Microsoft pumps up Surface tablets with faster chips, longer battery life

Microsoft launched both of its next-generation Surface 2 tablets Monday, promising significant improvements in performance, graphics and battery life on both the Surface 2 and the Surface Pro 2.

As expected, Microsoft also announced seven peripherals, including a Power Cover and a new docking station, which gives the Surface the power of something close to a workstation PC, according to Panos Panay, the Microsoft vice president in charge of the company’s tablet efforts.

Photo: Caitlin McGarryThe new Surface Pro 2 will come with an Intel Haswell processor and will be able to process 6K raw video data.

“Surface has been one of the best products that Microsoft has ever built,” Panay told attendees at a New York launch event, adding that Microsoft is making its tablets even better. “Reinventing the wheel is not the goal. Making it better is.”

Surface will cost $449, and will be available in 32GB and 64GB configurations. Surface Pro 2 will come in 64GB and 128GB configurations with 4GB of RAM as well as 256GB and 512GB configurations with 8GB of RAM, with prices starting at $899. A new Touch Cover—Touch Cover 2—will cost $120, and a new Type Cover will sell for $130.

Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 2

Microsoft will take preorders on Tuesday, for delivery on Oct. 22.

Microsoft was rightfully proud of the original Surface tablet when it first debuted in June 2012. Although reporters were only granted a few seconds—if that—with the tablet Monday, the obvious quality of the Surface’s VaporMg casing coupled with the intrigue of Windows running on the ARM processor platform instantly made the Surface a desirable piece of hardware.

Microsoft’s two covers— the Touch Cover and the Type Cover—also took an innovation that Apple had pioneered and radically improved it. (Check out our reviews of the original Surface Pro and the Surface RT.)

The new Surface Pro 2 with docking station and Touch Cover.

A round of grumbling about the Surface soon, er, surfaced, however, when users began playing with the Windows RT operating system and started searching vainly for apps to use with it. Fans of the Surface RT aside, most were awaiting the release of the Surface Pro. When the tablet was released in January 2013, PCWorld dubbed the Surface Pro“the Surface the world had been waiting for.” And it was—just not the whole world. In reality, just a very small part of it.

And then the warning bells started to ring: Microsoft wrote down the value of the Surface inventory by $900 million, part of a $150 discount applied to the Surface RT and $100 taken off the price of the Surface Pro that were made permanent. The Surface RT will remain, with a $349 price tag for 32GB and $449 for 64GB, while the Pro costs $799 for 64GB and $899 for 128GB.

In the weeks leading up to Monday’s launch, PCWorld—among others—opined about what Microsoft would need to accomplish with the Surface 2. Reports also mostly pegged what Microsoft had planned—a refresh of the tablet using an Intel “Haswell” microprocessor, more RAM, and some new, intriguing covers.

The first-generation Surface was the fastest product that users ever tried, Panay said, and the fastest in its class. Surface Pro 2 is faster than 95 percent of all laptops on the market today, Microsoft contends.

A Surface Pro 2 with a new Type Cover

Graphics now run 50 percent faster than the prior generation; the performance improved by 20 percent to “lightning-fast speeds,” Panay said. Dolby-qualified speakers were also added to improve the sound quality.

Panay unveiled an improved kickstand, with “better angles.” It's a dual-mode kickstand that will allow users to angle it back farther. “Sometimes subtlety is the most powerful force,” he said.

“This is something that will change the product in ways you cannot expect,” Panay said, referring to the device’s new “lap-ability”.

Microsoft also addressed the tablet's battery life. With the new Surface Power Cover, which has a 30 watt-hour battery embedded inside, the Surface Pro 2 will have 2.5 times the battery life of the first Surface Pro—more than 10 hours in total. “Pound for pound, watt for watt, it is the fastest product you can use today,” Panay said.

Power Cover will have an estimated retail price of $200 and has a projected release date of early 2014.

Photo: Caitlin McGarryThe Surface Docking Station unveiled at a press event Monday adds I/O functionality to Microsoft’s Surface tablet.

As expected, Microsoft also launched a docking station, the Surface Docking Station, with adds I/O functionality to the Surface tablet. The docking station can power two separate monitors for a total display resolution of 3840 x 2160, and it includes three USB 2.0 ports, a USB 3.0 port, a MiniDisplayPort connector that will power two displays, ethernet, and Audio In, Audio Out, plus power. “We now have a workstation PC built in” to the Surface tablet, Panay said.

