
The MS Surface Pro - kposehn
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/02/24/the-ms-surface-pro
======
Bockit
It's nice to hear this kind of device review from a corner you don't usually
hear it from. Rather than the usual kind of review broken up into the usual
sections, maybe a storage, space, benchmarks, screen, software kind of thing,
we have a guy who has specific use cases for it talking about how he used it
for those cases, what worked and what didn't. And then comparing it to how he
normally does those kinds of activities.

Even though I don't have the same use cases as him, I feel like I got more out
of it this way.

~~~
jmspring
I think the better summary is -- "great to hear a device review from outside
the echo chamber". I'd like to see other non-tech specific reviews of Surface
Pro (and similar hardware).

All too often, we focus on what is most relevant to our own particular use
cases. Looking at possible Win8 laptops, I'm wanting something comparable to
my MBA -- decent SSD storage and ram for development (8gig) -- a few options
there, but the options crater when you add the third requirement -- touch.

But I realize, I am not the normal use case and can't judge any particular
hardware beyond what my own personal uses may be.

~~~
seanx
Sony Duo 11. I have one as my primary dev machine and it works pretty well + I
can play Civ 5 on the plane.

~~~
phaus
Is there anything that you are less than satisfied with about it? I was close
to getting one, but when I heard the stylus was the S-Trig (significantly
inferior to the Wacom for artistic purposes) I just got an iPad 4 to hold me
over for a couple of years. It looked really awesome, but 1300 bucks is quite
a bit of money for me.

~~~
scholia
Drawing on an iPad is dreadful....

~~~
phaus
It sure is, but It was 800 dollars less than a Duo 11. I figured it would have
to be good enough until my ideal device is released. I mostly use it for
reading programming books, so I still get a lot of use out of it.

------
raganwald
The conclusion I draw from everything I've heard is that the Surface Pro is a
terrible iPad and an excellent PC laptop. Issues like the battery life, heat,
weight, RAM free, and so on are reasonable for a Windows machine.

If my perspective is correct, look for the Surface Pro to cannibalize sales
from MS's "partners." I do expect it to appeal to the kind of person who buys
a PC laptop _and_ an iPad. And that's a great market for MS to defend. But for
people who want just a tablet, I expect iPads to carry on selling by the
container.

If Microsoft's vision of everyone needing a computer is correct, the Surface
pro will destroy the laptop. But if Apple's vision of a "post-PC" world is
correct, the vast majority of the tablet market will be just tablets, and the
iPad will continue to thrive.

It all seems to come down to whether you think of tablets as weak computers
with a tablet interface or whether you think of them as an appliances that run
software.

~~~
p3rs3us
Personally I would go for single device that does everything I need. Something
on the lines of what Ubuntu is doing. Even Surface to an extent solves this
issue. I don't want to carry an iPhone to call/msg/listen to music, an iPad to
casually use internet/read/play games and a laptop for everything else. Better
carry one phone which does call/msg/music/internet,reading and minor
editing/office stuffs when plugged to dock.

~~~
DeepDuh
After owning an iPad mini I have to say that an as-light-as-possible 7''
tablet appears to be one more device that's very useful have / bring along. It
allows you reading / media consumption on a device with a satisfying screen
size that's as light as a medium paperback book, i.e. you can hold it for
extended periods without getting tired.

------
10char
I'm still a bit disappointed that Apple has yet to add a Wacom layer to their
devices. It's so unquestionably better at doing writing, sketching, and note-
taking than crudely smudging your fingers. iPads still fail pretty hard at
being useful during math class.

I had an old-style swivel tablet (Windows Vista?), and it was a fantastic
device to take notes on, invaluable for classwork. OneNote + pen-input really
seemed like the future of school computing...but the prices on those machines
never came down and the iPad et al took them by storm shortly thereafter.

