Surface Pro 2: Less than a laptop

The heart of a laptop it may be, but I want the body of a laptop too.

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[Snarky Robot]

I can't disagree with any of the larger points that have been raised against it. I honestly can't. But I absolutely love my Surface Pro 2. It has, entirely, replaced my MacBook Air. I loaded up Steam and GestureWorks (and excellent addition) and all I can say is that I'm happy. I make no promises to anybody else that it will fit their work paradigm. I make no commentary that those who don't like it are wrong. But I love mine.

I got mine the same day Mavericks dropped, so I spent my day juggling computers setting them both up. Within 10 minutes of using the Surface, I was actually frustrated the MBA didn't have a touchscreen. Since I got it set up, I haven't touched my custom-built rig (I do, however, frequently remote desktop into it-- something that's I could possibly have done with the Surface 2, but I wanted portable power).

Peter's article points out several flaws. I agree that there are some annoying bits about it (which computer can you NOT say that about?). But I logged in, had all of my apps ready to be installed, had access to all my documents, and installed Office in about 10 minutes.

I make no promises that anyone else will love it. It has warts, no doubt. All I can say is that my experience was much different than Peter's, insofar as the fact that for me, it wound up being much greater than the sum of its parts.

 

[Snarky Robot]

Viking ZX[/url]":3vrhr1pl]What I'd like to know is how well it does actually running some of these normally desktop/laptop programs. For example, how well can it run Dota 2?

It's run DOTA 2 pretty well for me, main gripe has been the fact that it only has a single USB 3.0 port on it, so you have to use a USB splitter if you run a wired K+M setup. I also installed GestureWorks, which takes some getting used to (and the Surface Pro is just a bit too heavy for prolonged use as a tablet) but you can use it to augment. It actually works really well as a living room augmentation. Personally, I'm looking forward to trying the Steam Machine controller with it.

It's not face-melting performance, by any standards. But it's good enough that you can hook it up to a 1080p monitor and not feel like you're loosing too much graphics-wise.

 

[Snarky Robot]

Also, since I'm sure Peter has more important things to do, if anybody has any specific questions about it, just ask, and I'll do my best to answer the at some point in the near future. No promises, of course, but I will try my best.

 

[Snarky Robot]

Viking ZX[/url]":30i8sgqo]
Hey thanks! I've been contemplating grabbing a Surface 2 Pro as a take anywhere machine for trips and whatnot, and this was one of the questions I had about it. As long as you have the type-cover, all I'd need would be the mouse, right?

In a pinch, yeah. I have the type cover, and while it's fairly comfortable and responsive for day-to-day typing, I'm not sure I'd try to game on it for extended periods. Certainly, it's possible. Personally, I prefer a full keyboard. One major considerations: the F1-F12 keys, like Mac, are defaulted to other things. So if you use those keys, you'll need to hold Fn to use those keys, which can be awkward.

 

[Snarky Robot]

DrPizza[/url]":29wj92b8]Fn-caps lock functions as a fn-lock.

Awesome. That actually helps.

 

[Snarky Robot]

smartfud[/url]":3p2crvb4]After two weeks with a Surface Pro 2, my verdict is that it's not a very good device.

The Surface Pro 2 launched on October 22nd. My pre-order arrived the next day. It seems strange that you claim "2 weeks" of use on a device that has been available for 9 days.

If you attach a keyboard, you can only use it on a desk or other flat surface. To make it usable as a portable again, you remove the keyboard. Why not allow the keyboard to fold back and be disabled?

The keyboard cover does fold back behind the screen, and once it goes past a certain point, touches are no longer used and cover becomes a dumb cover. It seems very strange that you're claiming to have used a device for two weeks and have gotten such a basic point wrong.

Win 8 is obviously only half designed for touch input. The Start menu finally makes sense with a touch enabled device, but try using an Explorer window or another program that wasn't optimized for touch. You struggle to get the cursor where you want it, because the boxes are too small. The stylus helps with this, but there are issues with that as well.

Explorer actually specifically changed things to work better with touch, but I'll admit it isn't as efficient as K+M.

If you tap on a text box with the stylus, the on screen keyboard doesn't usually come up. Tap with your finger and it does.

Well, that's pretty obvious. It's differentiating between a precise input (pen or mouse) and an imprecise one (touch). But I haven't experienced the same issue as you. What program are you using that this behavior is in. For my, when a keyboard is connected (either the cover or via Bluetooth) neither pen nor touch brings up the on-screen keyboard, and both the pen and finger bring up the keyboard in a text box when it is not.

If the stylus is too close to the screen, and is detected, touch input is ignored.

This, too, is actually a benefit-- when using the pen, you don't want your palm or other parts of your hand registering touch.

Text in applications that weren't optimized for the form factor is difficult to read because it's very small

This tends to be desktop applications (which obviously weren't designed for a tablet form factor). But if you're using desktop programs while holding the Surface as a tablet, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that's harder than it would be if you were using a laptop.

