In tablets, the big guns have big names. Apple has its iPad 4 and Google has the Nexus 10. And, if Microsoft is to take on the might of Apple and Google in the tablet space with Windows 8, it needs a big name of its own.
So welcome Microsoft Surface. The new tablet isn't just the big poster boy for Windows 8, but for Windows RT too, the brand-new version of Windows 8 designed for ARM.
Creating a flagship brand for Windows 8 is a clever move, no doubt a tactic learned from the success of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus that heralded Ice Cream Sandwich, the Google Nexus 7 for Jelly Bean, and more recently, the Nexus 10 for the completely anonymous Android 4.2. However, there's no danger of Surface being branded as a clone of rival 10-inch tablets.
It
boasts a distinctive design, helped by those unmistakable keyboard
covers, enjoys a 10.6-inch widescreen display, and runs Windows 8, the
most popular operating system on the planet. But there's a crippling
caveat which might be its undoing. Windows
RT won't run old PC programs, so any trip to the internet to download
legacy programs such as VLC Player, or even big-name offerings like
Photoshop Elements, just won't work. It has the potential to cause mass confusion and the power to sink Microsoft's figurehead before it's even taken off.
On
picking up the Surface one single sentiment falls from the mouth of
every man, woman or child without fail: "It's thicker than I thought."
That is factually nonsense. At 9.4mm thick, it's exactly the same thickness as the iPad 4,
except that instead of masking its true girth with tapered edges,
Surface's design looks as if it's been chiseled from a slab of slate.
It's square and boxy, but fresh looking and the magnesium 'VaporMg' coating gives it a cool finish. At
690g Microsoft Surface is noticeably heavier than its rivals. The iPad 4
weighs 650g due to shedding an inch of screen, but Surface feels richer
for the extra space.
The 16:9 screen is suited to Windows, it
enables you to multitask apps and 'snap' them literally side by side. It
feels like you're using a laptop and that's a big leap towards a
genuine hybrid experience.
Of course, the rear kickstand is an
iconic part of Surface. It's also made of metal, and does a good job of
propping up your tablet - to an angle of 22 degrees - even when on your
lap. However,
we'd have liked it to be more adjustable – at the moment it has just
one position – and a button release would also be handy as you need
nimble fingers to pull out the stand.
It's also larger than the iPad - the screen is a 10.6-inch 1366x768 IPS panel, which falls short of the full HD displays of the Sony VAIO Duo 11 and Asus Taichi, but still looks clear and crisp.
It's
not going to win any awards for screen vibrancy, and certainly never
going to challenge Retina, but it's good enough - and helps Microsoft
keep the price down to a reasonable level. A keyboard-less 32GB Surface costs £399, the same as an iPad 4 with half the storage.
Under
the hood is an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, with the ARM technology that
drives this new Windows RT operating system. It's the same you'll find
in high flying Android tablets such as the Asus Transformer Prime and Google Nexus 7. There's also 2GB of RAM.
We'd
love to say that it walked through every task that we threw at it, but
in all honesty, we feel that Tegra struggles in Windows.
The
system felt responsive to navigate but apps lingered on their splash
screens for uncomfortable periods, seconds longer than they should. There was no jerkiness or hangs, just a lethargy that frustrates when you're in a hurry.
We
tested the 64GB Microsoft Surface, which offers plenty of storage, and
even a Micro SDSX port hidden under the kickstand, which enables you to
boost storage by another 64GB.
That makes Surface a great deal
when you consider that you can get nearly 100GB of storage for the same
price as the 16GB iPad. That's also not including the USB port for
connecting USB storage, as well as traditional Windows peripherals.
Being able to plug in a memory stick in is especially refreshing, and makes Surface a genuine alternative to the iPad. There's
currently no 3G option for Surface, and with no dongles compatible with
Windows RT at present, that's not an option right now.
Of course,
one of the headline features is the Touch Cover, the clip-on keyboard
that enables you to use your Surface as either a tablet or laptop. It
feels shockingly light, as if it's made of cardboard.
Typing
takes some getting used to, and the click sound that's used to denote a
successful key press is essential to effective typing, as the lack of
tactile feedback can be disorientating.
However, the keys are sensitive and speed typing is certainly possible with a few hours of practice.
What's
more, despite the flat keyboard feeling like it's been hewn from old
egg boxes, it features a multi-touch trackpad, should you want to use a
mouse while in the traditional Windows interface. The Touch Cover maybe a triumph of design but we would heartily recommend investing in the Type Cover for comfortable typing.
This offers a much more natural typing experience, and is one of the most spacious tablet keyboard accessories we've used.
It's
much more comfortable and can easily be used for longer periods, but it
does have an annoying flex in the middle, so the keys tend to bounce if
you're a heavy typist.
We'd still recommend it, but it will cost you: the Type Cover costs an extra £110, rather than £80 for the Touch Cover.
