So I've been compiling some data, and generating information from the SP3 over the past three days to get an idea of if why i hate the surface pro 3 is because of windows, or the hardware. It's going to be a repeat read, I apologize ahead of time! The purpose here is to see if maybe i'm just doing something wrong, and possibly others can chime in!
Firstly, the form factor is nice, it's thin, it's not ipad pro thin, but I traded the Ipad Pro in for this, so i knew that going in! I like everything about it, other than windows, at least, I think so.
Today is day 5 with the device, and I got exactly 3.416 hours with it, I know this because I tracked it, it was a huge pain, but i stopped what i was doing, just to write down the needed information, so I could share, so I could see if it's me, or just a poor unit in general. So, without further intrusion! I'll go ahead and list it all out.
I've attached A picture of each day in which the data was gathered.
Start % - The % level the laptop was at when it was powered on
Start Time - Time of day it was when laptop datapoint was gathered
Stop Time - Time of day it was when laptop datapoint was gathered
End % - % left over after tablet was turned off
Screen Brightness - The brightness level the screen was at for that datapoint
Bluetooth - Indication if blutooth was on , or off
KeyBoard - Indication if keybard was attached to tablet
Tablet Mode - If tablet mode was turned on ( software ) for this datapoint
Used time - Amount of time ( In minutes ) the device was used for that datapoint
% Change - The total battery % that changed for this datapoint
Backlight Keys - Indication if backlight keys are on, if so, the % level
Notes / Apps - Any notes, or applications that was running at this datapoint.
Day 1 - Surface Pro 3 Windows 10, latest firmware ( during this data gather )
I do have other days, but they were not as well taken down as this one. I also have one from my wife, but she didn't understand the Start, and end % , so the data is wrong, she's going to try again tomorrow. Additionally, I'm going to ( at the exact same times ) run the SP4 with the same software installed ( its not much ), and launch the same things, and DO the same things as I did today. I can't guarantee it'll be at the exact same time, obviously, but I do work from home, so I should have no problems getting it pretty darn close. Just to see for myself what the amounts look like. I'm going to try to capture my wifes SP3, and my SP4 each day to get a more generalized idea of the battery life to be expected.
Now, overall, I did get an entire day out of it, checking it about half as often as I would my phone. I got a solid 3.9 Hours out of the screen, and I stopped data logging at 7%, so I'm sure that could have been pushed to 4 hours, pretty easily.
If you noticed, I did keep the keyboard in most of the day, at it was sitting at my desk, I did type on it, but I did not use the backlight keys. At one point, I did set the max frequency for the CPU to be 25%, it ran pretty bad, but only while I was browsing steam, aside from that, it ran like a champ, even at 25%, but it did hang on web pages from time to time. Ultimately, i decided to just put it back on the default power scheme ( On the go ). My concern ( battery life wise ) is, I really didn't do anything on the device today, as you can see. Each minute of the day was accounted for on the SP3, 50 minutes of the 3.9 hours was on youtube. At no time did I have more than 4 applications open, or minimized. This is not counting applications that run in the background natively by Microsoft Windows 2010. I'm a bit annoyed that others can get such better life, and I can't get it sitting next to my macbook pro late 2014 that seemed to get double the power, and it's my desktop. I ran my full office today from my macbook pro with 2 27 inch monitors hooked up, and got a solid 6.5 hours. Nonetheless, this device can't be taken seriously, not as a tablet, OR a laptop replacement. I've compared it to :
Ipad Pro
Ipad Air 2
Ipad Air
Galaxy Tab 10.1 (2) 2014 edition
Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition
Mind you none of these are accounted for, but what you saw in my datalist above is about what i do on my " non essential " machines on a day to day basis.
Ipad Pro - 7 Hours
Ipad Air 2 - 7.5 Hours~
Ipad Air - 8 Hours
Galaxy Tab 10.1 ( 2 ) 2014 Edition - 6.5~ Hours
Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition - 5 Hours
Granted, I understand the SP has more moving parts than all of those. I also understand it runs a fan, and an I core CPU. But... If it can't perform with it's competition on the tablet level, OR the laptop level, then what's it really competing against?
Moreover, It seems to be riddled with bugs, nasty ones, not just the cute ones IOS gives you when they can't seem to figure out how the world works. I've taken the liberty to list / rant those out for you too
Hibernation - When the device goes into hibernation, waking it up is next to impossible.
WiFI - When the device comes back from being asleep, OR in hibernation wifi is turned ON, but not connected to the rememered WiFi, that makes ZERO sense.
Screen Flicker - The screen flickers when I go from sleep to on, or, hibernate to on, or any time it wants to.
