Microsoft's Panos Panay Talks About The Surface Pro's Battery Life On Reddit

Reddit's semi-famous AMA board, in which anyone can hold an "Ask me Anything" session, was recently graced by Microsoft's Panos Panay, head of the company's Surface team. Over the course of the session, Panay addressed the issue of the Surface Pro's battery life, which some critics say is too short. The Surface team head stated that the device's battery life is best in its class.

In our review of the Surface Pro, we saw the battery life hovering between 4.5 and 5 hours with the display on and media streaming. Those numbers increased a bit to 6 hours when the device was used for a mix of Web surfing and media streaming. Some other users are reporting lower numbers, however, sometimes under four hours, prompting criticism.

Not surprisingly, Panay came to the Surface Pro's defense, stating that when looked at relative to the device's size, the Pro's battery life is best in its class. According to him, Microsoft elected to use a smaller battery to keep the device thin, but not to the detriment of performance. The battery choice resulted in a device "thin enough to take advantage of our [Microsoft's] great Windows work for inking and give you a great inking experience," says Panay.

He also addressed the issue of storage space, which has also been a source of complaints from some users. The larger 128GB version of the Surface Pro has 83GB of available space, while the 64GB version only has 23GB available. According to Panay, this was necessary. Those who need more space can use a microSD card for more space.

[via BGR]