November 14, 2012 at 15:22Microsoft Surface: three weeks with the most controversial tablet
In our hopelessly oversaturated times with gadgets, it is extremely rare to want to try some of the new products in business right up to the trembling fingers. No, of course, touching the new iPhone is a sacred thing, but there is already a considerable element of simplicity in this ritual ... But Microsoft Surface, I, a seasoned lover of electronic gizmos, who successfully scored half of the apartment and tried on the second, decided to buy long before this unusual assembly to stores. There was something beckoning about him that made him decide directly from the photograph. Well, we all understood that if Microsoft did not give a powerful iPad response this time, the next time the Redmond team might not ask about anything ... And if so, Surface should be a real masterpiece. By the way, a trip to the United States turned up, and Surface was purchased on the first day of sales.
I wrote a rather funny story about the buying process, which can be found at the secret link. We began to take a closer look at each other with a miracle gadget in Palo Alto, continued on the plane to Moscow, and then briefly slowed down the development of relations, because, as it turned out, the charger for the Surface was safely forgotten in the hotel. The tablet lasted from one charge for about a week, and then it turned off. Given the proprietary interface of the charger and the complete lack thereof on sale in Russia, I had to throw a cry in social networks. Many thanks to Sasha Plushenko, who first responded to the request and visited the Microsoft Store in distant New York. And a couple of days after his arrival in Russia, the FedEx courier delivered me a copy of the charger, forgotten in the room. So it turns out that I'm not only the first Russian journalist with my own Surface, but also the only oddball with two chargers for him.
It would seem that the review could be written immediately, a week after the purchase. But the device turned out to be so contradictory that I listened to my own feelings longer than usual, collected impressions and only three weeks later felt ready to write the text. The final step in the preparation was the analysis of my specimen to the foundation, completed by Sasha Levchenko. Photographs of the autopsy of Microsoft's small but very important hope are also present in the review.
What is it, Barrymore?
Microsoft positioned its offspring as a full-fledged tablet, on which you can do everything the same as on the counterparts with iOS and Android on board, but in addition also work fully. The latter is facilitated by the presence of an almost genuine Windows RT operating system and an absolutely genuine Microsoft Office 2013 package. And given that everything works on a processor with ARM architecture, the Surface does not have a noisy propeller, and a miracle tablet can last up to 10 hours on a single charge. .
Sounds tempting? I think the same. With all the sympathy for the iPad, it is impossible to fully work on it. Neither multitasking, nor access to network folders without fierce shamanism, nor the usual office suite ... And anyway, how cool it is to take with you not two devices, an ultrabook and a tablet PC, but one. True, here I have to make a reservation that the new generation of ultrabooks weighs almost nothing, and I sometimes don’t notice the test Acer Aspire S5 against the background of a black table. Nevertheless, superfluous entities on the road are evil.
I bought a younger Surface model with 32 gigabytes of on-board flash for $ 499 plus California sales tax (about 8%). For $ 599, you could buy it yourself, but with the Touch Cover keyboard cover in black. It seemed gloomy to me, and therefore took a complete set without a Touch Cover, and bought the latter separately - a cheerful turquoise color. This whim cost me an extra $ 20, because a separate Touch Cover is selling for $ 119. Looking a little ahead, I’ll say that buying a tablet without this accessory is a completely pointless waste.
Touch Cover in all its diversity
I bought a Surface in the morning, then went on business, and until a close acquaintance it came only late in the evening, in the room. Having connected to hotel WiFi, I entered my Live ID, which I use on both Windows Phone, Xbox, and, of course, Windows 8. After that, my email, social networks and photos settings from Facebook pulled up from the Microsoft database. The applications I use on a computer with Windows 8, not to mention their data, did not automatically install. Remembering the convenience of setting up devices with Android and iOS, a little sad.
Windows RT at first glance is no different from Windows 8. Yes, and the second and third, too. The resemblance is complete, to the smallest detail. For example, there is not a single virus for Windows RT yet, but the built-in Windows Defender downloads database updates daily. From whom he protects me - I have no idea. Perhaps the valiant “Defender” boldly looks ahead several years ahead and downloads the cure for viruses from a Microsoft server that does not yet exist. There is the notorious multitasking - exactly the same as on a desktop computer.
As with large Windows, there is a tough separation between the touch-sensitive Windows 8 UI and the Desktop mode. The differences are not limited to radically different control models - the tiled and classic interfaces have their own browsers, their keyboards (one leaves itself, the second must be called up by clicking on the corresponding icon, its update centers ... The latter is especially funny: applications purchased from the Windows Store are updated there, but updates to Windows themselves and the office suite need to be installed, deliberately rummaging around in the wilds of the Control Panel, and if the message about updating some Twitter client appears in tiled mode by itself, then about The system prefers to keep silent about patches for Office, because of this there are outrageous comments on the Internet about the disgusting beta version of the office suite,
At the presentation, the Surface was held as if he had already managed to defy himself in something.