Screen Brightness - I notice ALL the time, the screen brightness will just change however it feels. Out of nowhere, it'll drop down about 10%, and the change isn't reflected on the battery screen brightness slider ( What, what what?! )
SP4 Pen - This was worse than apple releasing a " pencil " with no where to put it. At least MS TRIED to find it a home. It doesn't work, I have the SP4 pen, on an SP3, it is magnetic, but it's weaker than life.
Bluetooth game controller - The fact I can't play a Nimbus controller ( bluetooth ) on a MS product, is down right silly.
Kickstand - Why does the kickstand open the first 1/4th of the way super easy, then the rest is like pulling hair out of a monkey?
Screen brightness - This is a joke right?
That's pretty much the jist of it. Bad battery, poor screen brightness levels, weird kickstand, non existing hibernation ( why would my battery drain in hibernation ? REally?! ). Coupled with a surface pen that haha, if you purchase the surface pro 3 from best buy that's on sale it has special packaging FROM Microsoft that doesn't include a pen. Way to confuse the people MS, even more so, way to confuse the brand your selling. either way, Bestbuy does say it, in the fine print, but still.
My main problem are the people who review the units. For one, how come none of them actually list problems the SP3 has? Rather, they all seem to say the same thing, almost like if MS gave them an unbiased review guidelines list, they play with it for a day, then decide they will all just say the same thing, with a different brand saying it, and a new guy behind the camera. None of them talk about the actual problems that really plague the day to day user. No fan issues on any of the units i tested / saw / used. No heating problems, and certainly no noise problems. Clearly noise is going to be in the eyes of the beholder, but I can't assume that every major reviewer got a unit with a "loud fan", hell, I'm not even sure some of those people actually REVIEW anything.
Secondly, why are they constantly including a Keyboard case that's not included with the unit? Each one of them complains and says " Doesn't come with the keyboard " , then a few minutes later talks about how the keyboard is nicer, or better, or easier to type on, as if that adds to the value of the unit. When you buy a 999.00 tablet / laptop, that's what you review, you can't really include accessories that you have to pay for. What do I know though, I'm the only one with out those issues.
All in all, with all those things , i'm excited to continue my surface journey into the SP4, i'm trading MY SP3 in, to get an SP4 in the morning. I've been an avid Mac user ( past 4 years ), and I haven't logged into a windows computer to do anything meaningful since windows Vista, so I was quite happy to see such beautiful UI changes. I just hope they can continue to push the tablets in a direction that's best suited for the flagship devices. I want to love the surface, and I hope I do with my SP4!
Firstly, the form factor is nice, it's thin, it's not ipad pro thin, but I traded the Ipad Pro in for this, so i knew that going in! I like everything about it, other than windows, at least, I think so.
Today is day 5 with the device, and I got exactly 3.416 hours with it, I know this because I tracked it, it was a huge pain, but i stopped what i was doing, just to write down the needed information, so I could share, so I could see if it's me, or just a poor unit in general. So, without further intrusion! I'll go ahead and list it all out.
I've attached A picture of each day in which the data was gathered.
Start % - The % level the laptop was at when it was powered on
Start Time - Time of day it was when laptop datapoint was gathered
Stop Time - Time of day it was when laptop datapoint was gathered
End % - % left over after tablet was turned off
Screen Brightness - The brightness level the screen was at for that datapoint
Bluetooth - Indication if blutooth was on , or off
KeyBoard - Indication if keybard was attached to tablet
Tablet Mode - If tablet mode was turned on ( software ) for this datapoint
Used time - Amount of time ( In minutes ) the device was used for that datapoint
% Change - The total battery % that changed for this datapoint
Backlight Keys - Indication if backlight keys are on, if so, the % level
Notes / Apps - Any notes, or applications that was running at this datapoint.
Day 1 - Surface Pro 3 Windows 10, latest firmware ( during this data gather )
I do have other days, but they were not as well taken down as this one. I also have one from my wife, but she didn't understand the Start, and end % , so the data is wrong, she's going to try again tomorrow. Additionally, I'm going to ( at the exact same times ) run the SP4 with the same software installed ( its not much ), and launch the same things, and DO the same things as I did today. I can't guarantee it'll be at the exact same time, obviously, but I do work from home, so I should have no problems getting it pretty darn close. Just to see for myself what the amounts look like. I'm going to try to capture my wifes SP3, and my SP4 each day to get a more generalized idea of the battery life to be expected.
Now, overall, I did get an entire day out of it, checking it about half as often as I would my phone. I got a solid 3.9 Hours out of the screen, and I stopped data logging at 7%, so I'm sure that could have been pushed to 4 hours, pretty easily.
