Surface Pro reviews are in and the results are sobering

Microsoft started sending out review units of its new Surface with Windows 8 Pro tablet (better known as the Surface Pro) several weeks ago, but reviewers were all under a gag order until last night at 6 p.m. Redmond time. That’s when the reviews — and, with a few exceptions, a lot of other stuff — hit the fan.

In many cases, the reviewers explained — and made excuses for — the shortcomings in Windows 8: A Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde interface, inferior-quality built-in apps, flatlined desktop glass, the amazing disappearing Start menu, relentlessly unmanageable and inflexible tiles. You’ve heard the litany before.

That part didn’t surprise me. Windows 8’s shortcomings need to be explained thoroughly to the uninitiated consumer. What surprised me in many reviews was the critical, sometimes bitter tone about the Surface Pro itself. Here’s a brief recap:

• All Things D‘s Walt Mossberg took a swipe at the Surface Pro’s lofty price, then said, “It’s too hefty and costly and power-hungry to best the leading tablet, Apple’s full-size iPad. It is also too difficult to use in your lap.” His informal real-world battery test pegged the Surface Pro at “just under four hours between charges.” The verdict: “Just as the Pro is compromised as a tablet, it’s compromised as a laptop… Some users may not mind the price or bulk of the Surface Pro if it frees them from carrying a tablet for some uses and a laptop for others. But like many products that try to be two things at once, the new Surface Windows 8 Pro does neither as well as those designed for one function.” Similar sentiments echoed through many reviews.
• Anand Shimpi at AnandTech gave a thorough overview of the hardware, as you would expect from AnandTech, and a big thumbs-up on most components, with special laurels for the Wacom digital pen. “This is the first tablet that can truly replace your tablet, notebook and desktop if you want. No compromises, no new apps, and no waiting for Flash to die and HTML5 to take over.” He also heaped kudos on the Win8 design: “The beauty of Surface was in its flexibility. The ability to quickly switch between tablet and notebook usage modes, between content consumption and production. Surface Pro really takes that to the next level.”
• Zach Epstein at BGR had many good things to say about “one of the most intriguing pieces of Windows hardware ever created.” Epstein found the Surface Pro hardware much more responsive than the Surface RT’s. He lamented the tiny screen size, particularly for touch on the old-fashioned desktop (see the Engadget review below). “Apps open quickly and operation is smooth in lightweight apps and heavy-duty apps alike.” He concluded, “On an island, the Surface Pro is a fantastic premium computer that is portable, versatile, and capable. It is priced fairly and it offers novel features that provide clear advantages over rival devices. But in a market where interest in personal computers is declining and Windows 8 is struggling to gain traction, I fear the Surface Pro might not be the right product right now.”
• Business Insider‘s Steve Kovach liked the hardware in general, but tore Microsoft a new orifice on the app side: “When you have a tablet-friendly operating system like Windows 8, you need tablet-friendly apps to go with it. Unfortunately, Windows 8 can’t offer that. Microsoft wouldn’t tell me how many Windows 8 apps are available now, but the number doesn’t matter. What matters is I couldn’t find many of the apps I wanted.” His denouement: “Microsoft created a very strange product category with the Surface Pro, one that will likely only appeal to a slim number of people who want to try a funky form factor but still work in a classic desktop environment when they need to.”
• Dan Ackerman at Cnet started with, “By some standards, the Microsoft Surface Pro is the best-ever hybrid of tablet and laptop, combining a full Windows 8 OS with an Intel Core i5 CPU, and a best-in-class detachable keyboard cover.” The rest of the review is “but …” followed by comparisons with many competitors, from Win8 Ultrabooks (also expensive) to generic Win8/Atom tablets (much cheaper but sluggish) to Windows RT tablets (if you can find any) to iPads and Android tablets (guess which one takes the cake). The Cnet video review ended by saying, “we’re holding out for a future, more polished generation of the device.”