However, something we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Initially, Surface speaks English to us, but you can add a Cyrillic keyboard and the format of the date, time and numbers in Russian immediately after the first inclusion. Actually, like on all versions of Windows, starting with 2000 / XP. For complete Russification, you can download language pack, whose action extends not only to the interface, but also to Office. However, when installing the language pack and updates, I came across a funny bug. After the first inclusion in the Update Center, a huge, by mobile standards, 500-megabyte updated version of the "Office" was discovered. It downloaded for a long time (in hotels WiFi is not fast even with frankly extortionate rates), then it was installed even longer - it took about fifty minutes. After that, I installed the language pack (another forty minutes), and began to try to work in the Office 2013 Preview that started talking in Russian. I did not find any fundamental differences from the desktop version - the office as an office, quite familiar and comfortable. Which, in fact, is very, very cool.
This does not happen on a large computer, but on a thin and rather elegant Surface.
But while I was flying home, Microsoft released an update with the final version of the office suite (another half gigabyte). After installing it, the interface of the latter again became English-speaking and, what is most unpleasant, spelling check stopped working. I decided to overcome the problem by the old-fashioned method: to demolish and reinstall the language pack. I demolished it, but it didn’t work right away because it was reported by the system that it was missing. I already decided to do a full reset to the initial state (in Windows 8 it’s quite simple), but here my battery is dead, and the charger arrived only after a week. By that time, the language pack was updated, and it was perfectly installed on both Windows and Office.
By the way, after all the updates from 32 gigabytes of on-board flash memory, I have only 14 left. Given that initially there were only two gigabytes more, I send ardent greetings to the guys and girls from Microsoft who call this version of the Surface 32-gigabyte . It is clear that devices on iOS and Android are also not weakly eating memory for their needs, but not 60 percent! It would be more honest to call the 32- and 64-gigabyte versions of the Surface 16- and 48-gigabyte, respectively. Fortunately, the tablet has a microSDXC card slot, which allows you to compensate for the lack of space for a very reasonable amount.
Touch Cover not only protects the Surface screen during carrying and turns it on / off, but also is an indispensable accessory without which full control of the tablet is simply impossible. More precisely, if you can still manage somehow in tiled mode, then in the classic one it’s impossible to do without a touchpad built into Touch Cover. Poking with your finger on text menus and small buttons for closing / minimizing windows is a very dubious pleasure. If you sit down at the table, lean the Surface on a folding stand and lay out the Touch Cover, you get a fully-fledged typewriter. I am writing this text on Surface with Touch Cover and am generally quite comfortable with the comfort.
The tablet is quite reliable and with a funny sound connects to the Touch Cover with a magnetic latch
For those who do not want to knock on the drawn keys, completely devoid of feedback, Type Cover is offered - a very real laptop keyboard, which is also attached to the Surface using a magnetic lock. It costs $ 10 more, although knowledgeable guys told me that in the production of Type Cover it is cheaper than Touch Cover, which is a kind of masterpiece of engineering. It’s not a joke - in such a thin plate to combine not only the keyboard, but also the touchpad.
Type Cover is not much different from a laptop keyboard
As for me, Type Cover Surface does not look very elegant, and the touch option is preferable. But then decide for yourself. Of course, there is no alphabet other than Latin on the keys. Cyrillic will appear only at the time of sales in Russia, if any ever begin. In the meantime, you can only draw it (Touch Cover) or try engraving (Type Cover).
Iron question
The Surface uses the 4-core SoC Nvidia Tegra 3 (T30) with a frequency of 1.3 GHz. In fact, there are five cores, and one provides the functionality of the system at low load, preventing the voracious four from planting the battery too quickly. After all, in this version, Tegra does not know how to adjust the frequency of the cores individually and disable unnecessary Tegra. Most of the time, the frequency of the central processor does not exceed 660 MHz. The amount of RAM is 2 GB, and even now, when I have downloaded only Word, the task manager and the browser, it is occupied by 58%. Although, probably, it’s not a matter of real loading, but of Windows’s habit of reserving address space to speed up applications.
Those who, like me, decide to disassemble their copy of Surface, will inevitably have to damage just such a sticker inside. However, given the lack of warranty support for the tablet in Russia, this is unlikely to be
scary. Opening the Surface is relatively easy - just unscrew a number of hex screws and snap off the latches. True, the last pair is quite tricky, and it must be snapped off with a thin screwdriver from the inside. As expected, the bulk of the insides is occupied by the battery. The
resolution of the 10.6-inch screen is standard 1366x768 pixels. Not Retina, not Retina at all. But in general, there are no complaints about the quality: a solid IPS-matrix provides more than sufficient viewing angles and excellent color reproduction.
