Surface Pro

While the Surface Pro’s battery life is only marginally worse than that of its nearest competitor, Microsoft (MSFT) has taken a lot of heat over its new tablet’s battery performance. In BGR’s Surface Pro review, we said that the battery lasted between 4 and 4.5 hours per charge with moderate usage. Microsoft defended the tablet during a question and answer session on Reddit this week, claiming that providing better battery performance would have resulted in a device that was too thick and heavy. But upon digging deeper into that Q&A session, AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski found that Microsoft may have a plan to address battery longevity. More →

BGR reviewed the Microsoft Surface Pro earlier this week, and we were impressed overall. The design is terrific, the performance is vastly improved compared to the first Surface, and the display is gorgeous. Battery life is one of the device’s weaker points, however. We found that the Surface lasted between 4 and 4.5 hours on a single charge with moderate usage, but some other sites reported battery life in the mid to high three-hour range. Microsoft’s (MSFT) head of the Surface team Panos Panay took to Reddit on Wednesday to field questions about the Surface Pro from members, and he addressed the device’s battery performance during his “Ask Me Anything” session on the site. More →

There is a serious problem with both the Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT versions of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Surface tablets: the company’s new operating systems are much more bloated than comparable platforms. The 32GB Surface with Windows RT only offers 20GB of usable space and unfortunately, the higher-end Surface Pro is even worse. As confirmed by The Verge, the 128GB and 64GB models of Microsoft’s upcoming tablet only offer 83GB and 23GB of free space, respectively. This could be a big problem for Microsoft and will undoubtedly be taken into consideration when people are looking to purchase the Surface or Surface Pro.

Microsoft’s (MSFT) Surface has, by all indications, been a dud in the consumer market so far. And while it’s unlikely that Microsoft’s $899 Surface Pro will do any better in the consumer market, one analyst thinks that it could be a modest success in the business market. Per AllThingsD, Davenport & Co. analyst Drake Johnstone says that the Surface Pro could appeal to companies looking to buy ultra-portable computers for their workers that are capable of functioning as fully loaded personal computers. In fact, Johnstone is so bullish on the Surface Pro in the workplace that he thinks Microsoft could sell “a few million” of the tablet-PC hybrids. More →