skellington
Member
Hi all,
I just bought a Surface Pro (1) 128GB from the MS store for $540 (they agreed to student discount) plus the type cover 2. I thought I'd write here on my experience so far to perhaps help someone else who is thinking about a SP and to get feedback on some of my thoughts/opinions.
First I'll begin with the bad... (machine is updated to windows 8.1 and latest drivers)
Type cover 2 is ok considering it's size and weight, but there are some issues that stop it from being really good:
-- Why aren't there function keys for volume on the keyboard and why are the backlight controls 'hidden?' I often want to change the volume quickly and only having the physical buttons or the volume setting is slow. Why aren't the backlight controls marked on the keyboard? Yes I know it's there because I looked it up, but there is no reason to not mark it on the keyboard, they put the keyboard backlight control on the keyboard which is use WAY less often than the screen backlight control.
-- Why are the function keys (F1-F12) not the default and you use the FUNC key to access the extra functions? There isn't even a way to swap the primary use of the keys like macbooks. I know there are various tradeoffs in fitting keys on such a small footprint, but this decision can be really annoying for someone who uses the F keys a lot.
-- The trackpad surface is too rough and is abrading away my finger tips, two-finger scrolling doesn't work well in all cases, the trackpad area isn't visible in the dark (doesn't like up in any way) and can be hard to use, the buttons are just plain bad, swiping in from left-right doesn't work consistently for some reason
Bugs!!
-- It takes a registry hack to make the machine not sleep unexpectedly (the 'unattended sleep' problem). Why is this still a problem so long after the machine was released!?
-- Machine crashes when sleeping which was fixed by going to the wifi device and unchecking the box that allows windows to put it to sleep. How can this still be a bug? Now I admit that I changed the wifi sleep power option to "maximize battery life" where the default in the "balanced" profile is "medium power savings." I wonder if this change is the reason why it crashes, but I haven't had the time to verify. In any case, any setting like this should not cause the SP to crash.
-- When the machine puts itself to sleep (after 10 minutes or whatever is in the power profile), if I wake it up by pushing a key, it's shows the lock screen (and says it's locked) but then just bypasses the lock screen and goes into the desktop. I don't know if this is supposed to be a convenience, but it seems like a bug. However the machine enters sleep, it should really lock the account (if lock on sleep is selected in the power options).
Design issues:
-- The power handling options are nutty. Why would I want one profile that controls both plugged and unplugged power options? Wouldn't it make MUCH more sense to just have a set of power options (Max Performance, Max Battery, Balanced, Silent, etc) and let you select from that set when on battery and when plugged in? So you could do things like select Max Performance when plugged in and Max Battery when on battery? You can achieve the same thing in a power profile, but if you wanted to change to Max Battery (on battery) and Silent (plugged in) you can't without making a whole new power profile.
-- The pen should sit within the device when not in use. It's a PITA to keep track of the pen when moving the machine around all the time.
-- Why is the machine so heavy? With the type cover, It's the same weight as a 13" macbook air but the air has a bigger screen and a full size keyboard and REALLy long battery life.
Good things:
-- except for the major bugs, the machine works very well, is fast, and IE 11 is surprisingly good (why can't you pin tabs like in chrome!!!!!). If you use IE11, video is surprisingly CPU/battery efficient. Chrome chews through the battery (haven't tested firefox). Screen is small but really nice.
Summary:
I really want to like this machine, but after using it for a while I'm not sure it isn't the worst of both worlds: ultrabook and tablet. It's not great at either use. For $540 it might be worth keeping as a fun toy, but I would have a REALLY hard time justifying $1300 or more for a SP2 when a Yoga 2 pro and other ultrabooks are the same price, weigh almost the same, have better batteries, better keyboards/trackpads, and much bigger screens. The only 'unusual' feature of the SP is the wacom digitizer, but there are some competing ultrabooks that offer than too now and with 13" screens which makes the drawing experience better.
If I wanted to use it 90% as a tablet, there are lighter tablets with much better battery life (and cheaper). The caveat is that running a real x86 browser seems to give a better internet browsing experience than any of the tablet browsers I've tried. It's faster and more compatible on the average.
If I wanted to use it 90% as a productivity machine, the little screen and mediocre keyboard/trackpad are negatives.
So those are my thoughts. I'm still on the fence on keeping the device. For some reason I still LIKE it, even though I'm having a hard time justifying living with it's compromises. Maybe I'm just not the right audience for this machine, but then again it seems to me that the person who would NEED this device, with all of its compromises, over a less compromised device is a rare individual. It also bothers me that I've had to debug the device to make it work correctly. I don't understand how MS could have so many highly visible bugs on a device where they control both the hardware and the software. (I should point out though that the default balanced profile might not hit the wifi bug.)
What are your thoughts?