To enhance the pleasure of watching movies, a couple of stereo speakers are installed in Surface (exactly the same as they used to be in Nokia N91 / 95 smartphones and others), and a couple of microphones are responsible for the purity of your voice when communicating via Skype and IP-telephony.
On the right is a pair of speakers from Surface. On the left is their fellow from Nokia N95. And this is hardly a coincidence, given the tender and trusting relationship with the Finnish company
Microphone Surface in the guide casing ...
... and without it, the
battery capacity of the Surface is 31.5 W * h / 7.4 V = 4250 mA * h. Of course, we are not concerned with digits, but with real battery life. Microsoft itself is talking about "8 hours in mixed mode."
The size of the batteries is impressive. By the way, I have not seen Samsung branded batteries in devices of other manufacturers for a long time
That is - to go to the Internet, watch a movie, write a review ... I did not make any special measurements, but if I use Surface in the “hour in the morning - half an hour in the evening” mode, one charge is enough for a week. With more intensive use (for example, writing an article 2-3 hours a day in parallel with communicating on social networks and visiting the websites necessary for the material), you can be sure of three days of autonomy. And the fourth will remain a little. In my opinion, the result is excellent. A Windows device has never worked for so long. I was also pleased with the lack of a self-discharge effect, which irritates me with the third-generation iPad. In sleep mode, the Surface can spend a week, and then turn on again, as if nothing had happened, almost without losing battery power.
All electronic components of the Surface are covered with protective screens, which also act as a radiator.
View of the entire motherboard.
We begin to shoot screens.
On the main chip we find a powerful thermal spacer.
The chip itself
. It does not allow the chip to “leave” strongly when it heats up, and ensures the reliability of the design. True, usually such compound rivers are observed on the boards of second-tier manufacturers ...
As for performance, the situation with its measurements is still very slurred. One of the few features thrown out of Windows RT was the built-in performance index. That is, it is simply impossible to compare Surface with large PCs and laptops. In the Windows Store, there is only one benchmark with the uncomplicated name Speed Test Pro. Thanks to him, we can find out that the write speed to the built-in flash module is 26 megabytes per second, and reads are 58 megabytes. The bandwidth of RAM is almost 55 MB / s. These days, of course, are ridiculous numbers. But I would not advise taking them literally.
From the back, the design of the board is passive, but the tricky design of a two-element WiFi antenna stands out on it
I’m not quite an engineer, and therefore I don’t understand why they made her so cunning. But I note that I have no complaints about reception stability and tenacity. By the
way, for contrast, the WiFi antenna from the second iPad
Camera Module. There are two of them in Surface, and both can only 720p. Image quality tolerant
Proprietary power connector. It is very comfortable and also magnetic. But precisely because of this proprietorship, it was necessary to arrange a leapfrog with the extraction of a charger
In everyday work, the Surface resembles a Core 2 Duo laptop with a leisurely hard drive. Applications are downloaded thoughtfully, with the arrangement; Office applications have time to admire the nameplate, updates are installed for several minutes. As usual, installing an important patch in the least requires a system reboot. There is no feeling of a mobile device: Surface is a personal computer, just quite compact. The computer essence is emphasized by the lack of a 3G module.
In work
Many owners of Surface were so imbued with the similarity of Windows RT with Windows 8 that the inability to install the usual set of applications caused them a mixture of bewilderment and indignation. Indeed, no Photoshop, K-Lite codec pack or even Total Commander can be rolled here. And the application specially written for RT cannot be downloaded or installed from anywhere. Only through the Windows Store!
I do not agree with those who say that the Windows Store lacks applications. Enough. But there is no abundance
The Microsoft app store is still boring. The basic set is selected without much difficulty, but, unfortunately, the sales level for most of the products presented is below the baseboard. For example, Yandex.Maps, which were launched not without a pump, provide even a smaller set of features than the browser version. No, well, the truth is ridiculous: there is no way to change the map view, and the bottom panel, where the function buttons are usually located, opens completely empty.
The bottom panel should have all sorts of settings. But they did not have time to do it, it is advised to wait for the new version
The same story with almost everything. Whatever you put on, there remains a feeling of something raw and made on the knee. Only versions of famous games, such as Cut The Rope, Fruit Ninja and others like them, are good - they are no different from their counterparts on other platforms. Everything decent is more or less (however, also with big reservations) costs money. And not 99 cents, like the App Store, but $ 3-5. After abundance on competing platforms, and on real Windows, you feel uncomfortable.
Well, all right, applications are a matter of time. Perhaps the experience with Windows RT will be so exciting that I will forgive her all childhood illnesses?
