Surface Pro 3

[maflynn]

I find it odd that MS does off a 64GB model, because space gets so tight once you install office, never mind any other app.

As for the extra memory, impacting the battery, I don't think that's really a major issue and I never heard of such an issue. I think windows will work better with the extra ram, and my apps that I use for work, really do need the ram.

 

[zhenya]

Ram absolutely affects standby battery life as it must remain at full power the entire time. I'm not sure if the Surface uses a second discrete chip for The extra RAM (which would double the standby drain) or merely a single higher density chip (with a smaller effect).

If you've ever put a Windows laptop to sleep and woke it with a nearly dead battery the next day, that was the result of powering the RAM. This is why most devices go into a deep sleep or hibernate mode after a few hours.

And I agree about the 64GB size, especially when I just bought a quality, high speed 256GB usb drive for $70! Yes, not the same as an Ssd but the SP should start at 128GB.

 

[maflynn]

Ram absolutely affects standby battery life as it must remain at full power the entire time. I'm not sure if the Surface uses a second discrete chip for The extra RAM (which would double the standby drain) or merely a single higher density chip (with a smaller effect).

Do you have any statistics to show how much battery life is affected? I mean my 16GB rMPB has great battery life, well within what Apple promised, I understand what you're saying but I'm not sure if anyone will see a real difference in actual usage.

 

[MozMan68]

Do you have any statistics to show how much battery life is affected? I mean my 16GB rMPB has great battery life, well within what Apple promised, I understand what you're saying but I'm not sure if anyone will see a real difference in actual usage.

He won't have any (at least as it applies to the SP3) because he is full of it.

The double amount of RAM in the i5 model has no affect on battery drain which is why you have never heard of it...if it was even the slightest bit of an issue, it would have been mentioned a million times in forums and in the typical scathing reviews of any MS product.

Even the haters agree that the SP3 is an incredible machine. Since I've been using Windows 10, the software side of things WILL improve the experience as well.

 

[zhenya]

Do you have any statistics to show how much battery life is affected? I mean my 16GB rMPB has great battery life, well within what Apple promised, I understand what you're saying but I'm not sure if anyone will see a real difference in actual usage.

Apple has always had far better battery life on standby than Windows laptops. In large part this has been due to the fact that they were early adopters to the fast hibernate model which dumped the contents of RAM to disk then shut the machine off entirely. Especially today with SSD's the resume from that state can be quite fast. If your Mac has the grey screen for a few seconds before you can use it when waking, it is resuming from that state to save battery.

He won't have any (at least as it applies to the SP3) because he is full of it.

The double amount of RAM in the i5 model has no affect on battery drain which is why you have never heard of it...if it was even the slightest bit of an issue, it would have been mentioned a million times in forums and in the typical scathing reviews of any MS product.

Even the haters agree that the SP3 is an incredible machine. Since I've been using Windows 10, the software side of things WILL improve the experience as well.

For any device if you can get the power consumption specs of the RAM chip you can calculate exactly how many hours of sleep the battery will allow. This was easier in the old days when the RAM was more off-the shelf parts and things like connected standby didn't add additional battery usage during 'sleep'. Otherwise it's a direct correlation between the power the ram consumes, the size of the battery, and how fast the battery will drain. More RAM requires more power (barring efficiency improvements that are anything but 1:1). That power HAS to come from somewhere, which means that standby time will be reduced. This is simple electronics.

Most people seem to treat the SP3 like a laptop, which means this won't be too noticeable in practice because it will get charged nearly every day, before the relatively small effect compounds, but if you try to use it as a true tablet replacement, you'll find that it has nothing like the week or even weeks of standby battery you get from dedicated tablets like the iPad. Microsoft's work-around is to hibernate the device after 4 hours, which preserves the battery, but means you have to wait a lot longer to use the device when you next go to use it. But if you routinely interrupt it before that 4 hour period, you will absolutely find that the configurations with more RAM will consume proportionally more power. They have to.

 

[maflynn]

Apple has always had far better battery life on standby than Windows laptops. In large part this has been due to the fact that they were early adopters to the fast hibernate model which dumped the contents of RAM to disk then shut the machine off entirely. Especially today with SSD's the resume from that state can be quite fast. If your Mac has the grey screen for a few seconds before you can use it when waking, it is resuming from that state to save battery..

I'm not asking if Apple is better at one thing or another,. You stated that the battery on the SP3 is less because of the increased ram. Please cite some source to back up your claim.