Interface, performance
Microsoft Surface runs Windows RT in its purest and most vanilla form. Windows 8
doesn't have the capacity for skinning that we've seen on the likes of
Android, although we wouldn't put it past some manufacturers to add
their own awful overlays.
If you're not familiar with Windows 8, let us give you a quick synopsis. Windows 8 and Windows 7
are essentially identical, except that the Start menu has been axed in
favour of a Start screen, a giant colourfully-tiled HTML 5 overlay,
through which everything must be run.
You can drop back to the traditional desktop, but without the Start button, you'll find it extremely limited. The
Start-screen menu is a big jump even for the most experienced Windows
user, but it doesn't take long to show its worth, and it's clear after a
few hours of use that it's intuitive, beautifully designed and solidly
built.
The big tiles, which push information such as new emails
and news headlines to you, are super touch-friendly, which is perfect
for tablets such as Surface, and can be moved around to create a custom
mix not only of apps, but also pin contacts, books, movies and more.
The
only criticism of the Start screen is Windows 8's appearance of 'my
first PC', and power users are the most likely to bemoan its
introduction.
The same back end is present, but to access it one must use the search charms from the right-hand corner.
Of
course, there are already hacks and workarounds to restore Windows 8 to
its normal state, but for touchscreen devices like Surface, this would
be a disaster.
A common misconception is that the traditional
desktop isn't available in Windows RT, but that's not true; it's
accessed via the desktop tile on the Start screen, but its relevance is
severely diminished.
As Windows RT can't run traditional programs
you need to use the old style Windows Explorer less, but it's still on
hand for browsing file systems, USB sticks, organising folders and more.
The
'charm' bar to the right also includes search and share buttons and
these are threaded through every part of the OS, from files to settings,
to the information held within apps. Another
triumph is the on-screen keyboard, which is large, sensitive and easy
to use. It's not as smart as some third-party keyboards on Android, but
we typed with two hands quickly and accurately and the extra inch of
screen space made it much easier to use than its iOS counterpart.
We
had a few problems with the large keyboard panel blocking information
we needed, but the icon to show or hide the keyboard is always on hand
in the bottom-right corner of the desktop.
As we've already
mentioned, performance is a slightly mixed bag. The system is always
responsive, with silky smooth transitions and snappy navigation.
However,
we found that some apps were slow to load, with lingering splash
screens. What's more, 1080p playback was a few frames per second short
of perfect.
While we wouldn't say that the Tegra 3 chip performed
appallingly, there's certainly no headroom, and it seems to be the
graphics core that struggled most.
Multitasking apps never missed
a beat, but it was loading the graphically-intensive apps and movies
that showed the biggest strain on the processor.
Even some basic games ran at a noticeably low frame rate, so it seems that Windows RT might need some optimisation.
Browser
With Windows 8,
Internet Explorer 10 comes in two flavours, the traditional desktop
version and a 'metro' or 'Modern UI' version that runs within Windows
RT's HTML 5 Start screen.
The former is exactly the experience you'd find on any Windows 7 PC, and the pros and cons of Internet Explorer are covered extensively in our review here.
It
works well, is snappy and responsive, but the experience is woeful on a
touchscreen device, with tiny areas making navigation painful.
Enter the new Windows 8 version, which offers a touch-friendly interface for users of devices such as Surface.
It
takes a little getting used to, with tabs revealed by swiping from the
top, for example, and the lack of plug-ins and features again will leave
power users frustrated.
The experience is enhanced because all
superfluous elements have to be toggled, such as the address bar,
options and tabs. You have to swipe from the bottom or top to reveal
these features, which leaves the viewing experience clean and pure.
Tilt
the tablet into portrait mode and IE reflows the page smartly, although
the change was far from snappy and sites often stopped responding
momentarily. Bookmarks, however, are a huge oversight of the Modern UI version of Internet Explorer.
To
open a bookmarked site you need to load a blank tab, and then scroll
across to one of your favourites. It's unintuitive and unsuited to large
amounts of favourites and will certainly cause frustration for people
who are used to using large lists of bookmarks.
We also found that
compatibility with some sites was lacking, showing that, like the
Windows Store, the 'metro' version of Internet Explorer is still a work
in progress.
Some sites became unresponsive and sometimes elements wouldn't load. An
example of this is close to home: the comments section on TechRadar
doesn't load in Internet Explorer, and there are plenty of these types
of quirks, or errors as we like to call them, which make using the
built-in browser frustrating.
Hopefully Microsoft can iron out
these problems quickly, because it does detract from a smooth, clear and
visually pleasing experience.
Pinch-and-zoom was fast and
responsive, fonts rendered quickly, and sites filled the 16:9 screen to
offer an excellent experience. What's
more, with flash support built in, Microsoft has the opportunity to
provide the best tablet browsing experience on the market.
Of
course, you could try a different browser, but as this is Windows RT you
can only choose from what's on offer on Windows Store. At the time of
writing, Mozilla is preparing a version of Firefox but it's yet to
appear, and there's no Google Chrome or Opera yet.
