Surface Pro 2 is incredible

[bearxor]

I'm basically going to keep the Surface Pro, I think. It's just too good a deal at $500 to pass up.

It has developed a yellow "burn" mark on the right side of the screen. Going to take it to the MS store here and see what they can do.

 

[rsutoratosu]

my 128gb one just hit my door today.. can't wait.. i hope there are some bf deals for the keyboard

 

[bearxor]

Microsoft Store basically told me to piss off and fill the form for support out online. But in much kinder words.

 

[finbarqs]

can you hack this to run mavericks?

 

[Imaginer]

can you hack this to run mavericks?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4520Ee7NDlc

 

[Ns1]

man I love the device but it's also pissing me off. It has some mad wake from sleep issues - pen won't register after turning on, keyboard won't register after turning on, hell sometimes it just wont' turn on. I gotta do a hard reboot and when that happens I lose all of my goddamn work.

 

[zerogear]

man I love the device but it's also pissing me off. It has some mad wake from sleep issues - pen won't register after turning on, keyboard won't register after turning on, hell sometimes it just wont' turn on. I gotta do a hard reboot and when that happens I lose all of my goddamn work.

Hmm, I had this issue with my device but I replaced it (also some pen issues), after replacement, seems like sleep issues and whatnot also went away.

Maybe check powercfg /requests or /lastwake to see which devices is causing wake?

 

[Ns1]

Maybe check powercfg /requests or /lastwake to see which devices is causing wake?

wat?

ctrl+r -> cmd -> input the commands you mentioned above?



I will say that googling my issues, it doesn't seem that uncommon. Oh, MSFT store not being able to connect is also ridiculous.

But at the end of the day, this device does everything I imagined it would do AND THEN SOME. Hell even the free skype has turned out to be a great deal - I'm in India right now and just did a 1 hour teleconference with my US brethren.

 

[Imaginer]

man I love the device but it's also pissing me off. It has some mad wake from sleep issues - pen won't register after turning on, keyboard won't register after turning on, hell sometimes it just wont' turn on. I gotta do a hard reboot and when that happens I lose all of my goddamn work.

The keyboard cover after flipping it over from being in the back of the device sometimes needs to be disconnected and reconnected. The sleep issue, I had to press the button again (and yes at times, I had to hold for a short while and release, thus a full reset and lost open windows).

Never did have the pen stop recognizing on me. There was one instance where touch did though. A typical reboot solved that.

Either way, none of those things were complete show stoppers. Everytime I put the Surface Pro 2 to sleep, work is saved as usual before hand. OneNote syncs regardless. Any file transfer is completed before sleep.

It does have its quirks. But like you said,

But at the end of the day, this device does everything I imagined it would do AND THEN SOME

Nothing similar exists in computing capability in a compact, versatile form with many input options.

 

[Ns1]

"The keyboard cover after flipping it over from being in the back of the device sometimes needs to be disconnected and reconnected"

When my keyboard stops responding, removing it from the device and plugging it back in does nothing. I gotta restart.

If you search for "pen input doesn't respond after wake" issue on surface pro forums, they state that a full shutdown was necessary. I found this true as well.

This device is EXACTLY like windows. Which is why it's so fucking awesome.

 

[Trefugl]

First of all, I'm a long time reader/lurker who thought they had signed up ages ago... but hello there anyway .

I have a question regarding gaming performance.

Civ 5 will still work on the 4/128 and League of Legends. Those games are not as demanding.
...
(my previous Envy 14 had a dGPU, rough numbers determined the performance of GPU to be slightly higher than the Pro 1).
...
My Envy 14 seldom travels with me day to day, only for extended trips away from home. The Surface Pro and Pro 2 always comes along.

