runs windows 8 very well, I expect the surface 3 to blow that device out of the water.

 

[colinkiama]

Windows had changed, 2gb devices perform well on windows 8. The surface 3 with 2gb should be fine

 

[calfee20]

My daughter bought a 13" HP Stream
HP Stream 13.3" 13-c010nr Notebook Intel Celeron N2840 (2.16GHz) 2GB DDR3L 32GB eMMC Intel HD Graphics Windows 8.1 with Bing 64-Bit - Newegg.com
This thing doesn't have close to the specs of the Surface 3 and it is fine. She is a medical biller and has just started working from home. Most of her work is done on a desktop and she is using the Stream for Skyping or when she is on the road. The 32 gig Stream has full office on it and there is 10 gigs of space left. You can open several browser windows along with a few regular sized office documents without a problem.
Make no mistake this IS a cheap laptop as the screen and the build quality is miles behind my Surface RT but having full windows is such a plus. You don't have to think about anything just do it!!

 

[Stefan Holder]

Won't Windows 10 allow apps to be saved on external storage (aka SD Card)? With Windows 10 I think storage won't be as big an issue.
Throwing rocks at Mars... L1320