~~~
dhruvmittal
Apple's been incredibly anti-stylus in the past, if I recall correctly. Didn't
Jobs say something along the lines of "if your tablet uses a stylus, you're
doing it wrong" at the genesis of the iPad? Although we've seen that isn't
necessarily the case, I can't see Apple eating their words in this case.
Especially not with the success and visibility of Samsung's Note line.

~~~
dag11
Apple hasn't been anti-stylus, Jobs was. And the stylus he was referring to
was the resistive Palm-type stylus, not a pressure-sensitive, digitized pen
with side button(s).

Jobs has also stated a belief in one thing, and then contradicted it later.
Take the original iPhone screen size, for example.

~~~
stcredzero
_> Apple hasn't been anti-stylus, Jobs was._

Also, I think he was against stylus UI. Somehow, I don't think he would be pro
for the compromised capacitive stylus experience you get on the iPad.

------
gfunk911
Interesting. We now have an actual niche/use case where the Surface Pro could
be a compelling leader, and not just "totally decent." Artists.

Also, doesn't an apple-style commercial where somebody gets an email with a
word doc attached, edits it, and emails it back with changes while on the
train or something seem obvious....

~~~
majormajor
Ever since it was first announced I thought it would be an ideal on-the-go
photo management/editing program (I could easily get by in Lightroom without a
keyboard, and the pen would be tons of fun) so it's cool to see that they hit
that mark for that. I'm going to hold off until a cooler/longer battery life
revision 2, though. Or possibly a ThinkPad Helix or something, but that's
still not really a loss for MS.

MS's schizophrenia (or whatever) strikes again on that second one, though: the
cheap model comes with Office, the full-featured one doesn't. I guess they're
trying to push everyone to subscriptions, but it's one of those cases where
having an out-of-box just-works Office doc editing solution would be a great
marketing bullet point.

The Surface Pro isn't going to replace a laptop for me, but it comes much
closer to being something I'd consider taking as my sole device on a trip than
an iPad or Android tablet. (Somewhat amusing in that the laptop it would be
replacing on that hypothetical trip is a MBP.)

~~~
andrewjshults
Back in the day, I used the original lightroom on a Toshiba m200 (one of the
original XP tablet machines). Even with the greater weight, far more limited
battery life and relatively limited processing power (I think I had a 2.0GHz
single core - mostly processing 4MP files off the 1DmkI so it was able to keep
up decently), the Wacom digitizer in screen was amazing for touchups (it makes
masking so much faster than anything else). If someone comes up with a case
that makes it more usable on the lap as a laptop, I could see replacing my MBA
with it for most uses.

~~~
taude
Modern Lightroom uses WAY more resources than earlier versions, especially
when using the newer brush and gradient tools. I find my new 15" MBP/SSD/16
Gigs RAM/etc seems to get pushed pretty hard.

I'd be curious how well Lightroom runs on the Surface Pro, or similar.

------
habosa
Great review, it's awesome to see gadget reviews from a specific use case
instead of just "7/10 on our random everything score scale".

I wish there was a review site for the HN crowd. Someone that would use every
device like a software developer would: tinkering with settings, trying to
write/run code, integrating with other services, etc. I generally like reviews
on Engadget/The Verge but sometimes I feel they care about different things
than I care about.

Anyone know of a gadget review site for hackers?

~~~
iamdave
We should start said site.

~~~
habosa
I agree, although I feel there is a large barrier to entry to entering the
review business since you need to buy a lot of expensive things to review
them.

~~~
iamdave
Not always. I have a friend who runs a pretty popular Android blog, routinely
mentions that at times, it's as easy as asking for a review product and it's
yours.

~~~
habosa
Check out my profile and shoot me an email, I'd love to maybe give this a
shot.

------
Felix21
One article with a meaningful use-case and i am very tempted to buy the the
Surface Pro.

I think this is where Apple's marketing Excels over Microsoft's.

Apple will show you use-cases like this all day long, showing you how their
products are a better tool to get your job done.

Microsoft on the other hand -"it has more memory", "USB", "its Powerful", "hd
screen", "it runs excel", "side by side apps", "YAWN".

Great article; VERY TEMPTING.