• Engadget reviewer Tim Stevens offered some keen observations about the hardware. For example, the small screen begs for running the old-fashioned desktop at 150 percent scaling for touch and 100 percent for mousing, but to switch between 150 and 100 “it’s five taps and swipes into the Control Panel just to get to this setting and, when you change it, Windows forces you to log out of the computer — thus closing all your currently running apps.” Although the Surface Pro showed great x86 compatibility, the Microsoft keyboards caught a lot of flak. Full-screen video playback kicked off the fan “with a somewhat shrill, high-pitched noise.” Engadget pegged battery life at a miserable 3 hours, 46 minutes, the shortest life of any tested Windows 8 system. The camera? “Photos are incredibly full of noise and the sensor seems to be completely unable to manage contrast.” In summary, “We’re still completely enraptured by the idea of a full-featured device that can properly straddle the disparate domains of lean-forward productivity and lean-back idleness. Sadly, we’re still searching for the perfect device and OS combo that not only manages both tasks, but excels at them. The Surface Pro comes about as close as we’ve yet experienced, but it’s still compromised at both angles of attack.”
• Larry Magid at Forbes put it succinctly: “I find that I can actually out-type the keyboard. … While there will be some people who will be able to use the Surface Pro as a laptop replacement, I’m not one of them.”
• Gizmodo’s Kyle Wagner called the Surface Pro “too much future.” He, too, tore into the screen-size problem: “1080p resolution is so dense on the 10.6-inch screen that desktop programs seem too small, too cramped. Since you’re already going to probably be hunched over your desk and squinting while using this 10.6-inch screen, teeny tiny text isn’t much of a help.” He ended with a lukewarm endorsement if you can “tinker, tinker, tinker.”
• Pete Pachal at Mashable was the only reviewer I found who put the Surface Pro on par with analogous Apple products. “[The Surface Pro has] been a very capable substitute for my actual MacBook Pro/iPad setup. While the Pro still suffers from some of the ongoing problems with Windows 8 — notably the lack of native apps and oddness with how the new user interface sometimes works — the Surface Pro has won me over with its portability and power.” Nonetheless, he went on to say, “If the Surface Pro is stymied by anything, it’s Windows 8 itself. I encountered the same bugginess with the Pro that I’ve been seeing on Windows 8 devices for the last few months.”
• PC World‘s Jon Phillips said Windows Pro “still can’t close the deal.” The thrust: “Microsoft is Microsoft, damn it! It owns Windows. Its war chest is huge. If it can’t conceive, manufacture, and market the hands-down best Windows 8 hybrid in the world, it’s got unfinished business.”
• Vincent Nguyen at Slashgear ended on a positive note: “Think of it as a touchscreen notebook with an optional keyboard and it makes the most sense… Whether that’s the market Microsoft was aiming for, we’re not sure, but the Surface Pro makes considerable sense for the prosumer.”
• Harry McCracken at Time had the most perceptive view from 30,000 feet: “I’m not arguing that Surface with Windows 8 Pro is a machine without a market. If you equip it with an external display, keyboard and mouse, it becomes a serviceable desktop PC, and if you stick to Windows 8 apps, it may be the best Windows 8 tablet so far. If I were shopping for an Ultrabook and my budget allowed, I’d consider it. But used with the applications I tried, Surface Pro doesn’t prove that one computing device can do everything well. Instead, it makes clear that there’s no such thing as no-compromise computing. … That’s not the lesson Microsoft intended, but it’s a useful one nonetheless — for consumers, for the industry, and maybe even for Microsoft.”
• David Pierce at The Verge also complained about the screen density and put it this way: “It’s really tough to use on anything but a desk, and the wide, 16:9 aspect ratio pretty severely limits its usefulness as a tablet anyway. It’s too big, too fat, and too reliant on its power cable to be a competitive tablet, and it’s too immutable to do everything a laptop needs to do. In its quest to be both, the Surface is really neither.”

• Windows Supersite chief Paul Thurrot — who’s been using a Surface Pro as his only computer for the past two weeks — sounded smitten. “I intend to continue using this as my only PC for the foreseeable future. And as I’ve noted in the past, that isn’t just the ultimate compliment I can bestow on a product. It’s also the ultimate endorsement.”
• Wired’s Alexandra Chang nailed another dichotomy: “The Surface Pro looks like a tablet, but it’s not a mobile device. It’s a portable device.”
• Over at ZDNet, Windows sage Ed Bott called Surface Pro “brilliant, quirky, flawed … a real PC with all the strengths and weaknesses that go with it.” He continued with a Q&A analysis designed to show that one size doesn’t fit all — and the Surface Pro may or may not be a good match for specific situations. “This device is filled with brilliant design touches, but it also has enough flaws that many potential buyers will either say no outright or play wait-and-see.” Also on ZDNet, Mary Jo Foley voiced a familiar refrain: “Whatever Microsoft calls the Surface Pro, it is, for all intents and purposes, a PC/Ultrabook. … Microsoft may consider itself among those attempting to reinvent a computing device category by delivery a PC/tablet hybrid. But the Surface Pro isn’t the best on either front.”

That’s the gist of the major online reviews I read today: a supremely well-choreographed Surface Pro gabfest organized most adroitly by Microsoft’s marketing and PR folks, a worthy line item in its billion-dollar Windows 8 budget.

Let’s see how the reviews tally.

In the “enthusiastically two thumbs-up” column, I’d put AnandTech and the Windows Supersite. Score 2.

In the “cautiously positive” tent, we have BGR, Mashable, Slashgear, and ZDNet’s Ed Bott. Score 4.

In the “somewhat negative” category, I’d list Cnet, Forbes, Gizmodo, PC World, and Wired. Score 5.

And I’d put All Things D, Business Insider, Engadget, Time, The Verge, and ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley in the all-important “What in the world are they doing, merging a toaster with a refrigerator?” bucket. Score 6.

Will the Surface Pro sell any better than the Surface RT? For Microsoft’s sake, and the future of the “devices and services” vision, I certainly hope so.

This story, “Surface Pro reviews are in and the results are sobering,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.