My experience with tablets, phones (apple and others) is counter to your assessment so I'd like to see where you got that information, or are you assuming that's the case?

 

[MozMan68]

So...again...you are talking about two different things.

As I said and again you have no proof or didn't answer, the change from a 4gb ram to an 8gb ram machine has no discernible difference in power consumption.

Your point about hibernation versus true "instant on" that the iPad has is valid...and that is because the SP3 is a true laptop where the iPad is not. And do you know the time it takes to start up the SP3 from hibernation (hell, even full off)? Hibernation is less than 5 typically and full off is around 8-10 seconds. I don know any laptop or computer with these specs that can do that.

 

[zhenya]

I'm not asking if Apple is better at one thing or another,. You stated that the battery on the SP3 is less because of the increased ram. Please cite some source to back up your claim.

Micron has a spreadsheet here http://www.micron.com/~/media/documents/products/power-calculator/ddr3l_power_calc.xlsm?la=en for calculating power consumption of RAM in various configurations and states. If you play around with that a bit, you can see that increasing the density of the chip, say from 2GB to 4GB increases the "Background power used during active standby" from 62mW to 100.5 mW. As I said, there is an efficiency gain in increasing density vs. merely doubling the number of physical chips, but the power increase is very real. With the Surface Pro's 42wH battery, that would have the effect of increasing the standby drain caused solely by the RAM chip from 677.5 hours or ~28 days at 62mW to 400 hours or ~16.5 days. Doubling the RAM again to 8GB would have a similarly linear effect likely reducing the battery drain from RAM alone to ~10 days. That's great for a laptop. Decidedly average for a tablet which has both lower-power mobile RAM, and much less RAM to power. (Often just 1-2GB as you well know). But this is enough drain that Microsoft chose to suspend the system to disk after just 4 hours. If the drain were inconsequential, they would leave the RAM active which makes for a better user experience.

My experience with tablets, phones (apple and others) is counter to your assessment so I'd like to see where you got that information, or are you assuming that's the case?

I'm not sure which assessment you are referring to here?

 

[Patrick B]

Micron has a spreadsheet here http://www.micron.com/~/media/documents/products/power-calculator/ddr3l_power_calc.xlsm?la=en for calculating power consumption of RAM in various configurations and states. If you play around with that a bit, you can see that increasing the density of the chip, say from 2GB to 4GB increases the "Background power used during active standby" from 62mW to 100.5 mW. As I said, there is an efficiency gain in increasing density vs. merely doubling the number of physical chips, but the power increase is very real. With the Surface Pro's 42wH battery, that would have the effect of increasing the standby drain caused solely by the RAM chip from 677.5 hours or ~28 days at 62mW to 400 hours or ~16.5 days. Doubling the RAM again to 8GB would have a similarly linear effect likely reducing the battery drain from RAM alone to ~10 days. That's great for a laptop. Decidedly average for a tablet which has both lower-power mobile RAM, and much less RAM to power. (Often just 1-2GB as you well know). But this is enough drain that Microsoft chose to suspend the system to disk after just 4 hours. If the drain were inconsequential, they would leave the RAM active which makes for a better user experience.



I'm not sure which assessment you are referring to here?

Be careful here, the Micron spreadsheet is designed to calculate power consumption for DDR3L, and not for LPDDR3 (which is what most mobile devices, including the Surface Pro 3, utilize).

DDR3L has a 1.35V spec, while LPDDR3 has a voltage of 1.2V. LPDDR3 also has no requirement for a DLL (delay lock loop, which is part of clock synchronization), allowing it to go into much deeper low-power states (and one less component to provide power to).

It's the same RAM that is in use on the iPhone 5S (and presumably the 6/6+), most of Samsung's phones, most tablets on the market, including the SP3, and the Apple Macbook Air.

The rMBP, however, uses DDR3L.

The power consumption between 4GB and 8GB on the SP3 could be negligible on the pure RAM consumption part. Also remember, the more RAM, potentially the less time spent fetching data from the more power hungry SSD (while SSDs are more power efficient than HDDs, they still consume more power when in use than RAM does). So while you might be consuming more power while in Active Standby mode, over the course of a busy day you could be consuming less power when actually in an active state.



Patrick

 

[zhenya]

Be careful here, the Micron spreadsheet is designed to calculate power consumption for DDR3L, and not for LPDDR3 (which is what most mobile devices, including the Surface Pro 3, utilize).