The Docking Station for Surface Pro will have an estimated retail price of $200 and has a projected release date of early 2014.

Microsoft showed off video being produced by the RED camera, manipulating raw 6K footage. Moviemakers can take the tablet to the set itself, Panay said.

Microsoft also launched Type Cover 2, available in four colors—cyan (blue), magenta (pink), purple, and black. “It’s clear that input makes you productive,” Panay said.

The latest Type Cover is one millimeter thinner the overall model, but with a better key switch that makes Type Cover 2 almost as thin as the original Touch Cover.  And it’s silent, he said. Even better, it features a backlit keyboard that automatically dims after about six seconds—then relights when the user uses it again.

Photo: Caitlin McGarryThe second generation of Type Covers ditches the all-black stylings of their predecessors with new cyan, magenta, and purple color options.

Panay also launched Touch Cover 2, a 2.5 mm-thick cover that is a millimeter thinner than previous generations, and is also backlit. The number of sensors inside the Touch Cover has been beefed up from 80 sensors to 1092, to improve the feel of the device.

“What does that mean? It means you can’t miss a key,” Panay said. Users can even do gestures on top of the new Touch Cover.

The Surface Remix Project cover

Finally, there’s the Surface Remix Project, a cover specifically designed for DJs. The cover is also pressure-sensitive and lets you use your tablet like a drum kit.

But what about the Windows RT-powered Surface 2? Microsoft also redesigned it. “It’s not the changes that everyone wanted, but it has the change that people need,” Panay said.

Microsoft’s Surface 2

“It’s the fastest product that I’ve used relative to a personal tablet,” Panay said. The CPU speed has increased “dramatically,” and Microsoft doubled the speed of the Wi-Fi as well as the speed of the memory. Microsoft even added a Surface logo to the back of it.

The Surface Pro 2 and the Surface 2 share the same screen. Battery life has increased to 12 hours, 25 percent better than the original Surface, Panay said. But Microsoft also made the Surface 2 lighter and thinner. An HDMI output allows users to throw games on the large display. “I’ll tell you how it’s even sexier, because it is,” he said.

Photo: Caitlin McGarryYou’’ll find more apps in the Windows Store for the Surface tablets this time around, Microsoft says—more than 100,000 in fact.

Part of the sexiness, Panay said, derives from Windows 8.1, the new version of the Windows OS. Panay said that the number of apps have increased in the Windows Store, to more than 100,000. And the most powerful app is Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Users will receive free international calling with Skype and access to Skype hotspots free for a year. Additionally, Microsoft put a third sensor in the front of the tablet to improve the look of Skype callers. The sensor will filter additional light through the product to “light” the maker of the Skype call.

Panay also highlighted the power of Microsoft’s services, including SkyDrive, which Microsoft will beef up: Surface buyers will receive a free, additional 200GB of SkyDrive for two years.

Will the Surface 2 be the saving grace of Microsoft’s hardware aspirations? Panay hopes so. “Go get it,” he said of the new Surface 2 devices. “It’s a beast.”

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BlackBerry announces Z30 smartphone with 5-inch display and large battery

BlackBerry today announced the Z30 smartphone with a 5-inch display and a larger battery for 25 hours of mixed usage.

A BlackBerry spokeswoman said U.S. carriers will announce pricing and availability soon, while a rollout in the UK and Middle East will begin next week. A company statement said nothing more than U.S. release would be during "the holiday season."

[ Also on InfoWorld: BlackBerry sale might not include smartphones. | Get expert advice about planning and implementing your BYOD strategy with InfoWorld's 29-page "Mobile and BYOD Deep Dive" PDF special report. | Keep up on key mobile developments and insights with the Mobilize newsletter. ]

The announcement comes just two days before Apple and wireless carrier partners begin sales of the new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. Also, recent reports indicate that parts of the BlackBerry business could be sold -- although without the smartphone division -- potentially leaving support for Z30 buyers in limbo.

The Z30's 2880 mAh battery is the largest ever for a BlackBerry smartphone. The phone benefits from battery enhancements in an update of the OS to BlackBerry 10.2 and offers 25 hours of mixed use, which includes up to 18 hours of talk time. BlackBerry advised that actual battery results may vary.

