Surface Pro 2 Gets Significant Battery Boost 157
SmartAboutThings writes "The original Surface Pro didn't have quite a good battery life and that's why Microsoft tried to fix this with the Surface Pro. After the Surface Pro 2 has hit general availability, Microsoft has silently pushed out a firmware update which, according to some new battery benchmarks run by Anandtech, made significant improvements to the battery life of the Surface Pro 2. After the new web browsing battery life test it was discovered that the Surface Pro 2 now manages better battery life than the ARM Surface 2, which is pretty impressive. With the firmware update, Microsoft was targeting over 8 hours, and AnadTech's benchmarks show Microsoft has succeeded, registering a 25% increase in battery life over the no-firmware version. The unpatched Surface Pro 2 lasted for 6.68 hours while with the firmware update installed, its battery life increased to 8.33 hours. The video playback test involved playing a movie until the battery died, and here, albeit smaller, improvements with the battery life have also been noticed: 7.73 hours compared to 6.65 hours."
Stupid bug (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently, the origonal version they programmed the Marvell Wifi chip wrong, so it didn't go into power save mode and now they fixed it
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
The battery isn't any better. The operating system is just doing a better job managing its power usage of the battery it has.
Re:Subjects in comments are stupid (Score:2, Informative)
Windows 8 Pro on the Surface Pro can run up to 4 VMs so anyone who wanted to experiment with, say FreeBSD on this hardware could do so without having to install an alternative OS. I don't know if the touch screen and digitiser is supported by other OSes though.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
It's a firmware update -- it's only for an issue on Surface 2 devices and wont install on a Surface 1. This has nothing to do with Win8 vs. 8.1.
Re:Microsoft can give them away for FREE who cares (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're confusing the Pro with the RT. The Pro and Pro 2 are no more "locked down" than a desktop running Windows because they're running the same OS.
The confusion and ire is understandable as the RT is a useless piece of shit. But they're two entirely different products.
Re:Microsoft can give them away for FREE who cares (Score:4, Informative)
No, I dual-boot Ubuntu (which I must sadly admit is a complete piece of crap without an attached keyboard) with mine. You do have to change a 'BIOS' setting, but there's only three options so it isn't hard. You need an OS that supports UEFI (which is why I'm using Ubuntu compared to something else).
The hardware is excellent, but the pressure touch screen is too sensitive. I can't take notes like I wanted because when my hand brushes the screen all the programs think I moved the pen and I end up with stray lines and marks everywhere. I'm not sure if this is an OS level issue or a program issue. It causes more problems on Ubuntu than Win8, though Win8 is smart enough to know it's a pen and not a mouse. Yet the pressure sensitivity works on Ubuntu... When I was working on DIY touch screens/walls the main touch detection libraries had the option of ignoring palm presses if it detected finger presses. What happened to that?
Re:a relevant question: (Score:5, Informative)
a) The digitizer stylus replaces the mouse in nearly all win32 applications that are hard to work with using touch.
b) OneNote. It's the killer app - handwriting directly into OneNote without a seperate drawing tablet is a surprisingly good experience. For those who are into such stuff, the same applies to graphics software like Photoshop.Compatibility with most 32 and 64 bit Win32 applications ever made is an added bonus, as is compatibility with hardware.
c) Replacing a full laptop in situations where one isn't absolutely needed - we are talking about Ultrabook performance, so the keyboard and a bluetooth mouse turn it into a laptop when it's not being used as a tablet.
d) You can install any x86 OS you want on it. Sick of Windows? Try some Linux distro, it should have drivers for everything.
Clearly, if you believe an iPad or equivalent device is enough for you, you are clearly not the target audience. This isn't a stupid fashion statement/gimmick like an iPad - it has real uses and those who have a use for it knew it the moment they saw it. No single product is ideal for anyone - it's a matter of choosing what you need.