~~~
ygra
Actually, the Surface Pro commercial (<http://youtu.be/tr3dFSzh1yU>) shows
_some_ stylus usage and has nothing of "more memory", "USB", "powerful" or
"side-by-side apps". There is a bit of Excel though, I think.

Still, it doesn't exactly present _why_ you would want to have such a device,
except for dancing in a meeting room.

------
redact207
I'm just impressed that someone's finally found a practical way to do work on
a tablet.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
2010 has called and wants their comment back.

People have been doing work on tablets for awhile, have you been to a
Starbucks in the states recently?

~~~
redact207
2009 called and they want their "wants their comment" comment back.

Seriously, there's doing "work" and doing work. I haven't been to Starbucks in
the states, but I've been everywhere in Singapore and everytime I've seen
people using tablets it's for entertainment, reading the news, or at the very
most writing emails.

If your job is writing emails, I concede, you're doing work. But if you're
anything except a coffee shop writer then I doubt it. I've desperately tried
to justify a tablet for years now but I barely have the motivation to type a
text message on a phone and delay most else until I have a physical keyboard
and an OS that has a proper window manager.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I observe the same thing happening in China (entertainment, no tablets used
for work). I was talking about a trend in the states, we can only guess what
it means for Asia.

Many of them are writing papers, doing homework, whatever. You'd be surprised
how much work just involves writing something. They almost always have
physical keyboards attached to the iPad when they are writing, if you don't
look close enough, they look like mini laptops.

~~~
redact207
I spent a lot of time in China, but it was sadly before the tablet craze. I'd
take a punt and say their cultural and business norms don't require so much
writing and people would own it for the status - much like a designer handbag
- and possibly QQ.

Ironically it's the tablets that's much more compatible with their traditional
written language. Sure you have pinyin/wubi based IMEs, and touch devices have
had hand writing recognition for a long time but it's never really caught on.
It's depressing when you're struggling to learn the language and you see
native Chinese pull out their phone when they don't remember how to write a
character.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Most Chinese kids these days prefer phonetic keyboard input (pinyin) to
writing characters, so they don't mind an iPad over something with a stylus.
iPads are ubiquitous where I live (Beijing), so I wouldn't call it much of a
handbag thing anymore. Maybe in a tier 2/3 city.

If you are learning Chinese, I wouldn't bother on memorizing how to write the
characters but rather focus on how to input the pinyin and recognize the right
character to select (erm, reading). I know this sounds like giving up, but its
the new way.

------
wuest
I'm glad to see the Surface Pro getting some good reviews. I actually really
want this sort of hardware to take off--and I _really_ want to see a
compelling Linux offering on it. This sort of device would fit the needs I
have both for a laptop and for a tablet, and if/when I hear that Linux is
running great and Plasma Active works like a charm on the Surface Pro (or,
indeed, comparable piece of hardware), I'm dropping the full sticker price on
one.

------
creativityland
Glad to see a positive review on the Surface. It really deserves more
attention than it's getting.

------
mtgx
Galaxy Note 10.1 also has a Wacom stylus that has 1024 levels of pressure
sensitivity. I see most people here weren't even aware of it. And I think it
only costs like $400 now, if you're interested in drawing and Sketchbook. The
Surface Pro stylus doesn't work on Photoshop anyway, so you're not losing
anything, if you're just interested in drawing.

~~~
rtkwe
The Photoshop issue on the Surface is (presumably) just a driver issue and
will be resolved shortly. Also having the whole of the Windows program library
is a huge plus for the Surface. I've yet to see a truly viable solution for
developing on an android tablet, SSHing to a remote server is sort of there
but having a fully featured IDE is miles above in terms of usability. Also the
keyboard integration seems much slicker with the Surface.

------
interpol_p
I really want one of these. As a Cintiq 24HD owner I could totally see the
Surface Pro replacing it — denser screen, portable, doesn't weigh 40KG.

The only thing that really annoyed me is that the 150% DPI setting throws off
the colour picker in Sketchbook Pro. How is the OS allowing this to happen? It
seems stupid that the DPI setting is so badly implemented it actually breaks
apps. (I have heard that Civ 5 with touch on the Surface Pro also requires the
DPI to be changed.)

