Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
...The Surface Pro has such a short battery life and small screen, my wife got my Surface RT, so I need something.
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Without wanting to "defend" Surface Pro (after all, we all have different needs):
The
battery life is ca. 5 hours.
That's about the same I have on MacBook Air or Google Chromebook Pixel.
For a tablet, especially compared to iPad's 10+ hours, this may seem short.
But compared to notebooks, I think it's in a quite common range.
Of course, I kind of contradict myself here:
On one hand, I constantly argue I'm using Surface Pro mainly in tablet mode.
On the other hand, now I compare to the battery life of notebooks.
Anyway...
If I rank Surface Pro amongst hybrids, without an additional battery (like some hybrids have in their keyboard), it's on par re. battery life.
If I compare to tablets, it's slightly below. But if I compare realistically, it's actually not that much behind.
Yes, when browsing the web or some other simple task, I can do twice the time on iPad.
But in all fairness: How many tasks are simply not possible on iPad?
Basically, my iPad mini lasts so long because I only use it for some special tasks, but not permanently.
The long and short of it:
5 hours of battery life sounds rather short. But it's in the range of notebooks and in those 5 hours I simply can do much more on it than on most other tablets.
From my own experience: You could consider Dell Latitude 10. Here you simply could exchange the battery. I rarely do it, but it's great to have the option.
Re. "
small screen":
Only you know your demands of course.
But personally, I didn't experience any limitations here so far.
Yes, I never would work on huge Excel files on Surface Pro, for example.
But I wouldn't do that on my MacBook Air either.
I carefully thought about it and eventually bought the 11" MacBook Air instead of the 13" or even a bigger on.
For mobility, I very much prefer the 11". That's about the biggest one that still fits in my writing case or suitcase (the smaller one I take for shorter trips).
If I don't care about mobility, I can bring more or less everything and then a MacBook Air or Surface Pro would be the wrong choice anyway.
Meaning:
In my case, I have lots of mobile units. All 11" or smaller. In addition, at home I have my iMac.
Would I need a bigger unit "on the road", I'd simply buy a notebook. I don't see the benefit of a huge tablet >10". Or a hybrid, for that matter. Will you ever use a 13" unit as a tablet? I honestly can't imagine that. Try to hold the 11" Sony Duo as a tablet and you'll see what I mean.