GAMING DRAINS SURFACE 2

Not enough juice to run full-on gaming

MICROSOFT’S SURFACE 2 is a nice bit of gear, and its ability to run games is impressive. As it should be—the 15-inch model comes with an Nvidia 1060 and costs $2,500. This ability comes at a price, though: The battery drains even when plugged in. Yep, turn the Power Mode slider up to max, and start playing a demanding game, and the battery starts to drain by 10 percent or more every hour. It transpires that the power supply (labeled as 102W) can’t cope with full-on games, which push the GPU into using 80W or more, leaving little power for much else. It won’t run flat; it throttles back enough to keep you alive.

Embarrassing for a machine marketed as high-power gear, Microsoft says it was designed to deliver “unmatched power and performance.” Only clearly it wasn’t thoroughly tested at the limits running games, despite the promotional material including images of hipsters gaming.