~~~
T-Winsnes
I would look at it the other way. Why is the app so broken that it doesn't
have support for multiple DPIs?

~~~
interpol_p
The app shouldn't know about the DPI being used by the OS.

It should be completely transparent to the app — this is not the app's
responsibility.

~~~
T-Winsnes
Yes and no, it should be transparent as in the app shouldn't be broken because
someone has set their DPI to be different than usual. This becomes especially
important when you have an application that can run on different devices with
high and low DPI.

Also, the 150% DPI setting is an accessibility feature for people with bad eye
sight. All apps on windows desktop should support it. If your app doesn't, and
setting it to 150% breaks your app, it's you fault for not spending the
resources to support it. It might be a business decision, and that's cool, but
it's still your choice. Can't blame it on anyone else.

~~~
interpol_p
If it's an accessibility feature only — and might break apps — then it
shouldn't be the default setting on the Surface Pro.

In a well designed operating system the application should not have to
explicitly handle arbitrary DPI settings for correct touch/pointer input.

An unsupported application should simply look blurry if it does not provide
correct raster assets for the specified DPI. That's it.

~~~
ygra
The problem is that some applications tell the OS "Hey, I do support that" and
they might even work fine for 125 % but fail for 150 (our product at work
falls in that category). Basically everything you draw yourself on a pixel-
based device context needs to be dpi-aware and people make mistakes,
applications advertise capabilities that aren't there and not enough testing
is being done.

I can imagine though, that fixing that is now fairly high on their issue list.
And Windows has used an automatically-determined scaling factor (based on
display dpi) since Windows 7 so it's not exactly new.

------
bitwize
I just bought a Sony laptop/tablet thing with a stylus. After some unwanted
wrestling with Secure Boot I got Slackware on the thing, patched the kernel to
recognize the N-Trig tablet part, and it is now my art box.

It works wonderfully; and I had indeed considered the Surface Pro for such a
purpose, but this device is slightly larger and has 6 GiB of RAM.

------
robotmay
It was great to see him mention how well Civilisation V is supported on it. I
love that game, and hearing that it runs so well on the Surface Pro would
probably be the tipping point for me if I had the money spare to spend on one.

------
DocG
Really good review!

It has changed my mind on surface pro. It will still be out of my price range
and I am not going to buy it, but it has changed my mind about it.

Best tradeoff for MS with surface series ever? For one tablet, HN is changing
its mind?:D

------
tluyben2
Excellent review. Like others say; it's really nice to see a non technical pov
as the pure tech part has already been done to death on a lot of sites. What I
even like more is that this is really heating up the niche; Asus, Samsung,
Acer, HP, Dell are all watching and rapidly introducing competitors. Good for
us.

Maybe 2013 will be the year I can buy my dream system :) Currently the
Thinkpad Helix seems to be closest; if it had double the battery life, I would
buy it without looking further.

------
chx
Sorry for the snark remark but -- if every single Cintiq 24HD owner buys an MS
Surface Pro then MS will gain... a measurement error in the tablet market
share.

------
jcampbell1
A bit off topic, but can someone comment on how the stylus works? I assume the
"pressure sensitivity" comes from a sensor in the pen, and is wirelessly
relayed back to the device (bluetooth?). Is there something else that makes it
more accurate than capacitive multi touch?