All in all, a lot of your complaints are of things that are actually functioning well... or are literally unbelievable since they are not factual. Honestly, I don't know what to make of that.

 

[Snarky Robot]

g0m3r619[/url]":2gzjjtj7]
Dock with KB+M and Monitor... I don't get why people are having such a hard time grasping this simple concept... you want to use is as a laptop? Great. DOCK IT! You want to use it as a tablet? Undock it and go! It's not that difficult.

Docking it is great for wanting to use it as a laptop-on-a-desk, but it's not so great for wanting to use it as a laptop-on-a-lap. The Surface Pro 2 is decent at it-- though the trackpad really is bad-- but it's serviceable. I think for a lot of people naysaying it, they'd be surprised how infrequently many of them actually use a laptop on the lap for content creation. But it's just as wrong for people who like the Surface to dismiss the desire to use it as a laptop while on the lap as unimportant. My use, or your use, isn't representative of the whole. The Surface Pro 2 is a great computer on a desk. It's a pretty good tablet on the couch, and it's a decent-but-not-standout laptop on your lap. For me, that's all it needed to be-- but I recognize that for others, that last part is a deal breaker. So what?

Heck if the Microsoft sold a cover that turned this into a laptop with a sold hinge, I'd buy it (I think they could do one if they use the part where the hinge meets the rest of the computer as a "grab" point", it could work well), as it would improve that laptop-on-a-couch usage. The rest is fine for me-- I use it every day at work-- but let's not pretend that there aren't problems with it.

 

[Snarky Robot]

g0m3r619[/url]":2483fiot]Sounds like you just need a laptop NOT a tablet that runs everything your laptop does.

No, it sounds like I need a Surface Pro 2, (which is a good thing, since I did go through all the bother of buying one) because the laptop-on-desk, tablet-in-meeting, and tablet-on-couch use case are the ones I value more than the laptop-on-lap usage. I would also enjoy a laptop case as it wouldn't detract from the aforementioned use-cases, and would fill in that hole rather nicely.

The point, which I will repeat since it appears to have escaped you, is that by telling other people how they should judge the Surface based on which metrics YOU judge to be the most optimal (or, you know, trying to tell people what they really need...) comes of as rude and tone-deaf to people who don't think like you. It makes you the worse sort of advocate for a product-- the one who can't wait to tell other people why they're wrong for not wanting the same thing in a product.

I'm a huge fan of my Surface Pro 2. Seriously, love it. But that doesn't mean abdicating my senses and trying to deny the very real warts it has. It's an imperfect product. It has things it doesn't do well, and people who value that above all else are not "wrong" for wishing the device did that. It does a lot of things right as well, of course. And the sum of those parts is greater than the whole, as I said from the get-go.

 

[Snarky Robot]

Joe Acerbic[/url]":13wd88ea]

Operative Me[/url]":13wd88ea]But it's just as wrong for people who like the Surface to dismiss the desire to use it as a laptop while on the lap as unimportant.

Heck if the Microsoft sold a cover that turned this into a laptop with a sold hinge, I'd buy it

Nope, it's not nearly as wrong, because complaining that Surface Pro is not a laptop is absolutely absurd since ANYONE CAN AND SHOULD IN THAT CASE SIMPLY GET A LAPTOP INSTEAD. It's also almost as unbelievably simple these days to get a convertible with hinge if that's what you want.

Or, maybe, just maybe, they WANT A SURFACE WITH A HINGE. The Surface is a good device with nice styling. It doesn't look like anything else on the market. It comes with a whole lot of extras, including a huge upgrade in Skydrive and Skype. It's expandable, it's good looking, and it doesn't come with OEM bloatware. Is it really that confusing to you that a certain subset of people might want everything the surface has AND a way to type in their laps?

This is like those "why didn't you just get a computer instead of an iPad and a keyboard" rants. The Surface is meant to bridge the world between laptop and tablet. Complaining that it doesn't replicate all the benefits of each can be constructive criticism. "Why don't you just get a laptop" is a petulant sneer about why other people shouldn't conform to the way you want to use a device.

As I keep trying to point out, even as a guy who really likes his Surface Pro, and is, in fact, typing this response to you at about 65 WPM on the type cover, there are many things to laud it for, and it really does work for a variety of scenarios. It's not as good at typing in your lap as a laptop. That's something anyone who might want to buy it should know. They should also know it's pretty damn awesome on a desk, in your hand, on the kitchen counter, and docked with a big screen. Because those things are ALSO true.

 

[Snarky Robot]

tie[/url]":12j6fzvh]
Where the Surface Pro shines is as a note-taking device, with OneNote and the pen. OneNote is very buggy, crashes, loses data, can never sync to the cloud, etc. But nothing I know of works half as well. I'm a mathematician, though, so my use cases might not be exactly typical.

I have had precisely none of these problems. If you don't mind me prying what version of OneNote are you using (Metro vs. desktop 2007/2010/2013)?