Review Surface Pro 11 hands-on review: OLED beauty, Snapdragon power

You have the LCD and oled showing the same battery life when I would have thought oled would be more power hungry. Is this potentially a misprint and if not, why do you think this is
 
You have the LCD and oled showing the same battery life when I would have thought oled would be more power-hungry. Is this potentially a misprint and if not, why do you think this is
OLED is typically more power efficient than LCD as it doesn't need to backlight the whole screen all the time. Microsoft are still quoting the same time between both models though, and I'm pretty sure the OLED model even has a slightly bigger battery.
 
Here's my issue: Because it's basically Windows running on a simulated environment, I have zero trust that it can handle what I need it to do. I currently have both an SP6 and SP7, both the i7 variety. I use the SP7 to run my Digital Audio Workstation software along with a number of virtual instruments (I'm in a band). I cannot have a tablet that's going to choke when I put multiple layers of .vst's in play and am in the middle of a performance. As I typically discover, I'm an outlier when it comes to Microsoft's products---and Microsoft doesn't give a squat about people like me as customers (or they would have kept Windows 8 and Windows Phone and Zune and Cortana). But the bottom line is, my SP7 is showing its age, and at some point I expect the SSD to just stop functioning. The SP11 looks interesting enough, but I simply have seen ZERO analysis on how it handles non-traditional, non-mundane workload like audio processing.
 
Most likely it is NOT fanless. I had all three models and they all seem to have a fan on them. Usually you wouldn't need them but if you put it in an enclosed space or left it with the keyboard on and flat, you'll hear the fans go on at some point. Stand it upright and maybe the fan comes on. It's better than throttling although like all other versions of Windows, you can change the fan mode to passive instead of active.. it will throttle to cool down.... but you can barely hear the fan anyway.
 
Here's my issue: Because it's basically Windows running on a simulated environment, I have zero trust that it can handle what I need it to do. I currently have both an SP6 and SP7, both the i7 variety. I use the SP7 to run my Digital Audio Workstation software along with a number of virtual instruments (I'm in a band). I cannot have a tablet that's going to choke when I put multiple layers of .vst's in play and am in the middle of a performance. As I typically discover, I'm an outlier when it comes to Microsoft's products---and Microsoft doesn't give a squat about people like me as customers (or they would have kept Windows 8 and Windows Phone and Zune and Cortana). But the bottom line is, my SP7 is showing its age, and at some point I expect the SSD to just stop functioning. The SP11 looks interesting enough, but I simply have seen ZERO analysis on how it handles non-traditional, non-mundane workload like audio processing.
It's going to be better than SQ1, SQ2, or SQ3. Audio processing isn't very intense and even doing something like mass encoding FLACs to WMA Pro 10 like I did once, it goes very fast even on an SQ3. Video encoding worked as well as it did on an M1 on the SQ3.... so hopefully you'll get an ARM64 native compiled app... but for all the APIs and DLLs that are Windows based, they'll be using ARM64 native code on those so all apps won't run through the Prism layer.
 
It is good to run benchmark, but sucks in many real applications as many of real applications are not run natively. Many software (not game) will have to use simulator). Many games even cannot be launched. It takes decades to build up ecosystem. Probably, will take at least 3-5 chip iterations and some serious commitment from large software companies. Most of consumers will not buy Snapdragon x-elite laptops for the potential troubles.
 
It is good to run benchmark, but sucks in many real applications as many of real applications are not run natively. Many software (not game) will have to use simulator). Many games even cannot be launched. It takes decades to build up ecosystem. Probably, will take at least 3-5 chip iterations and some serious commitment from large software companies. Most of consumers will not buy Snapdragon x-elite laptops for the potential troubles.
Most consumers aren't gamers. The main target market for this class of PC is business users, and almost none of the laptops they use today are gaming laptops, so it doesn't matter if the games are not native. As long as the performance matches the current crop of (non-gaming) integrated graphics, business users won't care about gaming performance which will be good enough for casual gaming anyway.

As for the rest of the software, it really only matters that the core apps are native -- the web browsers, Abode's Creative Cloud, MS Office, and other creative software that needs the performance so it isn't a drag on the user's normal workflow.

At least 95% of all Windows non-gaming software is only used by a small minority of users and as long as it runs bug-free with the emulation layer, the performance will be fine on these ARM systems for the vast majority of user cases. The vast majority of business users really only need their favorite browser, office suite, and messaging software to run natively. Bespoke business software (e.g. financial management tools, etc.) are more and more being run in the cloud and will run on any compatible browser ported to ARM.

It's not going to take 3-5 chip iterations for a critical mass of software to run well on the ARM version of Window. The Snapdragon X ARM chips are already fast enough this generation. Apple will probably keep the bragging rights in terms of raw performance, but their M3 processor in the new iPads is ridiculously overpowered for the tasks it's used for.

We're still in early adopter mode for sure, but the sink-or-swim period isn't 3-5 years, it's more like 18-24 months because the hardware is ready and the necessary software support (native and emulated) is almost there too.
 
The Microsoft Surface Pro 11 adds Qualcomm Snapdragon X power under the hood and an optional OLED screen that looks lovely in person. Here's our hands-on report.

Surface Pro 11 hands-on review: OLED beauty, Snapdragon power : Read more
I just bought the Amazon-exclusive Surface Pro 11 OLED X-Elite chip for $999 .. it's now worth the buy and I don't believe this deal will be up for long. I just ordered it and I'm glad I waited for the black friday deals. Here's the link if you haven't found it yet: https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Surface-Touchscreen-Snapdragon-Exclusive/dp/B0CXKXNNPX/
 
Last edited by a moderator: