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I love sitting next to folks with iPads.

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fonzman78

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I flew from Salt Lake City to Chicago today and sat next to a person using an iPad. I don't know about all the rest of you, but I love sitting next to folks with iPads. From the start, it was almost a contest to see whose device was better. It always turns into a 'gee, I which I had your Surface instead of my iPad'.

It started with take off. He had his iPad out and had a case that folded up into a stand and set it on his lap. I took out my SP2 and promptly snapped off the keyboard and put the kickstand into second position on my lap. He looked over and saw how simple it was. The envy was just starting.

Next, we cleared altitude and the 'ding' went off informing us that we could now use the pull down trays. He placed his iPad w/cover on the tray. I kept my keyboard off and just used the kickstand. Much better solution than the bulky cover.

Then came the movies. He had iTunes and was using the App to browse movies. Then he launched a movie and it had very large black bars on top and bottom due to the 4:3 ratio of the iPad. I launched my movie and it was beautiful with small bars due the Surface's better 16:9 ratio. He kept looking over and glancing at my screen to compare to his. Just for fun, I swiped to my desktop from Video to browse the movies I had in iTunes (besides the movies I had on my SD card). He looked over and asked how I had iTunes installed. I told him that the Surface Pro 2 was a real computer and that I could install iTunes or any other application vs just using apps.

Then came the split screen. While watching a movie, my calendar opened with an appt. It simply split the screen in two. I was able to keep watching the movie and also see the calendar invite. Again he glanced over and saw this. For fun (again), I pretended that the calendar invite was important and played around adding useless notes since I knew he was watching. After about 15-30 secs, I then dragged the screen over to close the calendar invite and return the movie to full screen. Awesome!!

Then again for fun, I swiped to the desktop and went to file explorer to my SD card. I let him see that I could not only just browse movies in iTunes but also any .mkv movies on my SD card. I selected a movie that I have that's not even out on Blu-ray yet and started it. He looked over and asked how I was able to play that movie. I again explained that the SP2 was a full computer and that I could play anything on it rather than being locked into to iTunes. (BTW, not going to say which movie nor endorse having movies that aren't released yet).

Throughout the flight, for fun, I kept checking the time by swiping from the right to check time, swiping from the left to check open apps, etc all while watching my movie just so he could see how simple it was and non intrusive to watching a movie.

And last, for those who like the convertible PC/Tablets, when it came time to take off or land, the Stewardess' would walk down the isle telling everyone using an oversized PC/Tablet or huge PC (Dell, HP, whatever) it was time to put them away. When she got to me, I simply pulled off the keyboard again and now I had a tablet and was able to keep on watching my movie until we landed even though a had a full computer in my hands.

The iPad user sitting next to me wanted more info on the Surface. I was glad to oblige him. :)

Love my Surface tablet. Love my Surface PC. Love the form factor. As I've stated before many times, I will take the Surface Pro 2 any day over any other device, quirks and all.
 
I like my ipad but yes indeed it has it's limitations...One thing I rarely see discussed is with the ipad you kind of need another pc or mac to accompany it if you want to add ripped music or movies to the tablet. The surface pro truly is a free standing device not dependent on another system.
 
On the other hand, last evening I was at Toronto's Pearson airport. After security, I had a few hours to kill. When I walked into the post-security concourse, I was faced by a bank of iPads...there must have been over 250 of them - one on each table for patrons to use to order food and to surf the web!

Naturally, I took out my Surface 2 and did what I needed to do. But I noted that the iPads were hardwired to a web-enabled network whereas my Surface had to connect to the Wifi, which sucked!!!!!!

I wish I had taken a pic of the iPads, but I was too put off to think straight!
 
It's a cool story but it just sounds like you made a competition in your head you knew you'd win.
He was watching a movie on his ipad while you had the need to brag about your pc.
That's just how it sounded like to me, no hate.
 
...I will take the Surface Pro 2 any day over any other device, quirks and all...
My SP2 is my 'daily-driver', however, the iPad is also a great device. Choice is good -- personally, I don't see the existence of the iPad as some sort of competition.

Different tools for different tasks, each is better at some than the other ;-)
 
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As much as I love my SP, when it comes to travel, I'm gonna be consuming on my iPad Mini. Lighter, smaller and works well for all the content consumption I can think of.

My SP is more of a laptop/tablet for when I'm in more comfortable settings.

And how do you 'hard wire' an iPad to a network?? :) Last I looked there isn't any wired networking on/in it.
 
The best device is the one you use.

iPad and Surface Pro 2 are both good. The "One size fits all" approach to devices will not work. That's why we have more than one vehicle model on the road, for example, and more than one style of shoes in our closets.

Sometimes I prefer iPad. Sometimes Surface Pro 2. Sometimes Kindle PaperWhite.
 
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I also love that while all the laptop yusers have to put away their devices on landing and takeoff, I just flip around the SUrface keyboard and use it in tablet mode for a bit as the flight attendants stroll by. Then flip back to whatever I was doing.
 
Lately, I've been using LogMeIn from my Surface to access my Mac computers, when at home, or in the office. Works great.
 
My wife just got a Samsung Galaxy Pro 12.2; she is a professional musician and wanted the bigger screen to see sheet music while she is teaching. Guess who got to set it up? It had been a while since I had mucked around in Android land, but I have to admit this is an impressive device! The multitasking the OP of this thread describes with the SP2 can be emulated by the Galaxy Pro; in fact, the Galaxy can open up to 4 active windows.
That being said, I still love the ease of use of my SP2 better. However, I can see that the competition for improved functionality is heating up among all software and hardware manufacturers. This can only be good for us all.
Excellent features in one ecosystem can only mean that similar features will appear in others soon.
 
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