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:) User real-world benchmarks (Surface 2)

Telstar1948

Active Member
Well, it has been more than 48 hours since I have had the Surface 2. I bought the device on Saturday evening and today (Monday) was the first chance I got to test the device under my normal work conditions. This is my report on that experience. And, since this is only the first experience, please treat this as provisional.

I took the Surface off the charger at exactly 11:00AM. By 11:30AM, I was at my workplace and had started using the device. At the time I put the charger back on to the Surface it was 11:14PM and the battery icon read 9%. This means the device has been off the charger for 12 hrs 14 minutes.

So, what did I do all day?

Between 11:30AM and 1:30PM, I was working on the device continuously. During that time: the Wifi was on (BT was off since I broke my Wedge mouse the previous night!); Screen brightness was around 40%; I had IE open with 4 tabs running continuously; Mail App was open and was constantly polling 3 email accounts; two Word documents were open and I was working on both simultaneously. During this period of time, I was receiving mails, but not responding to them.

Exactly at 1:30PM, I went for lunch, which lasted for 45 minutes. During this time, I had shut the cover of the device and I had closed the Mail App and IE. Wifi remained on and BT was off.

I returned to my desk at 2:15PM. I spent 15 minutes randomly surfing the Net (again Wifi was on, BT off). At 2:30 PM I was back working with IE (with 4 tabs) open; 2 Word documents open; Mail App open and polling the 3 mail accounts; SkyDrive open and actively being used. Between 2:30 and 4:00PM, I worked on my documents, used the 4 open tabs on IE consistently, SkyDrive was open and I used it consistently; received more mails and replied to about 4-5 of them. During all this time, screen brightness was at the same level as before. I also took two short breaks (5-7 minutes each) during this phase. During the breaks, I left the Surface open with all the apps running, and left the room.

At 4:00PM, I closed all apps, Wifi remained on, and left my workplace. It took me about 20 minutes to reach a café that I normally haunt. By 4:30 (after having ordered my coffee and having brought it to my table), I opened the device, connected to the free public wifi system that the café offers and resumed exactly what I was doing till 4:00PM at my workplace. I continued doing this till about 6:30 after which I shut the device by simply closing the open apps and closing the cover. Wifi remained on.

I walked around a little; met a person I was supposed to meet; went to the store and bought some stuff and was back home by 7:15PM.

On returning home, I opened the device, which had automatically connected to my home wifi network. I opened the Mail app, which continued polling the 3 mail accounts. I had a Word document open to which I was referring to while working on my desktop machine. But I did not actively use the Surface. This continued till 11:14PM at which time I checked the battery icon which, as I mentioned above, read 9% and I put the charger on.

So, the Surface 2 lasted me for 12 hours. Of these 12 hours, 5 hours 30 mins (+/- 15 mins) hours were spent actively working on the device along the lines mentioned above. The rest of the time, the device was on "connected standby" (I think I can call it that).

I think it was quite good, actually! Even if I had worked for another hour on the device - either at my workplace or at the café - I would have had about 7 hours good working time with the device lasting for about 11 hours in total before being put back on the charger. And, remember that this is the first time that I have actually drained the device down to what the battery icon reported (whether accurately or not) to 9%.

I will have another opportunity to test this under even more stringent conditions over the coming weekend when I will be on a 8+hour flight. At that time, I will post again. And, of course, a personal review is still pending - perhaps sometime next week!

Thanks for reading!


Enjoyed your review!

You mentioned you write (author) using your S2. Do you use Scrivener or similar software on your desktop/laptop? Or do you simply do all your writing in Word on the S2? I'm experimenting with several different software packages on my desktop so I'm curious if you fit your S2 into that workflow.
 

kristalsoldier

Well-Known Member
Enjoyed your review!

You mentioned you write (author) using your S2. Do you use Scrivener or similar software on your desktop/laptop? Or do you simply do all your writing in Word on the S2? I'm experimenting with several different software packages on my desktop so I'm curious if you fit your S2 into that workflow.

Thanks. I use Word and sync between devices (S2 and my desktop and for cursory glances on my N720) using SkyDrive. I thought of using a software like Zotero for references etc., but gave up the idea as I created my own system. I also use OneNote for my notes and as a general work space on a per project basis.
 

mrasmussen

New Member
I had a close to 100% battery level device, loaded up hero of might and magic 5 on the plane in Rochester NY. When I reached Atlanta the battery was close to depleted. I probably played for about 1 hour 45 minutes. I fly a lot so I will continue to monitor battery life, but I hope to get better results in the future. I would like to be able to play a game like that for a cross country flight, we'll see.

For reference I have a surface pro 2 with 256gb and 8gb ram.
 
OP
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oion

Well-Known Member
I had a close to 100% battery level device, loaded up hero of might and magic 5 on the plane in Rochester NY. When I reached Atlanta the battery was close to depleted. I probably played for about 1 hour 45 minutes. I fly a lot so I will continue to monitor battery life, but I hope to get better results in the future. I would like to be able to play a game like that for a cross country flight, we'll see.

For reference I have a surface pro 2 with 256gb and 8gb ram.

Hiya--

Wow, that's really short. Did you note the screen brightness and did you have wireless on with background processes? But yours is a Pro 2, so the battery isn't expected to be near the results in this thread for the Surface 2 for mixed and constant usage (unless you really tweaked and pushed it), so you may want to share here: http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/microsoft-surface-pro-2/6505-my-sp2-battery-test.html :)
 
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