Microsoft's ARM laptop is slim but not so fast

The Verge's Dieter Bohn reviews Microsoft's Surface Pro X laptop. It's pretty and it's small, but it's slow.

... the core of Windows 10 runs just fine for me [but] there are still occasional, confounding slowdowns, especially when waking from sleep. In general, I just didnt have as strong a feel for what would and would not bog down this computer with an Intel chip, I know what to expect.

But it wasnt fast, certainly not as fast as an equivalently priced Intel device would be. Still, the main problem with this ARM chip doesnt come from slowness with Windows itself, but with many of the apps.

Here's a serious problem for anyone doing anything more than basic productivity: "64-bit x86 apps wont run at all on the Surface Pro X. ... even Microsofts own app store doesnt properly filter out incompatible apps when you visit it from this computer. You can (and I did!) buy apps in the Microsoft Store and only find out after the fact that theyre incompatible."

The Verge also notes that setting it up presents the user with a baker's dozen of clickwrap contracts, including Windows itself, "Activity History", OneDrive, Office 365, Cortana, and a Microsoft account that can only be skipped if you remember not to connect it to the internet. You apparently cannot get into this laptop without allowing "Microsoft to access your location, location history, contacts, voice input, speech and handwriting patterns, typing history, search history, calendar details, messages, apps, and Edge browsing history."

All that said, it's very light, has fast LTE and a solid workday's battery life. Read the rest