Ah, if only. The fact that in Windows 8 it was required to combine two interfaces, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, lends itself to a logical explanation: it was necessary to ensure the possibility of touch control and compatibility with older applications. But why the hell is desktop mode in RT? I can’t install my programs; drivers, too. Most applications run in tiled mode, but Office is exclusively in desktop mode. You simply get tired of these endless hops here and there and changing control models.
With this interface, you had to use a sharpener for fingers and a liter of ultracaine for free on Surface.
The wizards of Microsoft followed the path of Apple and banned almost everything that is possible and impossible. Want to put another browser instead of Internet Explorer? It is impossible. Do you want your player? It is possible, but it will only play the formats supported by default (DivX, MPEG-4, WMV), and heresy, like a "nesting doll" - in no case. Another email client? It is impossible. Watching pictures? It is impossible.
No, no, no, no ...
A wide selection of email clients in the Windows Store
What is allowed? For example, on the road, I often need to drop photos from a flash card to a laptop. Can Surface replace it in this uncomplicated guise? It turned out that not very. Our hero does not have a card reader. But there is a USB 2.0 port to which you can pick up an external one. It is possible, but not impossible: none of the Windows RT devices in my collection of devices I could recognize. Flash drives with external hard drives are perfectly readable, you can connect a mouse, an external keyboard. And you can’t connect a card reader or something good, a 3G modem. Theoretically, of course, you can take pictures on a microSD card through an adapter, and then insert it into an existing slot, but it’s somehow quite difficult.
But imagine that we uploaded photos to Surface. And then what? I shoot exclusively in RAW, and I can’t even see the pictures on the tablet’s screen, not to mention processing them. There is no need to talk about video manipulations and its conversion, although Tegra 3 capabilities would be quite enough for this.
Inexperienced presenters will be pleased that on board the Surface there is a full-fledged PowerPoint and the image can be displayed on a projector or TV via HDMI. It makes me neither hot nor cold. But the inability to print a presentation slide or the text of the article on a home printer upsets seriously. Theoretically, the list of supported printers and MFPs is quite largebut my home Xerox MFP is not listed. And if so, no print. There are problems with finding network printers. If you connect the printing device directly, via USB, everything will work. And if you ask to find it on your home network, for some reason the result is zero. It seems that the working group is the same, and the computer to which the printer is connected is perfectly visible, but does not find it. And you can’t get anything here, you can’t force any drivers forcibly. No means no.
I can list for a long time the ill-conceived and imperfections in Surface. What is it worth at least the inability to remember - in what alphabet was the text typed in each of the windows? For example, if you look for something in the Windows Store in Latin, and then return to Word, the language will have to be forced to switch to Russian, although large Windows do it themselves. The stand on which Surface relies in the desktop mode is very inconvenient: it has only one angle of inclination, which personally does not suit me. You have to look at the screen not directly, but squint from above. What kind soul came up with switching the language on the virtual keyboard by TWO taps, and not one (first go to the language selection menu, and only then choose it)? Why is the estimated battery runtime not indicated? but only a little meaningful interest? Where did the opportunity to send a file from the Office application by email go?
A screenshot taken during the writing of this article
At first, Surface seems to be a very, very nice device. But as you work on it, the feeling grows that it’s not a finished product, but a kind of demo sample with a lot of disabled functions. From the series “show from afar, do not give into hands”. Meanwhile, they are asking for a quite tangible amount in real dollars, not hand-drawn ones. And I would advise thinking twice before paying it.
Total
I have always been philosophical about flaws in the new Microsoft operating systems. And even “Vista” branded by everyone, he not only met favorably, but I still use it on my home computer. And I have the main browser, you won’t believe Internet Explorer.
With some roughness in Windows 8, I already bought a licensed copy for myself. Yes, there are a number of things that are not very clear to me, but the G8 still remains a good old Windows, where you can tweak and improve, if not everything, then almost everything. Even the Start button returns to it at once and in dozens of ways.
On Windows RT, nothing can be changed and improved. No tuning utilities will be allowed in the Windows Store, and there are no ways to install them yourself (yet?). And it turns out that the Desktop mode, in this case completely pointless and even partially harmful, we are forced to endure for no reason. More precisely, at your own expense - unless, of course, Surface was presented to you.
Why did this happen? Not screwed up due to lack of time? Did you find outward resemblance more important than comfort? Have you decided that they’ll sell anything by marketing means? That would know. But the news of the departure of Stephen Sinofsky, responsible for the development of Windows 8 and Surface, personally seemed to me quite natural. Because I can’t even recall such a "raw" product from Microsoft. Moreover, the product is not a by-product, like a music player or even a smartphone, but, so to speak, system-forming.
All Surface electronic stuffing in one shot
I myself do not regret that I bought Surface. Acquaintance with such a device is a valuable experience, and it is very nice to get one of the first in the world. Moreover, I have already refused to five who wish to buy Surface from me with an extra charge. I’ll survive somehow without this money, but it’s extremely interesting to watch how Microsoft will “finish” the gadget so important for itself.