The 10.2 refinements include a new BlackBerry Priority Hub that provides one place to manage conversations and notifications. Also, BlackBerry Messenger has been refined to offer a preview of any message when it arrives in whatever app is being used. The 10.2 version will be available to the already-released Z10, Q10 and Q5 smartphones in mid-October, subject to carrier approvals.

BlackBerry said the Z30 also has new Paratek antenna technology to dynamically tune reception to give a better connection in low signal areas. The result, BlackBerry claimed, will be faster data transfer and fewer dropped calls in low signal areas, but the improvements weren't quantified.

The 5-inch display is based on vivid Super AMOLED technology used in Samsung smartphones. The resolution is 1280 x 720 pixels with 295 pixels per inch.

A 1.7 GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro processor is supported by a quad core Adreno 320 graphics processor. There is 2GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage and a microSD slot for expansion. An 8-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front camera are included.

Wireless connections include 4G LTE with global roaming bands, near-field communications (NFC), Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy and 802.11 a/b/g/n.

The Z30 device has much of the same shape and contouring as the Z10, which comes with a smaller 4.2-inch display. The Z30 weighs nearly 6 ounces and is 5.5 x 2.8 x .37 inches in size. With those dimensions, the Z30 is slightly larger in every measure than the Z10 and just over an ounce heavier than the Z10's 4.8 ounces.

This article, BlackBerry announces Z30 smartphone with 5-inch display, large battery, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His email address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

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Read more about smartphones in Computerworld's Smartphones Topic Center.

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Dell Latitude 3330 review: A budget laptop with great battery life but lousy performance

Dell Latitude 3330 $561.00 Sleek and lightweight, the budget-priced Dell Latitude 3330 makes a good first impression. But it has difficulty running even the most routine multimedia—much less games—because of its bare-bones...

If someone tells you “Dude! You’re gettin’ a Dell!” in reference to the Latitude 3330, run away. Dell makes plenty of good computers, but this isn’t one of them.

Admittedly, the Latitude 3330 didn’t burst into flames or poke anyone’s eye out during our testing. But you have many better choices in the same price range. Though one of the five budget notebooks in this roundup (HP’s Pavilion TouchSmart 11z-e000) delivered even lower performance than this one—probably because it has an even less powerful CPU than the Dell’s 1.5GHz Intel Core i3-2375m—the HP also costs $110 less than the Latitude 3330 and has a ten-point touchscreen. The Dell’s 13.3-inch, 1366-by-768-pixel display doesn’t support touch, though its trackpad does support simple gestures such as two-finger scrolling.

ROBERT CARDINDell’s Latitude 3330 doesn't deliver the performance its price tag warrants.

The Latitude has only 4GB of DDR/1600 memory, but an open and readily accessible slot accommodates a second module to double its memory. Its puny 320GB, 5400-rpm hard drive is similarly easy to access and upgrade. And this is one of only two notebooks in our roundup to include a removable and upgradable battery (the other one again being the HP Pavilion).

One component that won’t be easy to swap out is the Dell Wireless 1504 single-band (2.4GHz), 1x1, 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter, which delivers a physical link rate of just 150 megabits per second. The laptop doesn’t provide Bluetooth support, either. But it does have a gigabit ethernet interface.

Unlike most of the notebooks in this price range, the Latitude 3330’s chassis contains some aluminum elements that render it considerably more rigid than the other machines we looked at. The lid, on the other hand, is rather flimsy, and the display inside doesn’t feature edge-to-edge glass, as most of the others do.

The PCMark 7 Productivity element of our benchmark suite evaluates a system's performance with everyday office tasks.

The Latitude 3330’s display isn’t wide enough to accommodate a deck with both a full-size keyboard and a numeric keypad, but the system’s arrow keys are full-size and not easily mistaken for anything else. Apart from not being backlit, the island-style keyboard is well designed and a joy to type on, delivering firm but springy tactile feedback. The Function keys in the top row play their traditional roles, so you’ll need to hold down the Fn key and tap them to access their alternative assignments, such as controlling a media player.

Benchmark performance

The Latitude 3330 tied for dead last in our Notebook WorldBench 8.1 benchmark. Its overall score of 64 was more than 35 percent slower than our reference Asus VivoBook S550CA. Drilling down into some of the individual benchmarks from that suite, I note that the Dell finished next to last in the PCMark7 Productivity benchmark and the BioShock Infinite test, beating out only the HP Pavilion TouchSmart 11z-e000.