DDR3L has a 1.35V spec, while LPDDR3 has a voltage of 1.2V. LPDDR3 also has no requirement for a DLL (delay lock loop, which is part of clock synchronization), allowing it to go into much deeper low-power states (and one less component to provide power to).

It's the same RAM that is in use on the iPhone 5S (and presumably the 6/6+), most of Samsung's phones, most tablets on the market, including the SP3, and the Apple Macbook Air.

The rMBP, however, uses DDR3L.

The power consumption between 4GB and 8GB on the SP3 could be negligible on the pure RAM consumption part. Also remember, the more RAM, potentially the less time spent fetching data from the more power hungry SSD (while SSDs are more power efficient than HDDs, they still consume more power when in use than RAM does). So while you might be consuming more power while in Active Standby mode, over the course of a busy day you could be consuming less power when actually in an active state.



Patrick

Thanks. I agree completely. Those numbers were meant to be just representative of what might be the case in the SP3, not to be exactly accurate as we don't have such a tool for the parts used in the SP3.

I never meant to imply that this was going to be a big deal - certainly not during use - but rather that it might have a small effect on standby drain - which for me personally is a big consideration. I have had many laptops in the past that unless manually shut down or put into hibernate every time they were used would have a mostly dead battery when liked up to use just a day or so later. That leads to a poor user experience.

Like any potential power savings with the i3 I think all of this is lost in the noise and you need to buy what suits your budget, storage, and computing needs.

 

[gotluck]

Finally got to play with the SP 3 in person. Was very surprised at how accurate the touch input with my finger was in non metro standard x86 apps. I was playing around in non metro IE and could hit all the menus and buttons with my finger quite accurately. Based on this thread I was expecting it to suck

I know people love their tablet centric apps, but my first impressions are that they matter less than I had imagined.

 

[spinedoc77]

Finally got to play with the SP 3 in person. Was very surprised at how accurate the touch input with my finger was in non metro standard x86 apps. I was playing around in non metro IE and could hit all the menus and buttons with my finger quite accurately. Based on this thread I was expecting it to suck

I know people love their tablet centric apps, but my first impressions are that they matter less than I had imagined.

That's been my impression as well, it's really not that difficult to use programs that scale with windows DPI. Once in a while I'll come across a program that doesn't scale and looks bad, just last night I installed Adaware's malware scanner and it didn't scale properly, but that's the fault of a lazy software company.

I run at 200% DPI on my Sp3 and it displays the vast majority of programs I throw at it perfectly. Taskbar is easy to use at this DPI, close/minimize buttons are easy to use, etc. Even using the file explorer is quite easy.

 

[Patrick B]

All of this talk about some of the great touch-centric features on the iPad vs the SP3 has gotten me to run out and buy an iPad Air 2 make a better comparison.

Now I've had virtually every flavour of iPad previously, so it's not like I didn't know what I was getting myself into. But I must admit, the iPad itself is some pretty slick hardware. Back in my office though, with the two units side by side, there really isn't anything that I can do on the iPad Air 2 that I can't on the SP3 (I'm typing this as we speak on my SP3).

The Air is probably a little better suited to media consumption (Zinio, NextIssue, Apple Newsstand and most direct to tablet publications), and it is of course extremely slim and lightweight (one of the things I do like best about it). Otherwise I'm not sure there are any usability advantages to the iPad Air 2 (again, if you want Spotify running in the background...granted the iPad does that better than the SP3 by a long ways).

Sometimes I hate myself...



Patrick

 

[zhenya]

Funny you should mention Spotify...

I've been settling in to the SP3 fairly well today. My docking station arrived, and I've gotten it hooked up to my two monitors at work. Having to disconnect on mini-dp from the side of the unit until I decide to either try a dp hub or buy new monitors that support daisy chaining. The scaling is not great, but after a lot of fooling around, I think I can find something that works.

Found tonight that while there is no Pandora, Spotify, or Beats music apps, I can pin the websites and they act nearly like an app. Except for one big omission. As soon as the screen turns off, the music stops. Known problem and no workaround.

This is a huge issue and it's exactly the type of problem I've been saying this device still has as a 'tablet' replacement. My iPad has fantastic apps for any of those, and can stream with the screen off, sipping power, to the point it could literally play for days.