But you can’t finish it. The train of mobile platforms has started moving for a long time, and Microsoft has the last chance to jump into it on the go. If you do not use it, you will have to drive a taxi to the nearest station, and this is an expensive pleasure even for such a rich corporation. Yes, and can shake ...
Well, let's get angry already, Redmond!
I wrote a rather funny story about the buying process, which can be found at the secret link. We began to take a closer look at each other with a miracle gadget in Palo Alto, continued on the plane to Moscow, and then briefly slowed down the development of relations, because, as it turned out, the charger for the Surface was safely forgotten in the hotel. The tablet lasted from one charge for about a week, and then it turned off. Given the proprietary interface of the charger and the complete lack thereof on sale in Russia, I had to throw a cry in social networks. Many thanks to Sasha Plushenko, who first responded to the request and visited the Microsoft Store in distant New York. And a couple of days after his arrival in Russia, the FedEx courier delivered me a copy of the charger, forgotten in the room. So it turns out that I'm not only the first Russian journalist with my own Surface, but also the only oddball with two chargers for him.
It would seem that the review could be written immediately, a week after the purchase. But the device turned out to be so contradictory that I listened to my own feelings longer than usual, collected impressions and only three weeks later felt ready to write the text. The final step in the preparation was the analysis of my specimen to the foundation, completed by Sasha Levchenko. Photographs of the autopsy of Microsoft's small but very important hope are also present in the review.
What is it, Barrymore?
Microsoft positioned its offspring as a full-fledged tablet, on which you can do everything the same as on the counterparts with iOS and Android on board, but in addition also work fully. The latter is facilitated by the presence of an almost genuine Windows RT operating system and an absolutely genuine Microsoft Office 2013 package. And given that everything works on a processor with ARM architecture, the Surface does not have a noisy propeller, and a miracle tablet can last up to 10 hours on a single charge. .
Sounds tempting? I think the same. With all the sympathy for the iPad, it is impossible to fully work on it. Neither multitasking, nor access to network folders without fierce shamanism, nor the usual office suite ... And anyway, how cool it is to take with you not two devices, an ultrabook and a tablet PC, but one. True, here I have to make a reservation that the new generation of ultrabooks weighs almost nothing, and I sometimes don’t notice the test Acer Aspire S5 against the background of a black table. Nevertheless, superfluous entities on the road are evil.
I bought a younger Surface model with 32 gigabytes of on-board flash for $ 499 plus California sales tax (about 8%). For $ 599, you could buy it yourself, but with the Touch Cover keyboard cover in black. It seemed gloomy to me, and therefore took a complete set without a Touch Cover, and bought the latter separately - a cheerful turquoise color. This whim cost me an extra $ 20, because a separate Touch Cover is selling for $ 119. Looking a little ahead, I’ll say that buying a tablet without this accessory is a completely pointless waste.
Touch Cover in all its diversity
I bought a Surface in the morning, then went on business, and until a close acquaintance it came only late in the evening, in the room. Having connected to hotel WiFi, I entered my Live ID, which I use on both Windows Phone, Xbox, and, of course, Windows 8. After that, my email, social networks and photos settings from Facebook pulled up from the Microsoft database. The applications I use on a computer with Windows 8, not to mention their data, did not automatically install. Remembering the convenience of setting up devices with Android and iOS, a little sad.
Windows RT at first glance is no different from Windows 8. Yes, and the second and third, too. The resemblance is complete, to the smallest detail. For example, there is not a single virus for Windows RT yet, but the built-in Windows Defender downloads database updates daily. From whom he protects me - I have no idea. Perhaps the valiant “Defender” boldly looks ahead several years ahead and downloads the cure for viruses from a Microsoft server that does not yet exist. There is the notorious multitasking - exactly the same as on a desktop computer.
As with large Windows, there is a tough separation between the touch-sensitive Windows 8 UI and the Desktop mode. The differences are not limited to radically different control models - the tiled and classic interfaces have their own browsers, their keyboards (one leaves itself, the second must be called up by clicking on the corresponding icon, its update centers ... The latter is especially funny: applications purchased from the Windows Store are updated there, but updates to Windows themselves and the office suite need to be installed, deliberately rummaging around in the wilds of the Control Panel, and if the message about updating some Twitter client appears in tiled mode by itself, then about The system prefers to keep silent about patches for Office, because of this there are outrageous comments on the Internet about the disgusting beta version of the office suite,
At the presentation, the Surface was held as if he had already managed to defy himself in something.