Our Notebook WorldBench 8.1 suite includes a broad array of benchmarks for evaluating a notebook's performance.

Connectivity and conclusion

Dell broke the pattern of Intel-powered laptops providing only one USB 3.0 port. The Latitude 330 boasts two, plus one USB 2.0 port that can charge a device whether the computer is awake or asleep. It doesn’t have an optical drive, but its media card reader supports both SD and MMC media.

ROBERT CARDINThe Dell Latitude 3330 is one of the lighter laptops we evaluated.

Dell follows the crowd by providing HDMI and VGA video outputs. Because the Latitude’s Wi-Fi adapter isn’t an Intel model, the system doesn’t support Intel’s WiDi wireless media-streaming. If your primary concern is long battery life, however, be aware that this machine turned in a first-place finish, running for 5 hours, 13 minutes. And you can quickly pull out a run-down battery and snap in a fresh one to double the laptop’s useful life. But that’s one of the system’s few truly bright spots.

We also reviewed this model as a small-business laptop. You can read that review here.

Editor's note: This notebook was reviewed as part of a roundup for back-to-school season. You can read that story, along with reviews of the five notebooks we compared it to, here.

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BDTI aims to stabilize mobile performance and battery measures

The performance and battery life of smartphones and tablets may not match the numbers provided by device makers, but development is under way on a tool that could bring consistency to the measurement of those metrics.

A “user experience” benchmark being developed by Berkeley Design Technology (BDTI) analyzes system-level efficiency to predict performance and battery life in mobile devices. The ratings will be based on device configurations and usage modes such as Web browsing, video and phone calls.

“When we looked at the kinds of benchmarks people were using, we were horrified at how bad some of them are. We saw an opportunity to improve the situation and provide the industry with better metrics,” said Jeff Bier, president and founder of BDTI.

The overall mobile device experience is what matters and honest measurements are needed for apples-to-apples comparisons with other devices, Bier said. He likened the benchmark to measuring the performance of a car, in which fuel efficiency and overall performance are measured while taking all components into account.

As the mobile industry matures, chip makers and analysts agreed there is a need for more accurate benchmarks.

Mobile-device benchmarking has been in “a horrible state for a decade” and needs to be addressed, said Patrick Moorhead, founder and president of Moor Insights and Strategy.

“Consumers are being misled by some of the benchmarks, resulting in a bad purchase. Many benchmarks are synthetic in nature and most are unable to correlate to real-world usage models. Others are easy to manipulate because they use the honor system to keep code clean from someone gaming the benchmark,” Moorhead said.

Moorhead for more than a decade has been vocal about the need to establish a honest benchmarks in PCs, and is now pushing for metrics that represent real-world mobile usage scenarios.

BDTI is trying to differentiate its benchmark by not measuring the performance of individual components such as CPUs and GPUs, which is common in other tools. One component may not necessarily reflect the performance of a device and the sum of all parts needs to be taken into account when determining power efficiency and user experience, Bier said.

A graphics processor may perform well, but a screen may consume a lot of power to render 3D polygons, Bier said. Or a device may simply lack the bandwidth to deliver the graphics.

“This is one of the perils in isolation, it may look good, but when lapped into a system, it may look different. It you’re a component provider.... you want to test in a whole system with a whole set of applications,” Bier said.

Many benchmarks have been recently abused, and Bier said he was “horrified” by the measurement options available, which partly triggered the development of the new benchmark. He provided the example of the widely used AnTuTu mobile benchmark, which he said lacked transparency.

In the last few months, some benchmarks and performance tools have come under scrutiny for misrepresenting the performance of mobile devices. Chip and reviews site AnandTech raised questions about the results displayed about the GPU specifications and performance in Samsung’s Galaxy S4. AnTuTu last month was exposed by analyst Jim McGregor for showing inconsistent results when comparing the performance of Intel Atom chips to ARM-based chips.

AnTuTu Labs said criticisms from media and companies was unwarranted. It hopes that more people will join in benchmarking work, which could benefit smartphone users, according to a statement on its website posted Wednesday. AnTuTu has been deeply affected by the criticism and said the “slurs” amount to “malicious competition, slander, dissemination [of] false information,” according to the statement.

