Why SO Little Coverage/Reviews/Impressions?

[supervelous]

The i7 has been out for 2 weeks now. I expected review sites, Anandtech, and knowledgable owners to have done some comparisons between i3/i5/i7, detailed benchmarks, battery tests etc. but still hardly anything. Similarly, I have been looking for detailed accounts, impressions of the dock from at least forum users - what monitors are being used, anyone on 4K @ 60hz? I know 1 day, or 2 weeks isn't a lot of time, but in the internet era it kind of is, on an apple product you'd have a thread 25 pages long already on an accessory that was just released.

Anandtech not having done anything on the i7 confuses me a bit too, I know it's only been 2 weeks but he reviewed the SP3 i5 in depth, had an in depth impressions of the i3 with benchmarking to i5 BEFORE it even came out, then did another battery comparison testing article.

Why am I having a hard time finding a lot of info on the SP3 and it's accessories, compatibility, etc. AM I looking in the wrong places? Mainly come here, reddit, and youtube and google searches.

Flame away.

 

[Zog1971]

I 100% agree and have been craving an in-depth comparison between the 3 models in regards to battery/heat/performance. I haven't found it either. But, as a week long owner of the i7, I am still needing to go through some time with the system before I can give final judgement. Still considering returning for the 8gb i5 due to some heat and fan issues I've experience but have been able to fix. I've also had varying battery results so still trying to find out what is common ground for the i7. As far as the dock goes, I just got mine today, and if you'd like a review.......I LOVE it!! There are a few threads on here and elsewhere with reviews of the dock and every one I've read has been positive, and can confirm it really rocks. There are also a few threads on here about accessories with pics, reviews and links but in general I agree it has been hard to find much info so far. I'm hoping within the next week or so we will start seeing more reviews for the i7 so that we can start making good comparisons.

 

[puma]

Cause this is not Apple. F*****n iphone comes out in a different color it will get a review.

 

[ctitanic]

For the press is the same PRO 3. They don't understand about the different processors.

 

[Liam2349]

Yeah, most of the people that got early SP3s at the reveal shouldn't have been given them. They had no idea what they were and didn't know how to review them. They reviewed them as laptops, some didn't even talk about the stylus, and the amount of misinformation I saw from those people was ludicrous.

"This is a speaker" - NOPE, it's a charging port. "There is no microSD slot" - *sigh*.

Anandtech is one of the very few sites that should have been doing early reviews, and I'm sure they will publish a review of the i7 soon. I think they said they were waiting for one.

 

[hughlle]

For the press is the same PRO 3. They don't understand about the different processors.

Or they've experienced all the thorrtling on the i5 and figured is there really any point in reviewing what is in essense a waste of money?

 

[FlySwatter]

Or they've experienced all the thorrtling on the i5 and figured is there really any point in reviewing what is in essense a waste of money?

Which would seem to defeat the purpose of being a reviewer if you aren't going to point these things out to consumers.

 

[hughlle]

While I said it jokingly, with regard to your response, you could argue that they've already done that when they did in depth reviews of the it and found that even that throttled. Based on that, i7 results are fairly predictable. Which early adopters did indeed confirm. The only real reason to go i7 is for storage.

 

[Moonsurface]

Mobile tech review on YouTube has a good review of the dock I watched it last night.

 

[mitchellvii]

The Surface Pro 3 dock gives you one angle, correct? As a tall guy this can be problematic if the angle is too steep.

 

[FlySwatter]

The Surface Pro 3 dock gives you one angle, correct? As a tall guy this can be problematic if the angle is too steep.

Yup!

 

[supervelous]

While I said it jokingly, with regard to your response, you could argue that they've already done that when they did in depth reviews of the it and found that even that throttled. Based on that, i7 results are fairly predictable. Which early adopters did indeed confirm. The only real reason to go i7 is for storage.

I hate responses like this because it's exactly the type of reason I want these in depth comparisons/reviews. Casual users jump to conclusions with no real data to back it up. Since the i5 throttles, then the i7 throttles..only real reason to go for i7 is storage... etc. Well, yeah, maybe that's true but what real comparison data are you basing that on? What's your source? Does it throttle more, does it throttle the same as the i5 so that it still maintains the same performance edge? Or does the throttled performance make it meet or even do worse than the i5? Does it have an advantage but the battery lasts an hour or two shorter? Is it 10% hotter doing the same tasks?

Problem with casual users, and I'll admit to being guilty of this where most will not, is they tend to lean towards their purchase decision. The guy with the i7 will "notice" it being more powerful than the i5, the guy with the i5 will "notice" it getting better battery life and not being as hot as the i7.

A site like Anandtech presumably has no agenda or preference, and run controlled tests of performance and battery life and make educated, presumably unbiased conclusions. I say presumably because of course they're humans like the rest of us, and can have their biases as well, and maybe their tests aren't designed optimally. But it's certainly more reliable than a bunch of biased people on a forum jumping to conclusions without reliable data to back up their claims.

And I will admit to having my own biases. I upgraded to the i7 and won't lie I kind of hope the data shows I made the right decision. I owned both at the same time and ran some benchmarks and the i7 performed better in both, but I will not conclude it's better because of that. I'm not well versed in these matters. I didn't run any temperature or battery tests for example. What good is a small performance bump if you have a hotter machine that gets noticeably less battery life?

Rant Over. TLR - I don't trust casual observers with a horse in the race, I want real tests and facts.