Surface Pro 4 Update Extends Battery Life

Microsoft has released a new firmware that brings with it some changes that owners of the tablet will appreciate. The new firmware is designed to address battery life when the tablet goes into sleep mode. HotHardware figures that the firmware will be able to squeeze very little additional runtime out of the battery for the Surface Pro 4.

That said, any improvement is welcome on a device that will spend a lot of its time away from an outlet. More runtime isn’t all this firmware was about thankfully, the update also disables touch when the cover is closed and improves stability. Hibernation defaults were adjusted, and touch functionality was optimized.

It’s not exactly clear what sort of optimizations were made. The firmware does fix a screen brightness issue when the device comes out of sleep that has annoyed some users. Brightness settings were refined as well.

The update brings no fixes for security, connectivity, or compatibility with other devices. The new firmware is available now for download via Microsoft. It’s not clear if the firmware will install automatically or if users need to manually start the update.