If you noticed, I did keep the keyboard in most of the day, at it was sitting at my desk, I did type on it, but I did not use the backlight keys. At one point, I did set the max frequency for the CPU to be 25%, it ran pretty bad, but only while I was browsing steam, aside from that, it ran like a champ, even at 25%, but it did hang on web pages from time to time. Ultimately, i decided to just put it back on the default power scheme ( On the go ). My concern ( battery life wise ) is, I really didn't do anything on the device today, as you can see. Each minute of the day was accounted for on the SP3, 50 minutes of the 3.9 hours was on youtube. At no time did I have more than 4 applications open, or minimized. This is not counting applications that run in the background natively by Microsoft Windows 2010. I'm a bit annoyed that others can get such better life, and I can't get it sitting next to my macbook pro late 2014 that seemed to get double the power, and it's my desktop. I ran my full office today from my macbook pro with 2 27 inch monitors hooked up, and got a solid 6.5 hours. Nonetheless, this device can't be taken seriously, not as a tablet, OR a laptop replacement. I've compared it to :
Ipad Pro
Ipad Air 2
Ipad Air
Galaxy Tab 10.1 (2) 2014 edition
Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition
Mind you none of these are accounted for, but what you saw in my datalist above is about what i do on my " non essential " machines on a day to day basis.
Ipad Pro - 7 Hours
Ipad Air 2 - 7.5 Hours~
Ipad Air - 8 Hours
Galaxy Tab 10.1 ( 2 ) 2014 Edition - 6.5~ Hours
Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition - 5 Hours
Granted, I understand the SP has more moving parts than all of those. I also understand it runs a fan, and an I core CPU. But... If it can't perform with it's competition on the tablet level, OR the laptop level, then what's it really competing against?
Moreover, It seems to be riddled with bugs, nasty ones, not just the cute ones IOS gives you when they can't seem to figure out how the world works. I've taken the liberty to list / rant those out for you too
Hibernation - When the device goes into hibernation, waking it up is next to impossible.
WiFI - When the device comes back from being asleep, OR in hibernation wifi is turned ON, but not connected to the rememered WiFi, that makes ZERO sense.
Screen Flicker - The screen flickers when I go from sleep to on, or, hibernate to on, or any time it wants to.
Screen Brightness - I notice ALL the time, the screen brightness will just change however it feels. Out of nowhere, it'll drop down about 10%, and the change isn't reflected on the battery screen brightness slider ( What, what what?! )
SP4 Pen - This was worse than apple releasing a " pencil " with no where to put it. At least MS TRIED to find it a home. It doesn't work, I have the SP4 pen, on an SP3, it is magnetic, but it's weaker than life.
Bluetooth game controller - The fact I can't play a Nimbus controller ( bluetooth ) on a MS product, is down right silly.
Kickstand - Why does the kickstand open the first 1/4th of the way super easy, then the rest is like pulling hair out of a monkey?
Screen brightness - This is a joke right?
That's pretty much the jist of it. Bad battery, poor screen brightness levels, weird kickstand, non existing hibernation ( why would my battery drain in hibernation ? REally?! ). Coupled with a surface pen that haha, if you purchase the surface pro 3 from best buy that's on sale it has special packaging FROM Microsoft that doesn't include a pen. Way to confuse the people MS, even more so, way to confuse the brand your selling. either way, Bestbuy does say it, in the fine print, but still.
My main problem are the people who review the units. For one, how come none of them actually list problems the SP3 has? Rather, they all seem to say the same thing, almost like if MS gave them an unbiased review guidelines list, they play with it for a day, then decide they will all just say the same thing, with a different brand saying it, and a new guy behind the camera. None of them talk about the actual problems that really plague the day to day user. No fan issues on any of the units i tested / saw / used. No heating problems, and certainly no noise problems. Clearly noise is going to be in the eyes of the beholder, but I can't assume that every major reviewer got a unit with a "loud fan", hell, I'm not even sure some of those people actually REVIEW anything.
Secondly, why are they constantly including a Keyboard case that's not included with the unit? Each one of them complains and says " Doesn't come with the keyboard " , then a few minutes later talks about how the keyboard is nicer, or better, or easier to type on, as if that adds to the value of the unit. When you buy a 999.00 tablet / laptop, that's what you review, you can't really include accessories that you have to pay for. What do I know though, I'm the only one with out those issues.
All in all, with all those things , i'm excited to continue my surface journey into the SP4, i'm trading MY SP3 in, to get an SP4 in the morning. I've been an avid Mac user ( past 4 years ), and I haven't logged into a windows computer to do anything meaningful since windows Vista, so I was quite happy to see such beautiful UI changes. I just hope they can continue to push the tablets in a direction that's best suited for the flagship devices. I want to love the surface, and I hope I do with my SP4!
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