Is it possible to put a pressure sensitive stilus on an iPad with bluetooth
and app support, or do you need different hardware?

~~~
cnahr
Different hardware. The Surface Pro (and the Sony Vaio Duo which is the other
Windows 8 convertible with a Wacom stylus) include an additional dedicated
sensor grid for the stylus. The iPad and most other tablets (including Surface
RT) can only use a capacitive stylus that emulates finger taps, and therefore
is relatively inaccurate.

------
ChrisClark
I wonder how it compares to all the Android tablets with Wacom digitizers.
Sounds like he sees no pen lag at all, that's really nice.

------
danpeddle
Is it just the surface pro that has this tech built in..? Crazy that this
feature has not been promoted more.

~~~
jan_g
Some Samsung galaxy tablets have 'S Pen' that also use Wacom digitiser system
(pressure sensitivity and similar). See:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Note#Stylus> and
[http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/mobile-devices/galaxy-
not...](http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/mobile-devices/galaxy-
note/10-1/GT-N8000EAABTU-features)

------
dferlemann
2 things have been keeping me from buying one: 1\. Disk space. 128GB is not
going to cut it for using as laptop/desktop replacement. 2\. Heat. I'm
paranoid about my devices' lifespan cause by overheating...

Overall, I like this tablet. For the features it offer, the price seems
right... hate to say that.

------
hdra
maybe this shows how terrible of a job the marketing department at Microsoft
is doing ? reading this review alone made me look for the device online to
check its price and I've had mostly the "meh" reaction since launch with all
of their ads.

~~~
tanzam75
Apple's marketing department can sell ice to an Eskimo.

Microsoft's marketing department cannot sell water to a man who's dying of
thirst.

Although -- whoever at Microsoft decided to ship a free Surface Pro to a
popular online artist had the right idea. That review probably sold enough
Surface Pros to pay his salary for the year.

------
cbeach
"My wife is playing Civ"

If my girlfriend took an interest in Civ there'd be a ring on her finger ASAP!

------
supar
Are there any digitizer users here?

I use a Wacom digitizer daily for notes and sketches instead of using
pen&paper. My wet dream is a pressure&tilt sensitive/e-ink based device, but
it looks like the Surface Pro is the closest you can get currently - and this
is a good review.

If you want a portable device (laptop/ultrabook/tablet) with a _good_
digitizer that you can actually use (that is, wacom based), your options are
actually very few.

There is the Lifebook T902, or the ThinkPad X230T. Did I miss anything else?
Both are convertible laptops, both are quite heavy, have medium to poor
battery life if you extend them with the additional battery, and a lower-dpi
screen. I would have expected higher-range graphics on those laptops, but the
integrated HD 4000 is ridicolous when you think you basically get the same on
an ultrabook.

Not to mention that the price range is simply off. The Surface Pro is way
cheaper.

I used an earlier version of the Lifebook T902. It's actually better than
having a separate digitizer which takes useless space on the desk, but it's
still cumbersome. You cannot draw unless you flip the screen (odd position
otherwise). It's really heavy. A clipboard with paper is an all-around better.

There are two segments of markets that are filled by this usage pattern: on-
the-go artists, and cheap cintiq replacements. Drawing on a cintiq is just
awesome, but wacom has basically a monopole and the prices are just
unjustified. Even the Intuos line is, IMHO, overpriced at least by a 2x
factor. The sad reality is that they have absolutely no real competition. I
tried several NTrig-based digitizers (lately the Vaio Duo 11), and they just
suck. The tracking is just worse, many jumps just over a few hours of testing,
not to mention that the pressure sensitivity is lower too (when you're drawing
strokes it's quite visible unless the software is not interpolating it for
you).

Just look at the missed opportunities there are! The Taichi 21 and VAIO Duo 11
are cool, but they use N-Trig. The keyboard on the Lenovo Yoga is awesome, but
no digitizer. The Dell XPS 12 looks stunning, but again missed opportunity. It
was rumored to ship with a wacom layer, but it didn't finally.

The only downside of the Surface is the keyboard. I tried the flip keyboard of
the Surface Rt and I only hope that the keyboard from the Pro is different,
because it sucks. Missed keys, zero feedback. Admittedly, it's better than
typing on an on-screen keyboard, but the Taichi 21 of the Dell XPS 12
approaches are way better.

As a sad note, the replaceable battery concept is gone on all these modes. You
know, I would settle for lower battery life if I could just have 2, or 3. I
was actually shocked that at least HP offers the EliteBook Folio 9470m which
_has_ a replaciable battery in a thin format (the ultrabook is awesome), so
there are really no excuses for it.

