Microsoft Surface Pro review

Unsurprisingly, it also made mincemeat of our SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks, finishing in a super fast 232ms. Most tablets complete this test around the 1,000ms mark, including the Microsoft Surface RT, so this is easily one of the most capable tablets we’ve ever seen.

Its Intel HD Graphics 4000 graphics chip gives it an edge over other tablets when it comes to gaming, too. It scored a huge 33,075 in the 3DMark Ice Storm test, which translates to well over 60fps, but it didn’t fare so well when we ran our normal laptop graphics benchmarks. It barely scraped 17fps in Dirt Showdown on High Quality settings at a 720p resolution, and we had to lower the settings to Low and disable the anti-aliasing to get a more playable 32fps. A bit of light gaming is possible, but you’ll want a laptop with a dedicated graphics card if you want to play more demanding titles.

Laptop power in such a small package means you don’t get a lot of battery life

Sadly, packing in so much power takes its toll on the Surface Pro’s battery life. We only managed 5h 33m in our light use laptop test with the screen set to half brightness, which is quite poor even for a laptop. It’s nowhere near the ten hours of use we managed from an iPad 4, but even half brightness on the Surface Pro is still quite bright compared to other laptops and tablets, so you’ll be able to squeeze a little more time out of it by lowering the brightness even further.

There’s a rear-facing camera, but the quality is pretty bad

Its rear-facing 0.9-megapixel camera wasn’t very good. Its maximum resolution is 1,280×720 and our outdoor shots had hardly any detail in them at all. Skies were over-exposed and colours had an almost greenish hue to them. Our indoor shots were equally washed out and it really struggled with lower lighting conditions. Its video capabilities were equally poor. Our test footage flickered constantly and it was flooded with noise as soon as we turned the lights off.

A small disappointment is the lack of bundled software. The Surface RT may have lumbered users with the Windows RT operating system, but its free copy of Office 2013 RT Home and Student went a long way in making it a more attractive tablet option. Unfortunately, Surface Pro users will have to buy Office 365 Home Premium separately, which is another £80 from the Microsoft Store (www.microsoftstore.com).