Existing benchmarks are necessary, but BDTI’s tool could make it more difficult to mask inefficiencies in system implementations, said McGregor, who is principal analyst at Tirias Research.

“I don’t see component benchmarks going away anytime soon, but this should help sway the argument toward system efficiency,” McGregor said, adding that multiple benchmarks are needed so component makers can compare their parts to the competition.

BDTI hopes to release the final benchmark early next year. A no-fee license will be offered to those interested in evaluating the benchmark, but a license fee will apply to those who adopt it.

BDTI has the backing of chip maker Qualcomm and Chinese Internet service provider Tencent. BDTI is trying to attract more members, but chip makers like Intel, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices have not received information about the benchmark. The chip makers said they were interested in evaluating the tool.

BDTI is not interested in establishing an industry-wide consortium around the benchmark, especially with competing parties having their own interests in mind. The company will welcome input on possible improvements, but it will make the final decision on whether to make changes.

“[Consortiums] tend to move slowly. ... In the end they have a much lower chance of designing a valid benchmark because the people participating in the process are motivated by many factors,” Bier said. “We’re not trying to make everyone happy. We’re trying to make a benchmark.”

Bier is respected in the chip industry for his past work on benchmarks for embedded devices. But companies back benchmarks that make their products look good and analysts were skeptical about BDTI’s chances of gaining industry-wide support.

“I think the only way to really improve your chances is to get support through some form of industry group or association. The more influential the organization, the more likely companies will be forced to pay attention,” McGregor said.

Getting companies like AMD, Intel and Nvidia involved would be a good thing, but it will be tough, Moorhead said.

“Intel prefers large, consortium-style benchmarking groups. The last time AMD, Intel and Nvidia worked in a client benchmark consortium on BAPCO, it didn’t end very well, so I’m not necessarily optimistic,” Moorhead said. BAPCO is a PC benchmarking organization that AMD and Nvidia in 2011 left after disagreements over measurement techniques.

But Bier hopes potential members can put aside politics and think of users as they look to evaluate entire mobile platforms and usage models.

“If we can get significant adoption, we can move the needle,” Bier said.

Agam Shah is a reporter for the IDG News Service in New York. He covers hardware including PCs, servers, tablets, chips, semiconductors, consumer electronics and peripherals.
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Researchers send data without battery, transmitter

Engineers at the University of Washington have developed a way to communicate over short distances using devices that don’t require batteries or transmit any signals.

They’ve developed a pair of devices that can successfully exchange data at speeds of up to 10kbps over a distance of up to 1 meter—something that could be useful in applications as varied as wearable devices or building sensors.

The secret to the unusual communications method is the TV broadcasting signals that fill the airwaves of cities and towns across most of the world.

The signals are some of the strongest on the air but reception can be degraded as reflections from buildings, trees and even aircraft affect the signal level received by an antenna. The researchers have taken advantage of the difference reflection can make as the basis for their system.

They’ve developed a couple small devices that can communicate by reflecting or absorbing TV signals.

Both devices are tuned to work over channels 22 to 29 of the UHF TV broadcasting band, and the TV signals are used in two ways, said Joshua Smith, an associate professor at the University of Washington and co-author of a paper on the system.

First, a few 10s or 100s of microwatts can be induced from the over-the-air signals to charge up a small capacitor that acts as a battery for the simple circuitry.

Second, data transmission works by having one of the devices reflect or absorb the received TV signal while the other watches for changes in the received signal level of the TV broadcast. When the first device is reflecting, the level of signal received at the second device should be higher and when it’s absorbing the signal level should fall. By detecting the difference between the two, the system has the basics for binary data transmission.

Data can be sent as fast as 10kbps when the two devices are about 30 centimeters apart. This falls to around 100bps at one meter, but the researchers believe it should be possible to increase the speed and distance with additional error detection.

And because the devices are looking for fast, momentary changes in signal level occurring hundreds of times per second, they are not affected by signal level changes at slower speeds, such as that might happen when a car drives nearby.

Researchers see the system as potentially useful for short-range communication between wearable electronics devices or for sensor networks in construction or agriculture. They have also hypothesized use of the technology in near-field communications applications.

Details of the research were published at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Data Communication 2013 conference in Hong Kong this week. It won the conference’s best-paper award.

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Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service.
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