Surface RT/2 Questions

[Harri]

I've been reading this forum for a while now and decided to make an account. I am a high school student that takes college classes after school, I am horribly unorganized with papers and have been looking for a tablet to hopefully get me better organized (Other than my fathers iPad). I came across the surface and began saving up for it then held off at the announcement for the even better surface 2. Now that that the surface 2 is out I am pretty set on purchasing the (RT) version.
To be able to hold all my notes in one place I have been typing on my father iPad for the past year and I have gotten pretty fast and precise on it. My question is to those who have a touch cover, is it like an on screen keyboard? I am looking into the touch cover rather then the type as I feel I would get things underneath the type cover and it would be harder to clean.
Through my phone and iPad I am able to access document that I have on my gaming computer with effortlessly. My computer is better then the average, built it myself, so it has no problem running programs through LogMeIn and I was wondering whether or not there is a program that someone has used that works well with the surface, as LogMeIn doesn't have a metro app.
Final question, with all my classes sometimes I am not able to watch the TV shows I watch. Can anyone with a (RT) version verify if CBS.com or Movie2k/Movie4k works? I know flash works but I just want to make sure.
Thanks for reading guys. (I apologize if there is any grammar errors, I'm typing on the iPad.)

 

[oion]

I've been reading this forum for a while now and decided to make an account. I am a high school student that takes college classes after school, I am horribly unorganized with papers and have been looking for a tablet to hopefully get me better organized (Other than my fathers iPad). I came across the surface and began saving up for it then held off at the announcement for the even better surface 2. Now that that the surface 2 is out I am pretty set on purchasing the (RT) version.
To be able to hold all my notes in one place I have been typing on my father iPad for the past year and I have gotten pretty fast and precise on it. My question is to those who have a touch cover, is it like an on screen keyboard? I am looking into the touch cover rather then the type as I feel I would get things underneath the type cover and it would be harder to clean.
Through my phone and iPad I am able to access document that I have on my gaming computer with effortlessly. My computer is better then the average, built it myself, so it has no problem running programs through LogMeIn and I was wondering whether or not there is a program that someone has used that works well with the surface, as LogMeIn doesn't have a metro app.
Final question, with all my classes sometimes I am not able to watch the TV shows I watch. Can anyone with a (RT) version verify if CBS.com or Movie2k/Movie4k works? I know flash works but I just want to make sure.
Thanks for reading guys. (I apologize if there is any grammar errors, I'm typing on the iPad.)

The Touch cover has slightly raised bumps and is flat on a table or other surface unlike an onscreen keyboard, so there is no wrist-breaking angle. Here's a review of the original Touch cover--the new Touch 2 version is supposedly better and more accurate with a lot more sensors, but it's only in black. You could buy a 1st gen Touch if you prefer the colors.

I'm assuming LogMeIn is a desktop sharing app, in which case you have the choice of SplashTop or Teamviewer for Windows RT, both of which are free or have a free version. But if you have a "pro" version of Windows on your desktop, you don't need those apps, because the built-in Remote Desktop will work with that (most people, however, would have a "home" version of Windows).

Unfortunately I can't verify cbs.com or the others right now, but maybe someone else can.

 

[jnjroach]

I've been reading this forum for a while now and decided to make an account. I am a high school student that takes college classes after school, I am horribly unorganized with papers and have been looking for a tablet to hopefully get me better organized (Other than my fathers iPad). I came across the surface and began saving up for it then held off at the announcement for the even better surface 2. Now that that the surface 2 is out I am pretty set on purchasing the (RT) version.
To be able to hold all my notes in one place I have been typing on my father iPad for the past year and I have gotten pretty fast and precise on it. My question is to those who have a touch cover, is it like an on screen keyboard? I am looking into the touch cover rather then the type as I feel I would get things underneath the type cover and it would be harder to clean.
Through my phone and iPad I am able to access document that I have on my gaming computer with effortlessly. My computer is better then the average, built it myself, so it has no problem running programs through LogMeIn and I was wondering whether or not there is a program that someone has used that works well with the surface, as LogMeIn doesn't have a metro app.
Final question, with all my classes sometimes I am not able to watch the TV shows I watch. Can anyone with a (RT) version verify if CBS.com or Movie2k/Movie4k works? I know flash works but I just want to make sure.
Thanks for reading guys. (I apologize if there is any grammar errors, I'm typing on the iPad.)