However, something we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Initially, Surface speaks English to us, but you can add a Cyrillic keyboard and the format of the date, time and numbers in Russian immediately after the first inclusion. Actually, like on all versions of Windows, starting with 2000 / XP. For complete Russification, you can download language pack, whose action extends not only to the interface, but also to Office. However, when installing the language pack and updates, I came across a funny bug. After the first inclusion in the Update Center, a huge, by mobile standards, 500-megabyte updated version of the "Office" was discovered. It downloaded for a long time (in hotels WiFi is not fast even with frankly extortionate rates), then it was installed even longer - it took about fifty minutes. After that, I installed the language pack (another forty minutes), and began to try to work in the Office 2013 Preview that started talking in Russian. I did not find any fundamental differences from the desktop version - the office as an office, quite familiar and comfortable. Which, in fact, is very, very cool.
This does not happen on a large computer, but on a thin and rather elegant Surface.
But while I was flying home, Microsoft released an update with the final version of the office suite (another half gigabyte). After installing it, the interface of the latter again became English-speaking and, what is most unpleasant, spelling check stopped working. I decided to overcome the problem by the old-fashioned method: to demolish and reinstall the language pack. I demolished it, but it didn’t work right away because it was reported by the system that it was missing. I already decided to do a full reset to the initial state (in Windows 8 it’s quite simple), but here my battery is dead, and the charger arrived only after a week. By that time, the language pack was updated, and it was perfectly installed on both Windows and Office.
By the way, after all the updates from 32 gigabytes of on-board flash memory, I have only 14 left. Given that initially there were only two gigabytes more, I send ardent greetings to the guys and girls from Microsoft who call this version of the Surface 32-gigabyte . It is clear that devices on iOS and Android are also not weakly eating memory for their needs, but not 60 percent! It would be more honest to call the 32- and 64-gigabyte versions of the Surface 16- and 48-gigabyte, respectively. Fortunately, the tablet has a microSDXC card slot, which allows you to compensate for the lack of space for a very reasonable amount.
Touch Cover not only protects the Surface screen during carrying and turns it on / off, but also is an indispensable accessory without which full control of the tablet is simply impossible. More precisely, if you can still manage somehow in tiled mode, then in the classic one it’s impossible to do without a touchpad built into Touch Cover. Poking with your finger on text menus and small buttons for closing / minimizing windows is a very dubious pleasure. If you sit down at the table, lean the Surface on a folding stand and lay out the Touch Cover, you get a fully-fledged typewriter. I am writing this text on Surface with Touch Cover and am generally quite comfortable with the comfort.
The tablet is quite reliable and with a funny sound connects to the Touch Cover with a magnetic latch
For those who do not want to knock on the drawn keys, completely devoid of feedback, Type Cover is offered - a very real laptop keyboard, which is also attached to the Surface using a magnetic lock. It costs $ 10 more, although knowledgeable guys told me that in the production of Type Cover it is cheaper than Touch Cover, which is a kind of masterpiece of engineering. It’s not a joke - in such a thin plate to combine not only the keyboard, but also the touchpad.
Type Cover is not much different from a laptop keyboard
As for me, Type Cover Surface does not look very elegant, and the touch option is preferable. But then decide for yourself. Of course, there is no alphabet other than Latin on the keys. Cyrillic will appear only at the time of sales in Russia, if any ever begin. In the meantime, you can only draw it (Touch Cover) or try engraving (Type Cover).
Iron question
The Surface uses the 4-core SoC Nvidia Tegra 3 (T30) with a frequency of 1.3 GHz. In fact, there are five cores, and one provides the functionality of the system at low load, preventing the voracious four from planting the battery too quickly. After all, in this version, Tegra does not know how to adjust the frequency of the cores individually and disable unnecessary Tegra. Most of the time, the frequency of the central processor does not exceed 660 MHz. The amount of RAM is 2 GB, and even now, when I have downloaded only Word, the task manager and the browser, it is occupied by 58%. Although, probably, it’s not a matter of real loading, but of Windows’s habit of reserving address space to speed up applications.
Those who, like me, decide to disassemble their copy of Surface, will inevitably have to damage just such a sticker inside. However, given the lack of warranty support for the tablet in Russia, this is unlikely to be
scary. Opening the Surface is relatively easy - just unscrew a number of hex screws and snap off the latches. True, the last pair is quite tricky, and it must be snapped off with a thin screwdriver from the inside. As expected, the bulk of the insides is occupied by the battery. The
resolution of the 10.6-inch screen is standard 1366x768 pixels. Not Retina, not Retina at all. But in general, there are no complaints about the quality: a solid IPS-matrix provides more than sufficient viewing angles and excellent color reproduction.
To enhance the pleasure of watching movies, a couple of stereo speakers are installed in Surface (exactly the same as they used to be in Nokia N91 / 95 smartphones and others), and a couple of microphones are responsible for the purity of your voice when communicating via Skype and IP-telephony.
