Benchmarking tests on Sunspider were surprising as it averaged around 1100 milliseconds, slightly slower than the equivalent IE10 software on Nokia's Lumia 920 smartphone.
At the moment you don't have many alternatives, so it's just as well it's reasonably zippy. It's also good-looking, clear and sharp and the ClearType display means reading text is effortless. In truth, we don't have a bad thing to say about it.
Microsoft Surface RT review – Performance and battery
On the whole performance from the 1.3GHz quad core processor is reasonable, there's little in the way of stuttering between screens and everything operates fairly smoothly. Boot speed is also quite quick.
But that's not exactly a surprise considering our exposure to the well-optimised environment of Windows Phone.
What is a little odd is how slow apps are to load compared to the new Windows Phone 8. Admittedly, apps on Windows Phone 7 had this problem, but the Surface RT has a lot more power than phones which ran that version of the phone system.
We also noticed that rather than apps taking a performance hit in terms of smoothness, there were times when things simply became unresponsive while the device caught up with itself.
This was particularly prevalent in the Office Suite, but also occurred in other areas with long load times such as the Windows Store.
Ordinarily we'd cite this as having too many apps open at once but we can't say we saw anything which suggested this was the actual cause of the problem.
Multitasking is very well handled indeed and flicking between apps or sharing the display with two of them didn't cause any issues for us.
However, for top-end performance on things like gaming there's insufficient content to put the hardware through its paces.
Speed Test Pro is currently the only real benchmark app available and there's little in the way of facilities for comparing with other devices.
On their own the results are fairly meaningless, but our experience from real-world use tells us the Surface RT is fine most of the time, but with the occasional hiccup.
Battery life is a much stronger component, at least when compared to rival tablets. By laptop standards it's not so hot, however.
Microsoft's estimated lifespan of about 10 hours is quite close to the mark. We found that with normal use the tablet would last us all day and overnight, more intensive use should see this drop to somewhere around eight or nine hours, but generally speaking it'll last about as long as the iPad under like-for-like usage conditions.
Microsoft Surface RT review – Conclusion
We have to say the Surface RT is something of a failure in our view.
The problem is not so much in its inability to achieve what Microsoft set out to, but more the way in which it does it.
It has refinement in spades, but the areas where this is most important are the ones distinctly lacking in the level of refinement required.
A bit more distillation would have gone a long way here as the concept is sound, but the execution is flawed. It lacks the elegance required to pull off such a bold move.
Fundamentally, interacting with the device to get typical tasks done is not just difficult and un-enjoyable, it's actually a chore – it makes you hate the device. This can never be good.
Microsoft has fallen at the first hurdle, it's failed to make a good control system and if the control system is wrong it doesn't matter what else the platform can do, there's no desire to carry on using the device.
This is a problem for the Surface RT and Windows RT in general, because unlike Windows 8 it can't install the third-party UI replacers which already exist.
Perhaps at some point someone will release one in app form, but even so, the device and its platform should stand on its own and it simply does not.
The device does have its strengths - good exterior design, decent power, good multitasking and the flexibility of the Office suite.
However, it's not enough to compensate for the crippling inadequacy of the interface's key controls, a factor which dwarfs the rest of the otherwise minor gripes we could've probably forgiven.
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