For Remote Desktop you can use either the built in Remote Desktop App or Splashtop or Team Viewer, Splashtop and Team Viewer run clients on the local desktop the Remote Desktop App requires Windows Pro or Enterprise level (If your desktop in running Windows 8 Pro you get a full Touch Experience).

The Touch Cover I find is better than the On Screen Keyboard (I use both) and Touch 2 is even better than Touch 1.

CBS.com works on the RT not sure about the other site, CBS also has an App though it appears to be one week behind their site.

 

[Harri]

Thanks for answering my questions guys, really appreciate it.

 

[caltrop]

There is a war with FLASH & HTML5. M$ & others are pushing HTML5 so there are FLASH issues with Win8 RT right now.

FaceBook has issues & the last Surface RT (lasted 48hrs before I got fed up & took it back) would not do CBS & I assume this new Surface 2 (I know what I'm getting & it's actually a bit better) won't either until they convert to the new HTML5.

Adobe quit FLASH for Android this year.

Seems like THEY are going out of THEIR way to piss people off with computing.

 

[beman39]

facebook, cbs and flash sites are working perfectly on my RT, don't know why you had trouble with them, but I think taking back the Surface was a little extreme don't ya think? could have been other factors giving you trouble...or worse just do a restore on the Surface, might have fixed whatever bugs you were experiencing

 

[jnjroach]

He seems to be spreading FUD quickly within these forums....

 

[beman39]

seriously, I wonder if apple and/or android hire these people to purposely try and sabotage the popularity of the Surface lol

 

[EddySnoozah]

My question is to those who have a touch cover, is it like an on screen keyboard? I am looking into the touch cover rather then the type as I feel I would get things underneath the type cover and it would be harder to clean.

The type screen is a little bit different to an on screen keyboard. With an on screen keyboard all you have to do is to touch the screen when you are typing and the letters appear in the document etc. But with the new touch screen you have to tap the keys lightly. The touch screen supports a few gestures, but you can't do gesture-typing (like Swype or Swiftkey). I had the original touch cover for a while and it was definitely less responsive and harder to use than the new one. You had to tap the keys quite s bit harder to get them to recognise each key stroke. I read a couple of reviews of the original touch cover in which the reviewers said that they found it a strain to use it for a prolonged period of time. I would agree with that, but also say that in my experience that is not the case with the new touch cover - it is a lot more responsive than the original and responds to much more gentle/lighter taps of the fingers. I seem to make fewer mistakes with it while typing and I can imagine being able to use this for a long time and feel no 'finger strain'. Also, it is pretty cool to have such a thin screen cover that doubles as a key board and so allows you to have the whole of the screen to view documents that you are working on. The track pad is still a little on the small side for my liking and I think that MS could have made it a bit bigger. However, the USB port means that I can plug in and use a Logitech M187 mini-mouse quite easily when I am working and I picked up a 4-place unpowered USB hub for like £4.00 for when I need to plug in the mouse and something else like a memory stick or portable hard drive. I have a 2TB hard drive that is ~75% full with pdfs, Word documents, Excel & PowerPoint files, music, pictures and video files etc and my S2 has no trouble seeing all the directories, folders, sub-folders and individual files and accessing and opening them up even when it is plugged in via my cheapo USB hub.

I also use Skydrive quite a lot just as a kind of 'server' on which I store any and all documents and files that I am currently working on and might want to access from a different machine at a later point. Skydrive supports Android, and if I have to, I can open documents with my Nexus 7 and Nexus 4 (although I don't have a remote keyboard that I can use with those, so I don't do that too often). Don't know about iOS devices, but I would be surprised if Skydrive is not supported.

 

[caltrop]

Huh, imagine that, FLASH works with Surface 2. I know it did not work with Surface RT because it's one of the reasons I took it back.

 

[beman39]

what are you talking about? flash always worked on the RT but in the beginning MS used a blacklist of certain sites, then changed that after too a "whitelist" and then got rid of it all together! when I got my RT they had done away with all that and every site that I had been on with flash worked. to this day there hasn't been a site that flash didn't work. jeez I wish people would get their facts straight lol

 

[oion]

Huh, imagine that, FLASH works with Surface 2. I know it did not work with Surface RT because it's one of the reasons I took it back.

Flash worked in IE10 on Surface RT.

The problem was the white list. Which MS removed in January or so, don't remember. All your whining about the nonworking sites listed above are essentially moot now with the patches.