
The Surface 2 - kposehn
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/09/24/the-surface-2?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pa-mainsite+%28Penny+Arcade%29
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KeyBoardG
The new docking station and ability to drive high resolution displays is a lot
more important than sites are recognizing. We can finally truly have 1 machine
for everything on the go and docked at work or at home. No doubt it'll likely
be more of a pleasure perhaps in a Surface Pro 3 that would be lighter and
even more powerful.

I don't really see the current crop of convertible laptop/tablets as solving
this problem due to low perf and the fact that I'd never be able to code all
day on those cramped keyboards.

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kayoone
This. I would go as far as to say this is where the PC is headed. Consumers
will have one device like the Surface2 which is a tablet on the go and can be
docked on the desk. Its already powerful enough for most peoples computing
tasks and this will get alot better in the coming years.

The traditional desktop PC will be (or already is) a niche again like
workstations from the past for professionals.

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RyJones
I've been happy with my Surface Pro; the two changes I'm most looking forward
to are the docking station and Haswell. The extra pixel density is a nice-to-
have, but being able to pop it in and out of a docking station is killer.
There are some other minor things I'd like addressed (the impossible-to-use
microSD slot, for one. The always lost stylus is another), but I'll rebuy and
probably hand the Surface Pro on to the kids.

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Fuzzwah
Are you using it for anything in particular which benefits from the touch
input? If so, is the stylus an important positive?

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jgon
I own a surface pro and bought it particularly for the stylus and touch input.

I tend to take a lot of notes at work, and also as I am working on side
projects and one day I took a step back and looked at my desk and said "Is it
really 2013 and I am pretty much scraping away at dead trees with a piece of
metal dipped in ink like a caveman!?". I had notes spread out over dozens of
binders, notebooks, engineering pads, etc, etc. How is this still a thing?! I
also lost a bunch of notes from my schooling simply because the box they were
in got lost. It felt to me like the equivalent of conducting all of my
correspondence via paper letters, and keeping them in boxes in the basement.
Of course, instead I do it through email, all nicely searchable at the drop of
a hat.

So the first thing I will say is that OneNote and the pen are a great writing
experience. I do kind of miss the feedback of a pen against paper, but the
"inking" in OneNote is top-notch, somehow looking even better than my regular
writing. The response is really quick as well, which makes a big difference in
feeling like you are actually writing instead of watching a line chase your
pen around the screen. I've tried the Galaxy Note 10.1's stylus and S-Note and
it is nowhere near as good. Syncing my notes to the Microsoft cloud is of
course an added bonus for easy backup.

That said, the widescreen aspect ratio was pretty dumb, especially for
something billed as a device for being productive. I really can't understand
it from any direction, I mean writing a document will be worse, editing photos
is probably worse, I guess maybe people editing video will be happy? A better,
wider aspect ratio closer to paper would be a serious improvement.

At the end of the day however, I am able to take notes and do sketches,
designs, etc, in a way that has a great writing "feel", offers search via
really good text recognition, and offers seamless backup. I got mine
discounted at a conference, so I can't say if I'd pay $900 for the ability to
do this, but if I was back in University it would be an absolute no brainer.
You probably won't find a better "writing" experience on the market, and if
you do a lot of that then I recommend it.

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mikestew
"How is this still a thing?!"

Because the alternative costs $900 and doesn't fit in your pocket. Oh, I get
what you're saying, I loved OneNote back when I had the old TabletPC. It's the
best thing going, IMO. But I'm not spending that kind of money to run an OS I
have no other use for, just to take notes. Make a $300 machine with a good
digitizer that runs nothing but OneNote and I'd buy two.

~~~
freehunter
The Asus EeePad was the best thing I ever used as a notebook replacement. I
had to buy it from China and change the display text to English when I got it,
but the screen felt like paper, the digitizer was Wacom, and the battery life
was excellent. It would sync with Evernote (I wish it synced with OneNote). I
could read and annotate ebooks and PDFs. There were two styluses, and a place
to store them both. You could write normally, since the screen did not respond
to touch (only the pen). The black and white screen was okay for notes, but if
you hooked it to your PC, it became a full Wacom tablet for Photoshop etc.

Unfortunately, they never released it in the US, dropped Evernote support a
while back, and have completely discontinued it. Did I mention that importing
from China through a reseller and with shipping included it only cost $250?

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yohui
I think you mean the Asus Eee Note?
[http://www.asus.com/Eee_Family/Eee_Note_EA800/](http://www.asus.com/Eee_Family/Eee_Note_EA800/)

And dammit, that looks perfect for notetaking/sketching/etc. :(

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freehunter
Yup, EeeNote. Sorry! It really was great, but it lost all use for me when
Evernote sync was deprecated. The barrier to getting my files off became too
high (move them to a microsd card, then move them to my computer with an
adapter I always lose).

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breckinloggins
I've often wondered why Apple doesn't have an "iPad Pro" that includes a Wacom
or Wacom-like stylus system. I know that Apple is very much "no stylus" and
I'm positive that was the right move for most uses, but there seems to be an
obvious market here for creative types that need a _real_ stylus (as in tip
angle detection, pressure sensitivity, on-stylus buttons, etc).

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coldtea
> _I 've often wondered why Apple doesn't have an "iPad Pro" that includes a
> Wacom or Wacom-like stylus system._

As much I'd like one (I have a Wacom too), the reason is because that's a
market around 1/10000 the size of the overall iPad market.

MS offers that because it tries whatever it can as a differentiator, but it's
not working very well for them.

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theguycalledtom
The market for fingerprint readers for smart phones was almost nothing. Just
look at the motorola atrix. Now Apple has added a fingerprint scanner and
integrated it purely to make it slightly easier to log into your phone, and
the iPhone 5s has sold out.

If Apple added proper pen support with palm rejection software APIs to an
iPad, you'll bet that people will still buy iPads. Mums will use pens to
annotate their extension plans for their new house, maps to the park for child
birthdays. Kids will use the pen to become better illustrators which will help
them be better communicators later in life. Uni students will use pens to jot
down notes quickly and draw math equations with ease.

The pen on a tablet is not a niche. The Surface Pro is a niche product.

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headShrinker
I had the original Palm Vx. I would never use a stylus because it makes
nothing easier, except drawing. The stylus is sort of a gimmick. If you need
to get serious work done and you are serious enough to need a stylus, the
iPhone and iPad are not for you. As Elton Brown would say 'there is no room in
the kitchen for multitaskers.' They do a bad job at many things.

Touch unlock, however, is already in use by someone's grandpa... it's clean,
it's easy. It's not multitasking. It's making the current norm safer and
faster.

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tedsanders
Correction: Alton Brown says there is no room in the kitchen for UNItaskers
(except fire extinguishers). He's actually a huge fan of multitaskers!