I really want to love this device. So many things it does great! Then it hits me with scaling problems (the default settings have my main monitors incredibly fuzzy, all other settings require me settling for things too big or two small on either the surface or the monitors). And now this.

 

[Patrick B]

Funny you should mention Spotify...

I've been settling in to the SP3 fairly well today. My docking station arrived, and I've gotten it hooked up to my two monitors at work. Having to disconnect on mini-dp from the side of the unit until I decide to either try a dp hub or buy new monitors that support daisy chaining. The scaling is not great, but after a lot of fooling around, I think I can find something that works.

Found tonight that while there is no Pandora, Spotify, or Beats music apps, I can pin the websites and they act nearly like an app. Except for one big omission. As soon as the screen turns off, the music stops. Known problem and no workaround.

This is a huge issue and it's exactly the type of problem I've been saying this device still has as a 'tablet' replacement. My iPad has fantastic apps for any of those, and can stream with the screen off, sipping power, to the point it could literally play for days.

I really want to love this device. So many things it does great! Then it hits me with scaling problems (the default settings have my main monitors incredibly fuzzy, all other settings require me settling for things too big or two small on either the surface or the monitors). And now this.

On the flipside, if I want to play a video from iTunes on my iPad but need to interrupt in order to answer an email or something else, the video pauses while I switch apps.

Meanwhile on the SP3, I can be playing a video in the background in iTunes, switch to Outlook (et al), respond to an email, and just flip back over to the video.

Now this may sound counter-intuitive to some people, as the point behind video is that your eyeballs should be ON THE VIDEO, but I'll often throw something like Top Gear (I have several seasons in iTunes) on for my own "background noise" while I'm working. I can flip to the video when I have a moment or when I want to watch an actual segment that I care about. And otherwise I can just listen to the banter in the background....

I often do the same thing with live video from sources like CNBC or CNN on in the background as well....same limitation. Perhaps very unique to me, but it's applicable in my case.

This is going to require some more detailed experimenting over the holidays....



Patrick

 

[Michael Goff]

It's not necessarily just specific apps I'm looking for. Though, I could mention some offhand. Some games, I've already mentioned Photoshop Touch, etc. And the problem is that the Windows apps that do exist (e.g. Facebook, Sketchbook Express) lack features that their counterparts have. Basically, here's the problem, summed up: You can't ONLY use the modern apps. You should be able to use the modern apps and those alone to fulfill your needs.

On so-called dumb tablets like Apple iPad or any generic Android tablet, you can.
I'm aware some of you like the ability to run desktop apps, but it's rather pathetic that you have to run desktop apps just to enjoy your device of choice.

You're really complaining about not having a dumbed down PS in favor of having the real thing?

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-US/app/adobe-photoshop-express/c08a0d72-28a1-465a-9e70-6a5b80b44d60

 

[spinedoc77]

On the flipside, if I want to play a video from iTunes on my iPad but need to interrupt in order to answer an email or something else, the video pauses while I switch apps.

Meanwhile on the SP3, I can be playing a video in the background in iTunes, switch to Outlook (et al), respond to an email, and just flip back over to the video.

Now this may sound counter-intuitive to some people, as the point behind video is that your eyeballs should be ON THE VIDEO, but I'll often throw something like Top Gear (I have several seasons in iTunes) on for my own "background noise" while I'm working. I can flip to the video when I have a moment or when I want to watch an actual segment that I care about. And otherwise I can just listen to the banter in the background....

I often do the same thing with live video from sources like CNBC or CNN on in the background as well....same limitation. Perhaps very unique to me, but it's applicable in my case.

This is going to require some more detailed experimenting over the holidays....



Patrick

Not to mention split screen/multi windows where you can watch the video at the same time as you do other stuff. This is a major limitation on the ipad and IMO illustrates quite nicely why the ipad is a poor tablet.

 

[MRU]

That's been my impression as well, it's really not that difficult to use programs that scale with windows DPI. Once in a while I'll come across a program that doesn't scale and looks bad, just last night I installed Adaware's malware scanner and it didn't scale properly, but that's the fault of a lazy software company.



I run at 200% DPI on my Sp3 and it displays the vast majority of programs I throw at it perfectly. Taskbar is easy to use at this DPI, close/minimize buttons are easy to use, etc. Even using the file explorer is quite easy.

For me those apps that didn't scale killed it for me as they were the apps I bought my SP2 for. I loved the device otherwise but Corel Painter & Sketch Book Pro were near unusable or as ugly as sin.

