Yep, it does.

This is not SP3-specific, but the closest existing thread I could find. I'm giving up on my original Surface Pro after ~10 months with it. I've enjoyed my time with it but my main complaints revolve around the weight/thickness making it difficult to comfortably use as a true consumption tablet... I quickly relegated it to my single-device for travel, but I quickly tired of the the awkwardness of using the kickstand+keyboard on even domestic F tray tables, much less in Y. Also, neither Windows or Chrome do a great job with scaling to 1080p on small devices, so Chrome actually looks MUCH better on a lower-resolution display. I held on to the Surface Pro for so long because of the amount of power it packed into its small form factor but I realized I just don't need that kind of power on the road.

I had a Asus T100TA for ~6 months prior to the Surface Pro and had no complaints with it from a usability standpoint for consumption and basic office/email/word/ppt/excel, only with the build-quality (mainly the cheap plastic of the back/body). The revised T100TAM now has an aluminum build, eliminating my only real complaint. The hybrid form factor is much more stable and allows the device to sit further back on a tray-table, and the Atom Z-series devices are much thinner/lighter allowing for much easier one-handed use as a tablet. As such, I'm going back to a better (and cheaper) form factor for both travel and casual consumption, especially since these devices are starting to be a bit more polished in the design & materials department.

I am using a SP2 and generally like it although I am concerned that with battery wear over time, there is no way to replace the battery.

I bought my wife a Acer Aspire Switch 10 and I have to say if they made that form factor with a larger drive and faster processor it would be great.

Screen magnetically detaches to tablet form. When attached to keyboard, it feels just like a laptop.

A real killer setup would be the larger drive, faster processor and in the base a larger SSD and/or more power. The Asus T100 has, for certain models, a drive in the keyboard but I do think the look/finish of the Switch 10 is better. Frankly, I had a couple of ASUS early mini laptops and was not impressed with their quality. We went to Acer and have been pleased with their build. That may have changed over time.

There are hidden settings for HiDPI displays in both Chrome and Firefox, which improve them significantly -- although in general, I find Firefox does a much better job of it.

While I can't stand IE, it has had native HiDPI support for a while, without the need to futz with hidden features.

Any guidance on the hidden HiDPI settings for Chrome? I prefer Chrome, but in its native form on the Pro 2 I cannot stand it.

I'm now on the dev channel (which if you're willing to deal with a development browser, is even easier, as the support is native) Version 42.0.2288.6 dev-m (64-bit)
http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel
I've found this much more stable than the Firefox nightlies. Note, don't use Canary. I'm not sure if Beta has the hidpi changes.

On older builds (in particular while I had a X1 Carbon 2 through work, which had a 14" QHD display), I used the command line flags shown here:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/how-to/how-...pport-windows/
The experience was not super, but it was enough to prevent it being entirely useless.

There may also be a setting in chrome://flags in some versions.

--

On Firefox (although this seems to also be unnecessary in the newest Nightly builds) the setting in about://config is "layout.css.devPixelsPerPx" -- setting that to 2 (for example) would double the size of everything while leaving font rendering smooth.

Thank you, I will give this a try.

My new SP3 has had extensive travel use over past couple weeks and have to say I'm disappointed in the battery life. So I'm looking at picking up external battery.

Any experience or advice would be appreciated, as my knowledge lies elsewhere

I know I have to have buy the SP3 adapter cable and am looking at this one:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PQUCE9O/...ing=UTF8&psc=1

My primary consideration for the external battery is weight and size, as long as it can charge the SP3 one time, while I am using it, and can also charge my Samsung S4. Also, of course, a reliable product line.

These are the three I'm looking at. The RAV and Power Castle apparently both weigh about 1.47 pounds, at 7.3 x 4.9 x 0.8 inches. I couldn't find specs for Qi

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A3DNJ55ZGSMH7I

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A2KUZVNQ9LP7N9

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A2KV19AYUKS3X0

Thanks,
Doris

Hi Doris,
My Surface Pro 3 has exceptional battery life. Might be a good idea to check a couple of things:

1 - Reboot your machine every day. Sometimes software gets memory leaks or gets in a loop and eats processor cycles. A driver that's off the rails may prevent components of the machine from sleeping, and using excess power. Some people never or rarely reboot, but rebooting is the single best thing you can do for your machine. At the end of every day, before walking away from the machine for the day, the last thing I do is a reboot.

2 - Check your power settings, make sure it's set to Balanced. If it's on High Performance, it will suck the battery pretty fast.

3 - Make sure you're not running with the screen at full brightness all the time. Full brightness seriously impacts battery life.

