Google Chrome VS Microsoft Edge On My Surface Pro 3

There have been many tests, and comparisons between Google Chrome and Microsoft’s browser, Edge. Now it is my turn to talk about my experience using both browsers. I am not going to be doing a technical breakdown, but will be doing an experience breakdown, specifically on my Surface Pro 3.

I have been using Google Chrome for an extremely long time and it is still my go to browser at work and on my primary desktop PC at home. When I purchased my Surface Pro 3 and used Google Chrome, my experience using my new device was disappointing. The battery life was extremely poor, I was only able to get three hours out of my device at best and the fan would spin at what would seem full speed whenever I watch online videos making the back right of the device Hell hot. So using Google Chrome on my Surface Pro 3 was a no go it would seem, as it made my mobile device essentially a stationary device.

Luckily Microsoft came prepared with their own browser, Microsoft Edge. I decided to give it a go. At first it was tough to get used to the new browser. I didn’t mind using Bing, it performed just as good if not better than Google for some search results (props to Microsoft there). All the extensions that I used in Google Chrome were not present in Microsoft Edge (at the start Microsoft Edge did not even support extensions, but now it does and it has all the ones I need, so props again for listening to your consumers). But the extension issue I had was not the major problem with Microsoft Edge, loading and viewing web pages was the biggest problem. Not all pages would load correctly, the tab would constantly become unresponsive, UI elements on the page would not behave correctly, etc. Microsoft Edge still has this problem even in 2017 which is extremely frustrating. On the plus side of using Microsoft Edge I would easily get six hours out of my device, the fan would not spin up when watching online videos, and the device would not get hot at all.

So do I use a browser that essentially ruins the mobile experience due to poor battery performance and an insanely loud fan spinning while watching online videos making the device too hot to touch or do I use a browser that keeps the battery charge, has the fan spinning at a reasonable speed, but lacks the ability to perform when it comes to loading and viewing some web pages?

Right now I use both to try and get the best of both worlds. If I need to do some web browsing then I turn to Google Chrome, but if I need to watch any online videos then I always use Microsoft Edge. It may not be the best solution but neither Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge perform as expected on my Surface Pro 3. Maybe Google will work on optimising Google Chrome to ensure that it doesn’t take up all your resources, and reduce your battery to nothing in a short period. Or Microsoft can look into the issue where Microsoft Edge fails to load and display web pages correctly, because really that is the only show stopper for me; and for a web browser it if pretty important to have pages loaded and correctly displayed.