~~~
wtallis
That eInk-based device you want won't happen until eInk refresh rates improve
by a lot - they list an image update time of 120ms for monochrome, and up to
980ms for color. That needs to improve by at least an order of magnitude
before it can be considered responsive enough for any direct-manipulation
application.

~~~
supar
In this area was hoping for the NoteSlate to succeed, but it seems that it
went waporware.

For notetaking the refresh speed is not so critical, as the areas to refresh
are limited to the writing spot. You would probably notice lag, but if you
ever drew with heavyweight painting/retouching programs, lag sometimes is
introduced by processing and you just get used to it (you just don't expect
immediate results and keep going).

I would still prefer a slight lag and the ability to avoid a glass screen in
this case.

------
recoiledsnake
> I left it at 125% and just like he had suggested my color picker was working
> again! I finished the strip at 125% magnification with no trouble but then I
> had to switch it back to 150% when I was finished.

You can disable the DPI scale up in the compatibility tab of the file
properties of the exe. In this case he could've set it for Sketchbook's exe
and the rest of the OS would continue to be at 150%. Hopefully, this is just a
temporary stopgap while application developers start supporting high
resolutions.

Image of setting:

[http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/...](http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/HT4309/TS4309_1-boo_camp-
disable_dpi-002-en.png)

~~~
Cushman
That URL is deeply confusing.

~~~
elemeno
I'd imagine that it's a result of people running into the same issue whilst
duel booting Windows on Macs with Retina screens.

~~~
SEMW
Exactly right: the image is from
[http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4309?viewlocale=en_US&loca...](http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4309?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US).
(Props to Google reverse image search).

------
dade_
I am really surprised that I keep reading blog posts, this one included, that
state the only option for an iPad stylus is the eraser head style capacitive
pieces of crap.

This entire post was about a tablet that runs uncomfortably warm, with buggy
software, short battery life, tiny available user storage and an occasionally
useful flip stand, but has a pressure sensitive stylus and it is the best. Oh
yeah, and Microsoft gave him the device, so I dare say he didn't actually
research his options.

Has no one heard of Jot? I'd be interested to read his comparison of the
pressure sensive jot on his iPad to the Surface Pro.

<http://adonit.net/jot/touch/>

~~~
slantyyz
I have one of the original Jots from their kickstarter project. Pressure
sensitivity aside, it's just OK. The precision is way better than those crayon
styluses, but it skips regularly (although I heard washing the tip with
dishwashing soap helps). I've heard that Dagi's stylus, which is also a
transparent-bullseye type of stylus, skips a lot less.

Here's a comparison of the two on a Galaxy:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfYijQCnFSE>

------
iomike
Microsoft shilling

~~~
Alterlife
Why would you say that? He likes it, and he's given good reasons for why he
does. His wife likes it, I can understand the reasons why she does as well.

You disagree with him, but you've given no reasons for it... Mr. Anti
Microsoft drone.

\--

As a developer, I still wouldn't buy the device. Partly because it's on the
upper end of my budget, but for the most part because of the downsides: heat,
lack of serviceability, and most of all I think the compromise that has to be
made ie: not being able to use the keyboard while on the lap, is a deal
killer. There are cheaper portable machines which are better for developers.

~~~
lnanek2
Gaming community has a lot less MS hate than other communities as well. Since
you have to play Halo et. all if you want to have covered all the famous
works, and they had the first good online community, etc..

