MARCH 2020 • TECH ADVISOR 15processing, video playback, email, and so on) quickly
and responsively. Slack (though just the 32-bit version)
worked just fine. It’s almost immediately responsive
as startup, which makes it feel fresh and perky.
ThebetaversionofEdge(orEdgeium)is veryfast.
Adobe’sCreativeCloudis headingtotheSurfacePro
X,but isn’t here quite yet.
Once you exit that safe room, though, it’s a mixed
bag. Pages loaded snappily with both Chrome and
Firefox Nightly (supposedly optimized for ARM) – but
only after remaining totally blank for a second or two
on a fast home broadband connection. Forget about
playing games: the Microsoft Store app pushed games
like Mah-Jong at me, and wouldn’t run the Xbox beta
app. I resigned myself to testing Asphalt 8, about
the only game I could run when I’ve tested previous
Qualcomm platforms, too.
Remember, even though the version of Windows
10 ontheSurfaceProX is a 64-bitoperatingsystem,
itwon’truna 64-bitappthat’sbeenwrittenfor
theX64architecture.Infact,there’sa wholelistof
caveatsthatMicrosoftitselfhaspublished:some
gameswon’twork(anti-cheatingsoftwarewon’trun
onARM), some antivirus apps won’t work, and so on.
It’sa minefieldthatthreatenstoblowupwhatyou
wantto do on an ARM-based machine, and as such
requires careful navigation.
In reviewing the Surface Pro X’s prices online, I also
skimmed some of the Amazon reviews, and I have to
agree with this statement: “Only a subset of Windows
softwarewillrunonthiscomputer,andonly a subset
ofthat subset will run at full speed.”