My Surface for Windows RT Review
- Thread starter theheyes
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I'm toying with the idea of buying a second hand Surface RT but am wary of the performance problems many reviews (including this one) have mentioned. But there's been a lot of talk about updates having fixed most/all of those problems. So anyone who has a Surface RT, what's the performance like today? Have Microsoft fixed the issues reviewers were complaining about? Windows RT seems like one of those products that has evolved so much since release that none of the early reviews are really relevant anymore.
TIA
TIA
With the first couple of firmware updates it did improve, but I wouldn't say it flipped a switch and a miracle happened. Beware a lot of those early reviews because they were running the preview version of Office RT which did have some weird lag issues which have since been resolved.
The only time I can really pull it up for 'performance issues' is mainly in IE. Generally it does a very good job, but it can be a little slow to respond when you are closing tabs and occasionally when you swipe back to load a previous web page.
Also, when you come out of an intensive app like a game, the start screen is every so slightly skittish for a few seconds before it snaps out of it. If you flip through lots of open apps, after the first couple of swipes it drops the animation but you'd only notice that if you were looking for it.
Apps can feel a little sluggish to load the first time but once they are open they are fine and resume pretty much instantly when you flip back to them. To be fair though my other Win8 laptop is a Core i5 with SSD so they do feel a lot nippier on a full fat system.
If you want a tablet with raw power this isn't the one, but I use it every day and while yes a little bit more power would go a long way it would be harsh to describe it as a laggard. If you can get one at a good price it's worth a punt.
The only time I can really pull it up for 'performance issues' is mainly in IE. Generally it does a very good job, but it can be a little slow to respond when you are closing tabs and occasionally when you swipe back to load a previous web page.
Also, when you come out of an intensive app like a game, the start screen is every so slightly skittish for a few seconds before it snaps out of it. If you flip through lots of open apps, after the first couple of swipes it drops the animation but you'd only notice that if you were looking for it.
Apps can feel a little sluggish to load the first time but once they are open they are fine and resume pretty much instantly when you flip back to them. To be fair though my other Win8 laptop is a Core i5 with SSD so they do feel a lot nippier on a full fat system.
If you want a tablet with raw power this isn't the one, but I use it every day and while yes a little bit more power would go a long way it would be harsh to describe it as a laggard. If you can get one at a good price it's worth a punt.
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The last update seemed to make IE slightly worse, for example when you close a tab the box representing it can have an obvious delay before disappearing but it works fine otherwise. I personally find you'll have web pages rendering faster on an iPad but I think that's more to do with Webkit v IE than iPad v Surface RT.
The updates otherwise have been very good for my Surface, I wouldn't complain if they improved things a bit more of course. It's a shame they haven't done something about youtube videos, whenever the play controls pop up there's some obvious frame rate drop and the controls are difficult to use with touch (quite easy to hit mute instead of play/pause etc).
The updates otherwise have been very good for my Surface, I wouldn't complain if they improved things a bit more of course. It's a shame they haven't done something about youtube videos, whenever the play controls pop up there's some obvious frame rate drop and the controls are difficult to use with touch (quite easy to hit mute instead of play/pause etc).
Closing tabs is probably the only real frustration I have with it. It's not every time, but occasionally you'll tap close... wait... then tap it again and suddenly you'll have closed two tabs by mistake.
It's still a good browsing experience though. When I use an iPad I find myself trying to swipe pages to go backwards.
It's still a good browsing experience though. When I use an iPad I find myself trying to swipe pages to go backwards.
Still very much happy with mine, I don't think I could go back to any kind of Droid or iPad now. But yes, would have like some more grunt in the CPU, but its not critical, I think the problems are still in the software side, like IE and the problems mentioned. Also, id like them to actually bring back the white list, it stopped a lot of annoying flash ads running.
To do what on it, they're quite different beasts.
Atom long battery life but not very powerful
Pro half the battery life of an atoms but i5 power.
Depends what you are doing, if its very light work and webrowsing and you don't need power then atom is better due to battery life and weight. If you need processing power then your only option is surface pro and other I-core based tablets.
Edit - oops thought this was pro thread.
In which case it comes down to, do you want traditional desktop applications or not and price. Battery life is the same. I think the acer w510 is an absolutely cracking device, apart from the small screen size, but that maybe what lots of people want.
Atom long battery life but not very powerful
Pro half the battery life of an atoms but i5 power.
Depends what you are doing, if its very light work and webrowsing and you don't need power then atom is better due to battery life and weight. If you need processing power then your only option is surface pro and other I-core based tablets.
Edit - oops thought this was pro thread.
In which case it comes down to, do you want traditional desktop applications or not and price. Battery life is the same. I think the acer w510 is an absolutely cracking device, apart from the small screen size, but that maybe what lots of people want.
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Id love a pro but cant justify the bulk or extra cash. Its more on the speed of general use. An atom running x86 programs is a bonus but it wont be heavily used. My sway to the rt has purely been down to build quality over atom tabs
Meant to post in this, but has anyone had funny fading volume levels playing back vids since the last update?
During quiet moment during playback it seems to nearly cut off the sound and if a louder bit starts it picks up the volume again, very annoying.
During quiet moment during playback it seems to nearly cut off the sound and if a louder bit starts it picks up the volume again, very annoying.
If you can, I would seriously consider waiting. Microsoft have been doing free cover offers recently and they're even selling them for $99 at TechEd. That possibly indicates them having a bit of an inventory clear out before announcing a new model.
As much as I like the device, taking all things into consideration it's hard to recommend at this point in time and at the current prices they are going for at retail. For general purpose use the speed is okay, but it's not a fast device. It wasn't when it launched.
Yes, it's a known bug and should be fixed in the next update. There is a temporary fix available now which involves rolling back the dodgy filter driver.
http://www.winbeta.org/news/microso...ssue-nvidia-tegra-audio-topology-filter-blame
Like you, I've had mine since they first came out
I'm finding mine a much better product in terms of speed and usability since all the firmware updates and performance patches have been released. I do find the power cable comically short, but as you said, you don't need to charge it that often so it's not a huge issue; you can also easily ghetto a figure 8 power lead into the brick for some extra length
I agree with all aspects of your review, I'd say the RT now is more towards 7/10 on the scale.
Each time I see your sig, I think "has he revisited the score?"
Currently installing the 8.1 Preview, created a usb rescue disk first, which recovered a few GB on the C drive.
The biggest flaw is not being able to (easily) set the SDXC card as library locations. I've used the hardlink workaround, but this really should be a built in feature for the Surface and indeed Windows.
I'm finding mine a much better product in terms of speed and usability since all the firmware updates and performance patches have been released. I do find the power cable comically short, but as you said, you don't need to charge it that often so it's not a huge issue; you can also easily ghetto a figure 8 power lead into the brick for some extra length
I agree with all aspects of your review, I'd say the RT now is more towards 7/10 on the scale.
Each time I see your sig, I think "has he revisited the score?"
Currently installing the 8.1 Preview, created a usb rescue disk first, which recovered a few GB on the C drive.
The biggest flaw is not being able to (easily) set the SDXC card as library locations. I've used the hardlink workaround, but this really should be a built in feature for the Surface and indeed Windows.
Solved in 8.1 apparently.