On the right is a pair of speakers from Surface. On the left is their fellow from Nokia N95. And this is hardly a coincidence, given the tender and trusting relationship with the Finnish company
Microphone Surface in the guide casing ...
... and without it, the
battery capacity of the Surface is 31.5 W * h / 7.4 V = 4250 mA * h. Of course, we are not concerned with digits, but with real battery life. Microsoft itself is talking about "8 hours in mixed mode."
The size of the batteries is impressive. By the way, I have not seen Samsung branded batteries in devices of other manufacturers for a long time
That is - to go to the Internet, watch a movie, write a review ... I did not make any special measurements, but if I use Surface in the “hour in the morning - half an hour in the evening” mode, one charge is enough for a week. With more intensive use (for example, writing an article 2-3 hours a day in parallel with communicating on social networks and visiting the websites necessary for the material), you can be sure of three days of autonomy. And the fourth will remain a little. In my opinion, the result is excellent. A Windows device has never worked for so long. I was also pleased with the lack of a self-discharge effect, which irritates me with the third-generation iPad. In sleep mode, the Surface can spend a week, and then turn on again, as if nothing had happened, almost without losing battery power.
All electronic components of the Surface are covered with protective screens, which also act as a radiator.
View of the entire motherboard.
We begin to shoot screens.
On the main chip we find a powerful thermal spacer.
The chip itself
. It does not allow the chip to “leave” strongly when it heats up, and ensures the reliability of the design. True, usually such compound rivers are observed on the boards of second-tier manufacturers ...
As for performance, the situation with its measurements is still very slurred. One of the few features thrown out of Windows RT was the built-in performance index. That is, it is simply impossible to compare Surface with large PCs and laptops. In the Windows Store, there is only one benchmark with the uncomplicated name Speed Test Pro. Thanks to him, we can find out that the write speed to the built-in flash module is 26 megabytes per second, and reads are 58 megabytes. The bandwidth of RAM is almost 55 MB / s. These days, of course, are ridiculous numbers. But I would not advise taking them literally.
From the back, the design of the board is passive, but the tricky design of a two-element WiFi antenna stands out on it
I’m not quite an engineer, and therefore I don’t understand why they made her so cunning. But I note that I have no complaints about reception stability and tenacity. By the
way, for contrast, the WiFi antenna from the second iPad
Camera Module. There are two of them in Surface, and both can only 720p. Image quality tolerant
Proprietary power connector. It is very comfortable and also magnetic. But precisely because of this proprietorship, it was necessary to arrange a leapfrog with the extraction of a charger
In everyday work, the Surface resembles a Core 2 Duo laptop with a leisurely hard drive. Applications are downloaded thoughtfully, with the arrangement; Office applications have time to admire the nameplate, updates are installed for several minutes. As usual, installing an important patch in the least requires a system reboot. There is no feeling of a mobile device: Surface is a personal computer, just quite compact. The computer essence is emphasized by the lack of a 3G module.
In work
Many owners of Surface were so imbued with the similarity of Windows RT with Windows 8 that the inability to install the usual set of applications caused them a mixture of bewilderment and indignation. Indeed, no Photoshop, K-Lite codec pack or even Total Commander can be rolled here. And the application specially written for RT cannot be downloaded or installed from anywhere. Only through the Windows Store!
I do not agree with those who say that the Windows Store lacks applications. Enough. But there is no abundance
The Microsoft app store is still boring. The basic set is selected without much difficulty, but, unfortunately, the sales level for most of the products presented is below the baseboard. For example, Yandex.Maps, which were launched not without a pump, provide even a smaller set of features than the browser version. No, well, the truth is ridiculous: there is no way to change the map view, and the bottom panel, where the function buttons are usually located, opens completely empty.
The bottom panel should have all sorts of settings. But they did not have time to do it, it is advised to wait for the new version
The same story with almost everything. Whatever you put on, there remains a feeling of something raw and made on the knee. Only versions of famous games, such as Cut The Rope, Fruit Ninja and others like them, are good - they are no different from their counterparts on other platforms. Everything decent is more or less (however, also with big reservations) costs money. And not 99 cents, like the App Store, but $ 3-5. After abundance on competing platforms, and on real Windows, you feel uncomfortable.
Well, all right, applications are a matter of time. Perhaps the experience with Windows RT will be so exciting that I will forgive her all childhood illnesses?
Ah, if only. The fact that in Windows 8 it was required to combine two interfaces, such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, lends itself to a logical explanation: it was necessary to ensure the possibility of touch control and compatibility with older applications. But why the hell is desktop mode in RT? I can’t install my programs; drivers, too. Most applications run in tiled mode, but Office is exclusively in desktop mode. You simply get tired of these endless hops here and there and changing control models.
With this interface, you had to use a sharpener for fingers and a liter of ultracaine for free on Surface.
