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Surface Pro returned to Best Buy

rrk2013

New Member
Well, after a week of very heavy usage, I decided to return the surface pro to best buy today. If anyone recalls, I'm a long time Mac user who purchased an SP128. I didn't expect it to be a replacement for my MBP retina, nor for my iPad mini which stays by my bed for quick email answering and web browsing. I wanted a device for traveling, which I do quite a bit, that was thin, light, full featured in terms of productivity and fun and easy to use.

Unfortunately, after a week, I found the SP to be too much of a compromise in each of those categories. My frustrations started with Windows 8 and the google account "bug". Yes, I understand google stopping the use of EAS, but the entire setup of invoking permissions on my outlook.com account and trying to get calendar and email and contacts synced was kludgy at best. Emails were delayed upwards of thirty to forty minutes and for someone who runs a business using gmail, it was a major challenge. But one I was ready to forgive if the functions of the SP outweighed this issue.

I knew the gmail issue would be fixed eventually, so I focused on how best to use the surface on a day to day basis. As a replacement for my work machine at home it did ok. Extending the desktop to a 27" monitor worked, and the machine was very speedy. But having a little secondary display was really silly. And, the beauty of the tablet was severely tarnished by the three cables that came out of the thing. With a monitor cable, USB hub and power hooked up, the little machine, so svelt and gorgeous, looked like something dr. Frankenstein was working on with all these wires and gizmos.

Speaking of wires, someone please tell me that the guy who invented the power cable is now working somewhere other than MSoft. What a horrible design! I would have honestly preferred a non-magnetic old school cable to the thing they tried to pass off. It took 5-6 seconds to plug in every time, and forget it if you have anything less than a 10,000 lumen spotlight to try and see what you're doing.

And why do we need the power cable at all times? Well, because the battery on this machine rivals two hamsters running on a wheel, one of which has a heart condition. Honestly, on plane flights longer than 4 hours, of which I had four this past week, I was constantly saving and turning off wifi and otherwise managing the SP so as not to be left without power. Because my airport time plus flight time was always more than my battery could handle.

Finally, the type cover. Something that everyone I spoke to raves about, felt like it was designed by nerf. It felt plasticky and the touchpad was pathetically unresponsive. Try clicking and dragging, or trying to copy and paste, and you're talking about multiple frustrations.

Where the surface shined was in its productivity functions. Using office and a full web browser in a small form factor was incredible. But, for me, that wasn't enough. I truly don't want a laptop to travel with anymore, and I really had high hopes for the surface. But at the end of the day version 1.0 really didn't do it for me.
 
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rrk2013

New Member
Two other notes: I had mentioned this earlier, but the windows App Store needs help, which i think will come eventually. And two, I constantly had wifi issues with my surface. Whether it wouldn't pickup my router, or it would drop the connection.

A third, bonus item the one thing I miss most about the surface is handwriting with onenote and using the pen. I actually went out and purchased a wacom tablet because I wanted that feature.

In any case, thanks to all of you on this forum who helped and provided guidance. I think v2.0 of the surface pro will be amazing. They'll get these bugs out of the system and it will put the device ahead of MacBook airs and pretty much any ultra book out there.
 

GreatWindows

New Member
Lol......ill agree with one of your points, the rest just aren't that valid to me.

Maybe a 128Gb iPad would suit your needs?
Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920 using Board Express
 

polbit

Member
I can appreciate that it doesn't fit your use case scenarios, and you certainly make a couple of very valid points - Gmail integration and the damn power cord. That plug is the single worst cord I've ever had the pleasure of using, especially coming from MagSafe.

On the other hand, I have to say that for my use the Pro is close to perfect. In the office, I can use the touch cover to take typed notes completely silently in meetings, or use the stylus. The battery life is more than adequate with a cord never more than few hours away. OneNote 2013 and full Windows 8 Pro make it a breeze. I can hook it up to projector for full PowerPoint presentations easily, I can edit Excel on the fly. Basically, a great little device at work.

At home, it does show few compromises - it can get a tad loud in the evening, doesn't work very well for reading (at least as compared to the Kindle app on the iPad), and it could be a bit lighter. Overall though, I wouldn't trade it for anything else.
 

xterrapro

New Member
. For a guy who took 4 4 hour flights in a week why on gods earth don't you use the power seat adapter to plug in? As a frequent flier who just got back from another coast to coast my pro lasted 7 hours plus on the plane plugged (road warrior 101).
Two other notes: I had mentioned this earlier, but the windows App Store needs help, which i think will come eventually. And two, I constantly had wifi issues with my surface. Whether it wouldn't pickup my router, or it would drop the connection.

A third, bonus item the one thing I miss most about the surface is handwriting with onenote and using the pen. I actually went out and purchased a wacom tablet because I wanted that feature.

In any case, thanks to all of you on this forum who helped and provided guidance. I think v2.0 of the surface pro will be amazing. They'll get these bugs out of the system and it will put the device ahead of MacBook airs and pretty much any ultra book out there.
 
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mph

New Member
No offense, but you could have avoided going through all the trouble by simply comparing the drawbacks the SPro def. has to your daily needs.
 

Mr.NK

Super Moderator
No offense, but you could have avoided going through all the trouble by simply comparing the drawbacks the SPro def. has to your daily needs.
Because some facts could only be drawn out in a real world test. Please all stay calm, as the OP wrote a review of his own needs/expectations, even if some seem to be strange for other users and his language was a tad too emotional.
 

mph

New Member
My comment mainly related to his thoughts on battery life. It was the min concern on every review out there.
Considering he is travelling a lot with long flight times it shouldve been taken into account.

won't blame anyone to "simply give it a shot"
 

Mr.NK

Super Moderator
If you're looking into the thread about battery life, you'll see some different life-times - one's getting 4 while the other's getting 6 hrs out of his Pro - and sometimes this difference is the verge between acceptable (because i love this thing) or not (although i love this thing).
The call for calming was more a general one, to prevent this thread from going to a troll-thing.
 

HD_Dude

New Member
Everyone has different expectations, and needs. I returned the RT, because even though the concept of full-blown Office in a tablet with excellent battery life was incredible, I found the rest of it didn't fit my needs. If the app store gets up and running with more choices, I'll get another RT. Beautiful machine.

So now I have the 128GB Pro. To me? Perfect.

If there's an app for something I need? I use the app. If not, I use the full Win8 software. iTunes, ACDSee, Silverlight. I added Office, and of course, it flies.

For battery? Enough for a cross-country flight...even on a plane without AC power available. Good enough for me. I do wish, however, that the Pro could be charged with standard mini or micro USB, or at least a standard-type DC tip. I have some Trent powerpacks that I wish I could use to supplement the battery. But with the proprietary power tip, no can do.

Another bonus of the Pro: I use Verizon's VZAccess Manager with an LG 4G USB modem - and it works perfectly with the Pro. I also have my 4G phone as a hotspot, but as a road warrior who needs to push big files in and out, I always prefer redundancy to having a single connectivity option.

To sum it up, the Surface RT experience was too often hit with a 'no, not yet.' Whereas the Surface pro experience is nearly always a 'yes.'
 
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