~~~
headShrinker
You are correct. Yikes, I got that one wrong.

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SimianLogic2
I had a Fujitsu Lifebook P1510 running Windows XP back in 2006... a 9"
convertible tablet with a capacitive stylus. It's still my favorite machine
that I've owned, and felt like the future (sitting on a couch, browsing the
net & playing games).

It saddened me greatly that Microsoft forbade anything under 10" for Vista &
Win7. The Surface Pro is the first Windows machine I've actually desired since
then -- the only thing that held me back was the 4gb cap on RAM. I already
pre-ordered an 8gb model and can't wait to play with it.

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Ygg2
I'm wondering how good is Surface as a Wacom replacement? Is it passable, how
does its pen work with Windows/Photoshop?

I was looking to buy Cintiq 13HD for $1000, but a fully fledged tablet/laptop
that is also a drawing board, for $900?! I mean compare this to Cintiq
Companion which is $2000.

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kevingadd
IIRC it has actual Wacom digitizer hardware in it, so that brings it a lot
closer to a Cintiq than a typical touchscreen would be.

~~~
Ygg2
What about the pen pressure levels?

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garg
It has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity. So it's very good at that.
Initially it didn't work w/ photoshop so it was useless for many digital
artists but they've fixed that now.

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tetujin
I just created an account to say that it's actually 2048 levels of pressure
(instead of 1024), or at least it is according to the Cintiq Companion
website. My cintiq 21UX is also 2048. I'm looking to nab a companion later
this year so that I can work and be location-agnostic, so I've been watching
the details of it as they've been coming out. on a side note, My only hope is
that the battery life is good enough :P People have been decrying the lack of
a haswell (the win8 version, not the android hybrid) which I guess makes for a
less solid battery life? I'm not up on my cpu tech, so I can't say.

Wow, that was a longer comment than I'd originally intended. Sorry.

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garg
Thank you for the response. I should have been more specific in my comment. I
meant that the Microsoft Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2 have 1024 levels of
pressure sensitivity.

You are correct that the Wacom Cintiq Companion has 2048. Another down side
for the Wacom Cintiq Companion is that it's quite heavy compared to other
tablets. I have a Cintiq 13HD and I'm very pleased with it but for portability
I might get a Surface Pro 2.

~~~
tetujin
No, no, that's my bad, I didn't read very carefully.

Agreed re: weight, but I think (or at least right now I think I do) that
that's not as big a consideration for me -- it seems worth it if it gets me a
piece of hardware that's as good as my cintiq. But I agree that could
certainly be a turn-off for some.

I'm still waiting for more definite battery data, but I think that might not
be more forthcoming until people have had it in their hands for a while.

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Relys
I did a bit of research on tablets and hybrids recently since my fiance needed
a new machine. I ended up buying her a Sony Xperia Tablet Z (Andriod) since
there really wasn't any good Windows hybrids on the market except for the
Surface Pro. However, the battery life for the first generation was terrible
and Surface RT isn't a smart investment because of the OS [place bet]dead in
the next few years _cough_ [/end bet].

However, I personally want a compact machine with the full Windows 8
experience so I've been waiting for the Surface Pro 2.

If this thing has an all day battery life it will be an instant sale for me.

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kayoone
Devices like the Surface2 with docking capability could very well be the
future of the PC. I could totally see myself getting one of these for my
girlfriend or my parents as its all they need for personal computing.