Photoshop CC has finally added beta high dpi support as it too is near unusable otherwise, but it came too late for me.

Love the surface pros but I'm unlikely to buy one again until h-dpi is supported universally by apps on it.

 

[MozMan68]

Funny you should mention Spotify...

I've been settling in to the SP3 fairly well today. My docking station arrived, and I've gotten it hooked up to my two monitors at work. Having to disconnect on mini-dp from the side of the unit until I decide to either try a dp hub or buy new monitors that support daisy chaining. The scaling is not great, but after a lot of fooling around, I think I can find something that works.

Found tonight that while there is no Pandora, Spotify, or Beats music apps, I can pin the websites and they act nearly like an app. Except for one big omission. As soon as the screen turns off, the music stops. Known problem and no workaround.

This is a huge issue and it's exactly the type of problem I've been saying this device still has as a 'tablet' replacement. My iPad has fantastic apps for any of those, and can stream with the screen off, sipping power, to the point it could literally play for days.

I really want to love this device. So many things it does great! Then it hits me with scaling problems (the default settings have my main monitors incredibly fuzzy, all other settings require me settling for things too big or two small on either the surface or the monitors). And now this.

If you are docked just change the power settings to "NEVER" for shutting down the screen when plugged in...that's what I do when streaming music.

 

[zhenya]

If you are docked just change the power settings to "NEVER" for shutting down the screen when plugged in...that's what I do when streaming music.

My primary use would be when using the device as a tablet at home streaming to our wireless speakers. It's completely useless at this because the entire point is to not have it plugged in.

 

[MozMan68]

You can still set it to "never" for now. This has been an issue since day 1 and MS is working on it.

 

[spinedoc77]

For me those apps that didn't scale killed it for me as they were the apps I bought my SP2 for. I loved the device otherwise but Corel Painter & Sketch Book Pro were near unusable or as ugly as sin.

Photoshop CC has finally added beta high dpi support as it too is near unusable otherwise, but it came too late for me.

Love the surface pros but I'm unlikely to buy one again until h-dpi is supported universally by apps on it.

It's a valid concern for sure. Hopefully when the SP3 and other windows tablet numbers are up software companies will see the need to update their products. Sooner or later they will have to stop being lazy as we are seeing all these laptops with increased resolutions as well, heck even PC monitors are getting higher and higher resolutions.

 

[MRU]

It's a valid concern for sure. Hopefully when the SP3 and other windows tablet numbers are up software companies will see the need to update their products. Sooner or later they will have to stop being lazy as we are seeing all these laptops with increased resolutions as well, heck even PC monitors are getting higher and higher resolutions.

Yeah once cost of hi dpi screens drops to point where they are common place in external monitors and regularly available in laptops it should improve the situation (hopefully).

It's a shame that an otherwise lovely tablet was soured by the lack of the software support that I primarily bought it for.

What irks though is when Corel and Autodesk release versions for android tablets with HDPI support and near feature packed as the desktop equivalent, and yet the €4 android app looks better and is more optimised than the €250 full desktop app. Corel Painter is a fright for this, heck Corel Painter XV has performance issues even on my quad core MacBook Pro retina and MacPro so it's not just a windows thing.

 

[Robstevo]

I absolutely love my surface pro 3.

I had the surface 2 RT and there just wasn't enough applications, the concept was nice though and it was great having a full blown desktop browser and the office suite.

The surface pro 3 is just a different beast though. I use BIM software like revit at work, and have the application on my surface pro 3 , that I can use on the go or at home for some changes.

I'm still studying as well, and the ability to write down class notes and convert notes and formulas to true text format is awesome.

I also have the full blown office suite, a powerful PDF tool in bluebeam to look at and edit my pdfs, I have light room to touch up and organise my photos.

And the multitasking is amazing, as well as battery life. All this is truly powerful stuff that I could never do on an iPad or android device.

I Find the screen and battery life to both be great, although I would love even more battery life and can't wait for the next gen surface pro 4.

Another thing that's great is the ability to play windows game on it, and I also have console emulators like a Playstation 2 emulator, game boy emulator, even an android emulator so I have access to all android applications.

This is probably the best piece of tech I have ever bought to be honest.

 

[Renzatic]

even an android emulator so I have access to all android applications.

Out of curiosity, how well do the Android apps run through the emulator? What about the battery life?