The wizards of Microsoft followed the path of Apple and banned almost everything that is possible and impossible. Want to put another browser instead of Internet Explorer? It is impossible. Do you want your player? It is possible, but it will only play the formats supported by default (DivX, MPEG-4, WMV), and heresy, like a "nesting doll" - in no case. Another email client? It is impossible. Watching pictures? It is impossible.
No, no, no, no ...
A wide selection of email clients in the Windows Store
What is allowed? For example, on the road, I often need to drop photos from a flash card to a laptop. Can Surface replace it in this uncomplicated guise? It turned out that not very. Our hero does not have a card reader. But there is a USB 2.0 port to which you can pick up an external one. It is possible, but not impossible: none of the Windows RT devices in my collection of devices I could recognize. Flash drives with external hard drives are perfectly readable, you can connect a mouse, an external keyboard. And you can’t connect a card reader or something good, a 3G modem. Theoretically, of course, you can take pictures on a microSD card through an adapter, and then insert it into an existing slot, but it’s somehow quite difficult.
But imagine that we uploaded photos to Surface. And then what? I shoot exclusively in RAW, and I can’t even see the pictures on the tablet’s screen, not to mention processing them. There is no need to talk about video manipulations and its conversion, although Tegra 3 capabilities would be quite enough for this.
Inexperienced presenters will be pleased that on board the Surface there is a full-fledged PowerPoint and the image can be displayed on a projector or TV via HDMI. It makes me neither hot nor cold. But the inability to print a presentation slide or the text of the article on a home printer upsets seriously. Theoretically, the list of supported printers and MFPs is quite largebut my home Xerox MFP is not listed. And if so, no print. There are problems with finding network printers. If you connect the printing device directly, via USB, everything will work. And if you ask to find it on your home network, for some reason the result is zero. It seems that the working group is the same, and the computer to which the printer is connected is perfectly visible, but does not find it. And you can’t get anything here, you can’t force any drivers forcibly. No means no.
I can list for a long time the ill-conceived and imperfections in Surface. What is it worth at least the inability to remember - in what alphabet was the text typed in each of the windows? For example, if you look for something in the Windows Store in Latin, and then return to Word, the language will have to be forced to switch to Russian, although large Windows do it themselves. The stand on which Surface relies in the desktop mode is very inconvenient: it has only one angle of inclination, which personally does not suit me. You have to look at the screen not directly, but squint from above. What kind soul came up with switching the language on the virtual keyboard by TWO taps, and not one (first go to the language selection menu, and only then choose it)? Why is the estimated battery runtime not indicated? but only a little meaningful interest? Where did the opportunity to send a file from the Office application by email go?
A screenshot taken during the writing of this article
At first, Surface seems to be a very, very nice device. But as you work on it, the feeling grows that it’s not a finished product, but a kind of demo sample with a lot of disabled functions. From the series “show from afar, do not give into hands”. Meanwhile, they are asking for a quite tangible amount in real dollars, not hand-drawn ones. And I would advise thinking twice before paying it.
Total
I have always been philosophical about flaws in the new Microsoft operating systems. And even “Vista” branded by everyone, he not only met favorably, but I still use it on my home computer. And I have the main browser, you won’t believe Internet Explorer.
With some roughness in Windows 8, I already bought a licensed copy for myself. Yes, there are a number of things that are not very clear to me, but the G8 still remains a good old Windows, where you can tweak and improve, if not everything, then almost everything. Even the Start button returns to it at once and in dozens of ways.
On Windows RT, nothing can be changed and improved. No tuning utilities will be allowed in the Windows Store, and there are no ways to install them yourself (yet?). And it turns out that the Desktop mode, in this case completely pointless and even partially harmful, we are forced to endure for no reason. More precisely, at your own expense - unless, of course, Surface was presented to you.
Why did this happen? Not screwed up due to lack of time? Did you find outward resemblance more important than comfort? Have you decided that they’ll sell anything by marketing means? That would know. But the news of the departure of Stephen Sinofsky, responsible for the development of Windows 8 and Surface, personally seemed to me quite natural. Because I can’t even recall such a "raw" product from Microsoft. Moreover, the product is not a by-product, like a music player or even a smartphone, but, so to speak, system-forming.
All Surface electronic stuffing in one shot
I myself do not regret that I bought Surface. Acquaintance with such a device is a valuable experience, and it is very nice to get one of the first in the world. Moreover, I have already refused to five who wish to buy Surface from me with an extra charge. I’ll survive somehow without this money, but it’s extremely interesting to watch how Microsoft will “finish” the gadget so important for itself.
But you can’t finish it. The train of mobile platforms has started moving for a long time, and Microsoft has the last chance to jump into it on the go. If you do not use it, you will have to drive a taxi to the nearest station, and this is an expensive pleasure even for such a rich corporation. Yes, and can shake ...
Well, let's get angry already, Redmond!