Microsoft Surface Pro review
The best Windows 8 tablet, but battery life isn't great and you have to factor in the cost of a keyboard
Specifications
10.6 in 1,920×1,080 display, 916g, 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U, 4.00GB RAM, 128GB disk, Windows 8 Pro
The bundled Surface Pen lets you draw on the screen
Another way of interacting with the screen is by using the Pro’s new bundled in Surface Pen. It works in a very similar way to drawing tablet pens and the screen will sense it even when it’s 2cm away. It’s a little unintuitive to use when the Surface Pro’s propped up with the kickstand, but it’s great for sketching and taking notes when it’s lying flat. It won’t replace drawing tablets completely, as we found it wasn’t quite so accurate when we hovered the pen over the corners of the display. Unless it was angled perpendicular to the screen, the sensor would run away into the corner, making it difficult to close and minimise windows.
Pen issues aside, its image quality was excellent. Reds, greens and blues really popped out of the screen and whites were particularly bright. Blacks weren’t quite true black, but they were deep enough to make our high contrast images look stunning. We could see a very high level of detail in all of our test photos and colours were rich and vibrant throughout.
A DisplayPort output is useful, although you’ll most likely need to buy adaptors
Microsoft’s squeezed even more connections round the chassis this time as well. The USB3 port (it was USB on the RT), micro SDXC card reader and headphone jack match the ports on the RT, but the newest addition is a mini-DisplayPort output, so you can connect the Surface Pro to an external monitor. You’ll most likely need to buy a mini-DisplayPort to VGA, DVI or HDMI adaptors to use most monitors.
Inside, the Surface Pro has full laptop components, so it blows any other type of tablet out of the water when it comes to raw performance. There’s a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U processor powering the tablet, which we’ve seen in a lot of Ultrabooks. It gave the Surface Pro an overall score of 44 in our multimedia benchmarks. That’s one of the best scores we’ve seen for an Ultrabook and shows that this tablet is incredibly powerful.
Basic Specifications | |
---|---|
Rating | **** |
Processor | Intel Core i5-3317U |
Processor clock speed | 1.7GHz |
Memory | 4.00GB |
Memory slots | 1 |
Memory slots free | 0 |
Maximum memory | 4GB |
Size | 13x274x173mm |
Weight | 916g |
Sound | Realtek HD Audio |
Pointing device | touchscreen |
Display | |
Viewable size | 10.6 in |
Native resolution | 1,920×1,080 |
Graphics Processor | Intel HD Graphics 4000 |
Graphics/video ports | HDMI via adaptor, mini-DisplayPort |
Graphics Memory | 128MB |
Storage | |
Total storage capacity | 128GB |
Optical drive type | none |
Ports and Expansion | |
USB ports | 1 |
Bluetooth | yes |
Wired network ports | none |
Wireless networking support | 802.11n (dual-band) |
PC Card slots | N/A |
Supported memory cards | micro SDXC |
Other ports | headphone out |
Miscellaneous | |
Carrying case | No |
Operating system | Windows 8 Pro |
Operating system restore option | restore partition |
Software included | N/A |
Optional extras | £80) |
Buying Information | |
Warranty | one year RTB |
Price | £799 |
Details | www.microsoftstore.com |
Supplier | http://www.microsoftstore.com |