Excited new Surface Pro 3 owner

[malberttoo]

Welcome to the forum, you picked a great place to be surrounded by folks that love their SP3's just as much!

In spite of the fact that I've been in IT for quite a while, it has only been the last 6 months or so that I've even been willing to give Win8 a try. If I did have a computer that would only come with Win8, or a customer that would come to me complaining about it, I immediately installed Start8 on the machine and then "fugettabout it".

With the SP3, I decided to force myself to honestly give the Start/Metro environment a chance, and to use it as thoroughly as possible. But I have to say, I honestly have no idea what direction Microsoft will end up taking Win9, and beyond. I simply cannot exist *only* in the Start environment, there is too much still that must be done on the Desktop only. I do genuinely like the Start environment, it is great on the SP3 (touch device) which of course it what it was made for. But I really can't imagine how Microsoft is going to solve the huge rift that defines how we use Start vs. how we use Desktop. I know Win9 is supposed to address a little bit of that with the new Start Menu.

I do love my SP3 though! Thanks for stopping by and posting!

 

[sharpuser]

Welcome fellow SP3 user!

Reading through the comments here, I was thinking, is it me or is every other windows version pure crap? Almost like they release it way before it was ready, I will stick to the versions I used for what I thought of them:

Windows 3.1 - Best thing around at the time
Windows 95 - Way better than 3.1
Windows 98 - Good
Windows ME - Pure Crap
Windows XP - Awesome
Windows Vista - Pure Crap x 2
Windows 7 - Awesome - My Favorite to date
Windows 8 - Downgraded back to Windows 7
Windows 8.1 - Not sure what to think yet, not amazed with it
Windows 9 -Here is hoping for "Awesome" once again

Windows 95 got its name from how many floppy disks it came on.

 

[sharpuser]

... Other parts are hideous like the awkward implementation of desktop mode and the number of unintuitive gestures ...

Great use of the word 'hideous'.

 

[Kif]

I didn't mean to start a thread about if Window 8.1 is good or bad. The reality is that it hasn't been well received and Microsoft is going to need to change it to remain competitive. I personally think the Surface Pro 3 deserves a better companion OS and if I worked on the Surface product team I would be in the OS product groups office saying we built stellar hardware now it's your turn to create the OS it deserves.

 

[Seneleron]

Honestly, I don't understand all the love for win7. Win 8 removed the abolute WORST part of the windows O/S since FOREVER [the start menu] and replaced it with something that DIDN'T keep closing everytime I moused over it in any way it didn't like on any given day of the week.

Maybe I'm just too casual a user? /shrug. All I know is I can't live without win+X, P. BEST SHORTCUT EVER. As for the start screen, even on my desktop I actually LIKE having access to things like netflix and TuneIn radio.

In all fairness, however, I suspect there would be very few complaints about windows 8/8.1 if the store on the start screen was GOOGLE and not MS

[I speak of the masses here, not the MS elite that frown on things like chrome. . but let's face it: complete access to all your android apps/contacts and. . dare I say it. . sync'd texting from your windows device? THAT is seamless connection ^^ ]

[It's an opinion folks, no need to attempt a lynching]

 

[JesseDiaz]

Windows 95 got its name from how many floppy disks it came on.View attachment 2503

Awesome!!!!

 

[jnjroach]

Android L's interface is a rip-off Windows 8 Start Screen - I LOL'd during the IO Keynote watching the Google Sheep look on it in awe...

 

[EMINENT]

Android L's interface is a rip-off Windows 8 Start Screen - I LOL'd during the IO Keynote watching the Google Sheep look on it in awe...

It was quite odd seeing that. Kind of like what Apple is trying to do with messaging and design in IOS7. It's like they're slowly transforming it into Windows 8.1/WP8.

Controlling my whole phone, not only messaging can already be done on my SP3, albeit with a usb cord using WP 8.1 and Project My Screen. It also works great with touch. I was using it snapped on desktop and browsing in IE at the same time. What would make it awesome is of course wireless, and then have the ability to use the SP3 keyboard for typing input on the phone. I have to use the little phone keyboard with touch or mouse now so it's not the best. When new phone hardware comes out this fall, I think they'll have this wireless capability built in. I've read that the Lumia 630/635 has it working now as it's one of the first 8.1 phones to roll out.

I think that is going to be really special. Hey look, I have my phone on my tablet and I can do everything I want on it.

Here's a quick video I made of my Lumia 920 working on my pc. Please disregard the music for those that don't like dubstep. It's safe for work though. You'll also see a bit of how IE11 on WP8.1 gets the syncing done for tabs bookmarks on my different devices. This is why I embraced the W8 vision when it came out. Universal apps, synced settings and all. Slowly but surely we're getting there. I hope it all comes together with W9 soon!

 

[Kif]

Welcome! I'm sure you'll be very happy with your new Surface Pro 3. I agree that the schizophrenic nature of Windows 8/8.1 is problematic, but at least they've somewhat improved things in 8.1 and I'm sure they'll make further improvements moving forward. I'd personally like to see them do something with text scaling/resolution independence, but oh well, it's not the end of the world thus far. I just like being able to actually write code and scripts on a device that I can honestly use as my go-to tablet too... that, and inking/handwriting with OneNote ain't too bad either.

Just curious what types of tools are you using to write code and scripts on your SP3. I'm trying to development my coding skills and I've been playing with python. On my desktop with VMware workstation I'm using a virtual machine loaded with Linux as a test box. I'm finding the virtual machine doesn't scale well at all on my SP3.