--skell
I just bought a Surface Pro (1) 128GB from the MS store for $540 (they agreed to student discount) plus the type cover 2. I thought I'd write here on my experience so far to perhaps help someone else who is thinking about a SP and to get feedback on some of my thoughts/opinions.
First I'll begin with the bad... (machine is updated to windows 8.1 and latest drivers)
Type cover 2 is ok considering it's size and weight, but there are some issues that stop it from being really good:
-- Why aren't there function keys for volume on the keyboard and why are the backlight controls 'hidden?' I often want to change the volume quickly and only having the physical buttons or the volume setting is slow. Why aren't the backlight controls marked on the keyboard? Yes I know it's there because I looked it up, but there is no reason to not mark it on the keyboard, they put the keyboard backlight control on the keyboard which is use WAY less often than the screen backlight control.
-- Why are the function keys (F1-F12) not the default and you use the FUNC key to access the extra functions? There isn't even a way to swap the primary use of the keys like macbooks. I know there are various tradeoffs in fitting keys on such a small footprint, but this decision can be really annoying for someone who uses the F keys a lot.
-- The trackpad surface is too rough and is abrading away my finger tips, two-finger scrolling doesn't work well in all cases, the trackpad area isn't visible in the dark (doesn't like up in any way) and can be hard to use, the buttons are just plain bad, swiping in from left-right doesn't work consistently for some reason
Bugs!!
-- It takes a registry hack to make the machine not sleep unexpectedly (the 'unattended sleep' problem). Why is this still a problem so long after the machine was released!?
-- Machine crashes when sleeping which was fixed by going to the wifi device and unchecking the box that allows windows to put it to sleep. How can this still be a bug? Now I admit that I changed the wifi sleep power option to "maximize battery life" where the default in the "balanced" profile is "medium power savings." I wonder if this change is the reason why it crashes, but I haven't had the time to verify. In any case, any setting like this should not cause the SP to crash.
-- When the machine puts itself to sleep (after 10 minutes or whatever is in the power profile), if I wake it up by pushing a key, it's shows the lock screen (and says it's locked) but then just bypasses the lock screen and goes into the desktop. I don't know if this is supposed to be a convenience, but it seems like a bug. However the machine enters sleep, it should really lock the account (if lock on sleep is selected in the power options).
Design issues:
-- The power handling options are nutty. Why would I want one profile that controls both plugged and unplugged power options? Wouldn't it make MUCH more sense to just have a set of power options (Max Performance, Max Battery, Balanced, Silent, etc) and let you select from that set when on battery and when plugged in? So you could do things like select Max Performance when plugged in and Max Battery when on battery? You can achieve the same thing in a power profile, but if you wanted to change to Max Battery (on battery) and Silent (plugged in) you can't without making a whole new power profile.
-- The pen should sit within the device when not in use. It's a PITA to keep track of the pen when moving the machine around all the time.
-- Why is the machine so heavy? With the type cover, It's the same weight as a 13" macbook air but the air has a bigger screen and a full size keyboard and REALLy long battery life.
Good things:
-- except for the major bugs, the machine works very well, is fast, and IE 11 is surprisingly good (why can't you pin tabs like in chrome!!!!!). If you use IE11, video is surprisingly CPU/battery efficient. Chrome chews through the battery (haven't tested firefox). Screen is small but really nice.
Summary:
I really want to like this machine, but after using it for a while I'm not sure it isn't the worst of both worlds: ultrabook and tablet. It's not great at either use. For $540 it might be worth keeping as a fun toy, but I would have a REALLY hard time justifying $1300 or more for a SP2 when a Yoga 2 pro and other ultrabooks are the same price, weigh almost the same, have better batteries, better keyboards/trackpads, and much bigger screens. The only 'unusual' feature of the SP is the wacom digitizer, but there are some competing ultrabooks that offer than too now and with 13" screens which makes the drawing experience better.
If I wanted to use it 90% as a tablet, there are lighter tablets with much better battery life (and cheaper). The caveat is that running a real x86 browser seems to give a better internet browsing experience than any of the tablet browsers I've tried. It's faster and more compatible on the average.
If I wanted to use it 90% as a productivity machine, the little screen and mediocre keyboard/trackpad are negatives.
So those are my thoughts. I'm still on the fence on keeping the device. For some reason I still LIKE it, even though I'm having a hard time justifying living with it's compromises. Maybe I'm just not the right audience for this machine, but then again it seems to me that the person who would NEED this device, with all of its compromises, over a less compromised device is a rare individual. It also bothers me that I've had to debug the device to make it work correctly. I don't understand how MS could have so many highly visible bugs on a device where they control both the hardware and the software. (I should point out though that the default balanced profile might not hit the wifi bug.)
What are your thoughts?
--skell
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