4 - In "Balanced" mode, check your settings. I have my computer set to shut off the screen after 5 minutes, and sleep after 15. Your computer may be staying awake even after the screen shuts off.

5 - If you're not on Wifi, shut wifi off. Wifi eats battery as well. That said, I can go almost all day with Wifi on. Shutting Wifi off helps with battery life, but it's not a single cause of battery drain.

6 - If you have third party antivirus, disable your virus protection for a little while and see what that does to battery life. Some antivirus software never sleep and is always running full bore, even when you're not connected to anything. If that makes a big difference, see if there's settings changes that may reduce battery impact.

If all that doesn't help, there may be something wrong with your battery. Have it checked at a Microsoft store.

Thanks PilotAlan for the tips. I admit, I was quite surprised when it hit 37% with 3 hours of use. The whole point of getting rid of my notebook was to lighten-up my carry-on. So the external battery is a bit counterproductive in that regard.

Regarding your advice:

1. I do total shutdown at least when I'm done for the day. Way back had a ThinkPad that wouldn't wake up from sleep, has left me a little sleep-gun-shy.

2. Is set at Balanced.

3. Brightness is at about 60%

4. Your settings would work for me so I adjusted to same.

5. I do try to turn off the WiFi when not needed, but admittedly do forget on occasion (although not yesterday/day before)

6. I have Norton Security and will check into that. You made good points.

Now, they were early morning flights and because I was working I was using the lighted keyboard, is that a significant power drain? Although, later in the day the "power remaining" seemed to fall off before my eyes.

Does the using the pen add to excessive drain?

Thanks,
Doris

Thanks Doris.
I use the pen all the time. I take handwritten notes in oneNote all day, I've never noticed a difference. Same with the lighted keyboard.

It sounds to me like one of three things. Either there's a piece of rogue software running like mad in the background, there's a virus running like mad in the background, or there's something wrong with your Surface.

The first thing I would do is refresh your PC using Windows refresh. Then it will re-download all updates and refresh all drivers.
Second, do a full, deep virus scan.
Third, if those don't find anything, there's probably a problem with the battery. Get it checked and/or replaced at a Microsoft store.

Once more, thanks PilotAlan. Does a mall kiosk count as a Microsoft Store? I think that would be my only option in Des Moines area.

I did as you suggested and things are the same. I have the i7, 8GB, 256GB SP3. Last night I used it continuously finishing up a work project - working between 4 or 5 different Word files open simultaneously, Windows photo previewer, Adobe Acrobat XI standard, and for a short time Photoshop - my usual work desktop minus Outlook.

I turned off Bluetooth, went into airplane mode, turned off all the components for Norton Security I could turn off, and cranked down the brightness to 30%.

Ended up with 5 hours before battery died, so 20% battery usage per hour.

I know Photoshop is a CPU hog, not sure how big a CPU hog Word is - maybe 5 hours of continuous "office" work is average? From a bit of researching online I gather that might just be it?

Curious to know your thoughts and usage patterns in comparison. I live quite a ways from the Microsoft kiosk - might be worth the trip if my battery drain is an outlier ... assuming, of course, the kiosk employee has knowledge/skill/ability to evaluate this !

Thanks again,
Doris

I think, based on what you said you are doing, that level of battery drain is probably to be expected. You're basically running the machine flat out the whole time, it never has the opportunity to use any of its power management tricks.

For that level of use (Photoshop, Photo previewer, Acrobat, and multiple Word docs all simultaneously), I think 5 hours is OK, but I don't know for sure.

Here's one thing you can do. Do a refresh, which will let Windows clear all the updates and patches, clean the registry and subsystems. Let Windows re-download and install all the updates and patches. It's always a good idea to clean the system once in a while.
The downside is that anything installed from CD/DVD media will have to be reinstalled (Office, Acrobat, Photoshop), but all your files (docs, photos) are preserved.
But if there's any more battery life to be had, that's the way to find out.

Thanks again for your help. I had done the refresh (new one for me !) and it didn't seem to change anything, so you are probably right that 5 hours is consistent with my flat-out use pattern.

PilotAlan, I very much appreciate you taking the time to help me figure this out.

Doris

Love the SP3 and would do backflips if I could get 5 hours. You should be able to get at least a full Westbound transcon out of it which was not close for me. I have not done all the suggestions, here, but I did get the Intocircuit� Power Castle PC26000. It's not light, but it is compact. I get at least one full charge out of it, and it gives me the freedom to travel that I wish the SP3 could deliver on its own. I popped for the warranty, so a trip back to the Microsoft store makes sense, too. Thanks for the suggestion.