Media (movies, music, games, books etc)
Media
is a key part of any tablet, and while Surface puts its emphasis
heavily on multitasking and productivity, it's still a media consumption
device.
Microsoft has pulled a lot of its services together for Windows 8,
including providing two apps which plug into the well-established Xbox
Music and Xbox Video apps which are supplied as standard on Surface RT. These
offer movie purchases and rentals and the Music app even enables free
streaming of 30 million tracks, with a Spotify-style subscription model.
If you want to know more about these in detail, then head over to the Windows 8 review, but it makes Surface an excellent media-focused device. The
16:9 aspect ratio means TV and movies look great, and Microsoft has
also called in favours with the likes of Netflix for great content from
third parties, and we hope there will be more to follow.
In terms
of the content on offer from Windows Store and the built-in Xbox Store
it's clear that Microsoft is still very much in third place in the lead
up to Christmas. The
selection of movies is incomplete, TV shows are too US focused and too
expensive, games is a strong area for Windows but it's yet to take off
and books are catered for almost soley by Kindle.
As a device for
enjoying them, however, Surface works well. The kickstand means you can
prop it up to enjoy movies or shows on iPlayer (which work from within
the browser in the absence of a dedicated app). There's
also micro HDMI, which means that Surface can be connected to a TV or
external display, and used in presentations much more easily than the
iPad.
Of course, Surface has a trick up its sleeve that the iPad can
only dream of. The ability to watch media files of all types and be
able to load them via USB or MicroSD, rather than the annoying
proprietary iTunes software, is a big coup for Surface.
Apps and games
One of the headline features of Windows 8 is the introduction of apps, and the Windows Store is the Google Play and App Store of the Microsoft world.
As many competitors have seen, having a packed app store is the only way to compete with the likes of the iPad, and Google's rapid expansion of its Play store has been a huge driving force of its recent success.
Unfortunately, Microsoft has not been able to launch Windows Store with anything like enough apps to call its store a success. We
have no doubt that soon Windows Store will be a thriving metropolis of
new releases and with a huge install base predicted by the end of the
first year, developers should be scrambling over themselves to be a part
of Windows 8.
However, we can only review what's in front of us,
and at present, the Windows Store is not good enough. The big-name
brands just aren't present, and while the store grows every day, the
poor selection hobbles Surface's potency as a great tablet.
The staggering part of the problem is that this is basic functionality.
Microsoft
is reported to be putting $1bn behind the marketing of Windows 8, but a
fraction of this money could have been used to pay for the big name
apps to be made: Sky Go, BBC iPlayer, Instagram, VLC, Google Chrome;
they're just not there, and it's to Surface's detriment.
There's
no shame in putting money behind this kind of project, but allowing
early adopters to experience this kind of app abyss is inexcusable.
As
a gaming device Microsoft Surface could be potent. While we have
highlighted performance questions, there's no evidence of this
manifesting in games so far, and as Windows is historically a gaming
platform, this could mean an exciting future for tablets such as
Surface.
Battery life and benchmarks
Battery life
If you need one good reason for Microsoft developing Windows 8
for ARM processors and possibly creating mass consumer confusion with
Windows RT it's battery life - so the benefits need to be immediately
apparent.
Fortunately, battery life was a huge success on
Microsoft Surface, with fantastic longevity which puts it among some of
the longest-lasting tablets money can buy.
We looped a 1080p WMV
video in the built-in app that ships with Windows RT until the battery
died, a test we run on every tablet that graces the TechRadar testing
lab. Under these conditions Surface lasted an impressive 450 minutes,
equaling a gob-smacking 7 ½ hours. This is nearly two hours longer than
the iPad 3, which suffers from powering that glorious Retina display.
To put the benefits of Windows RT in perspective, the Sony VAIO Duo 11
lasted just 2 ½ hours under the same conditions. This is thanks to its
power-hungry Intel Core i5 processor, which is the same you'll find at
the heart of full-sized Ultrabooks.
It's also impressive in
everyday use, with a standard day of use barely making an impression on
the meter, and Surface can easily last for three days on a single
charge, with moderate use.
Benchmarks
In terms of processor performance, the results backed up our initial observations regarding general performance.
Sunspider,
which tests Java performance, logged a result of 1060 ms which is
strong, but the more graphically-intensive PeaceKeeper returned a score
of 337, which puts it way behind the iPhone 5 (907) and Samsung Galaxy SIII (680).
Interestingly, the Google Nexus 7 also stormed ahead with a score of 489 despite featuring the same Tegra 3 chip.
Sound
quality isn't great from Surface's in-built speaker, and it's worth
investing in a pair of headphones. It's not as loud as the iPad and the sound is tinnier, with the single speaker grill located on the top right, leading to a poor balance of sound.
SunSpider 1060.7 ms
PeaceKeeper 337
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