Review Microsoft Surface Pro 9 (SQ3) Review: Arm Takes Center Stage

[Admin]

By putting Arm into the Surface Pro 9, Microsoft seems to be suggesting Windows on Arm is just as good as it is on x86 systems, though performance still lacks a bit.

Microsoft Surface Pro 9 (SQ3) Review: Arm Takes Center Stage : Read more

 

[cknobman]

Unless Microsoft offers consumers a compelling reason to buy ARM based devices then they will never take off.
As it stands they are not cheaper, dont offer better battery life, and slower than x86 laptops/tablets.

 

[PlaneInTheSky]

long battery life and a vivid display

Great.

At this point I won't even consider a x86 laptop.

ARM was designed from the ground up to be battery efficient. ARM laptops simply have way better battery life, and that's always been the most important for me for laptops.

The only real argument against ARM is compatibility of games. Which is a fine argument but one that is getting weaker over time. Many PC Gaming titles already support ARM since they run on ARM-based Nintendo Switch or Apple systems. It is also much easier to just port your title to ARM than it used to be.

I would have been happy as a clam with an ARM-based Steam deck with good battery life, but Steam went with x86 and ended up with a Steam deck that needs noisy fans, a giant battery, and barely lasts 2 or 3 hours in 3D titles. So I never bought the device.

 

[Filippo_P]

What a disappointing review.

What I would have expected from this review were charts and other performance metrics putting it in comparison with the Intel version especially for the emulation part, to understand how much you lose compared to it.

Instead, only numbers for the Arm version or for other Arm devices were provided.

What am I gaining from the Arm Surface compared to the Intel one? What am I losing? After reading the review, I still don't get the full picture.

 

[xyster]

Personally, I don't like the idea of a split x86/ARM Windows-world -- it means larger install files, more compatibility issues, and more headaches for developers. I have zero interest in supporting it as a developer until it's either mass adopted, or my compiler workflow just one day automatically starts creating ARM binaries.

Will I also some day be forced to use the Windows app store as well then? Because I am also definitely not going to be doing that-- not a chance. ( I also don't push apps to the macOS store ; direct download only )

There is also a stack of obsolete ARM systems here that are useless because support ran out after a few years; no more updates, no more apps, and so no more use. This also includes Chromebooks and mobile phones. ARM systems just don't seem to have the legacy support that x86 systems have, so when the manufacturer decides it's over, it's done. Not so with x86 so far, where I still have multiple Intel 4770K systems running Windows 10 without issue. Is this issue being addressed?

Oddly, even my 2012 Macbook mini was fine until the M1-chips came out, and then it also stopped getting updates; I kept that system upgraded with SSDs and RAM, and it worked well as a headless Mac server for a decade.

I get that ARM is arguably more power efficient than x86, and I suppose Microsoft wants to compete with the M1 chips, the Windows laptops I do buy are beasts with Nvidia GPUs. If I want something running ARM, I'll use a budget Chromebook that I can just throw away in a few years for something newer.

So yeah, zero appeal to me.

 

[blargh4]

So it has battery life that's nothing special, and compatibility issues on top of CPU performance that's several generations behind the Intel offering? Why would I want this?

 

[xyster]

What a disappointing review.

What I would have expected from this review were charts and other performance metrics putting it in comparison with the Intel version especially for the emulation part, to understand how much you lose compared to it.

Instead, only numbers for the Arm version or for other Arm devices were provided.

What am I gaining from the Arm Surface compared to the Intel one? What am I losing? After reading the review, I still don't get the full picture.

According to pcmag,

Cinebench R23 = 2676 (Thinkpadf X13s) vs 12,363 (HP 14 Pavilion)
Battery Life = 18:23 (thinkpad) vs 9:30 (HP Pavilion)

Bleh

 

[PlaneInTheSky]

Personally, I don't like the idea of a split x86/ARM Windows-world -- it means larger install files, more compatibility issues, and more headaches for developers.

Porting from x86 to ARM, today, is incredibly straightforward and simple.

The compiler simply does all the work. That's why you see so many small indie developers port their x86 PC games to Nintendo Switch which runs on ARM.

If you write horrible code or have some extremely optimized Assembly dll file, it is not that simple, but for 99% of projects the only thing you need to do is compile for your ARM platform and you're done.

 

[-Fran-]

Can I install Android in this? Linux at least?

Windows with ARM sounds as enticing as warm vomit.

Regards.

 

[xyster]

Porting from x86 to ARM, today, is incredibly straightforward and simple.

The compiler simply does all the work. That's why you see so many small indie developers port their x86 PC games to Switch which runs on ARM.

If you write horrible code or have some extremely optimized Assembly dll file, it is not that simple, but for 99% of projects the only thing you need to do is compile for your ARM platform and you're done.

Thank you for the reply. I'm just being grumpy, as historically these transitions have always punished early adopters and developers --ie: me.

I'll make you a deal though, if Microsoft is willing to ship me a Windows 11 ARM dev kit / laptop, so I can debug and test my builds with, I'll start making more of an effort. As an open-source developer though I can't justify buying the hardware as is. I

Mind you, I have blindly added ARM support, along with Windows x86/amd64, Mac Intel/ARM, RaspberryPi, and Linux support,.to one of my open-source projects already. It is a simple Electron.js app, and was fairly easy to enable, but I've also never had a user use the Windows ARM build yet that I know of -- nor have I been able to test it. It does make the bundled exe even larger in size; 3x larger than just a dedicated AMD64 build, which is hosted on Github.

For my other open-source project using hardware video encoders, even on the Mac front it's been a painful transition. I'm not prepared to spend the time debugging that hot mess to work with Snapdragon yet, nor can I even really test it yet, so it will have to wait.

 

[xyster]

Can I install Android in this? Linux at least?

Windows with ARM sounds as enticing as warm vomit.

Regards.

I like the idea of Linux on this system actually. I run Ubuntu on Arm currently (Jetson), and if the drivers are available for Lenovo, it almost sounds like a fun system to hack on.. although with CUDA, I'd be wary about trying to do actual machine learning