I too own an Envy 14 (1600x900) that I only use for extended business trips. If I'm reading your comment correctly (bold specifically), then the SP2 in games should be roughly comparable with my old Envy 14? If so, there is much rejoicing, as the SP2 is tempting, but I have a hard time justifying it when I have a 7" tablet, 14" notebook (that I'm tired of taking on trips along with an engineering laptop for work), and a watercooled gaming rig for everything else at home. SP2 sounds like it may combine 2 of those and allow me to do sketching/notes in my free time.

 

[bearxor]

If you can wait, then I'd hold out for the SP3.

Otherwise, yes the SP1 or 2 does a fairly decent job gaming. I played some Arkham City on the 1 the other night off a mSD card and it was not bad at all.

 

[zerogear]

wat?

ctrl+r -> cmd -> input the commands you mentioned above?



I will say that googling my issues, it doesn't seem that uncommon. Oh, MSFT store not being able to connect is also ridiculous.

But at the end of the day, this device does everything I imagined it would do AND THEN SOME. Hell even the free skype has turned out to be a great deal - I'm in India right now and just did a 1 hour teleconference with my US brethren.

Yep, in Command Prompt, sorry, forgot to mention.

 

[007ELmO]

wat?

ctrl+r -> cmd -> input the commands you mentioned above?



I will say that googling my issues, it doesn't seem that uncommon. Oh, MSFT store not being able to connect is also ridiculous.

But at the end of the day, this device does everything I imagined it would do AND THEN SOME. Hell even the free skype has turned out to be a great deal - I'm in India right now and just did a 1 hour teleconference with my US brethren.

same on my device, basically won't wake from full sleep. have to hard reboot.

 

[Trefugl]

If you can wait, then I'd hold out for the SP3.

Otherwise, yes the SP1 or 2 does a fairly decent job gaming. I played some Arkham City on the 1 the other night off a mSD card and it was not bad at all.

Thanks. Yeah, it was my original plan to hold off for the SP3, but you know how it is with waiting for tech gadgets . Additionally, I find my Nexus 7 is only used for forum crawling and news, which my N4 handles just fine, anything more useful (like paying bills) requires that I go to an actual PC. I've always longed for full windows on a tablet... so the wait is difficult. My only hesitation has been wanting to occasionally use it for gaming when on business trips.

 

[Imaginer]

First of all, I'm a long time reader/lurker who thought they had signed up ages ago... but hello there anyway .

I have a question regarding gaming performance.



I too own an Envy 14 (1600x900) that I only use for extended business trips. If I'm reading your comment correctly (bold specifically), then the SP2 in games should be roughly comparable with my old Envy 14? If so, there is much rejoicing, as the SP2 is tempting, but I have a hard time justifying it when I have a 7" tablet, 14" notebook (that I'm tired of taking on trips along with an engineering laptop for work), and a watercooled gaming rig for everything else at home. SP2 sounds like it may combine 2 of those and allow me to do sketching/notes in my free time.

I ran my comparisons with the numbers on this page.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

Radeon Mobility HD5650 and Intel HD4000/HD4400.

Intel HD4000 : 459
Intel HD4400 : 500
Radeon Mobility HD5650 : 496

So roughly speaking, about the same.

 

[Ichinisan]

ctrl+r -> cmd -> input the commands you mentioned above?

[win]+[r] might work better than [ctrl]+[r].

 

[zerogear]

Thanks. Yeah, it was my original plan to hold off for the SP3, but you know how it is with waiting for tech gadgets . Additionally, I find my Nexus 7 is only used for forum crawling and news, which my N4 handles just fine, anything more useful (like paying bills) requires that I go to an actual PC. I've always longed for full windows on a tablet... so the wait is difficult. My only hesitation has been wanting to occasionally use it for gaming when on business trips.

To be honest, since you'll always end up playing the waiting game. Something better is always on the horizon. Surface Pro 2 is awesome as it is.

 

[Ns1]

First of all, I'm a long time reader/lurker who thought they had signed up ages ago... but hello there anyway .

I have a question regarding gaming performance.



I too own an Envy 14 (1600x900) that I only use for extended business trips. If I'm reading your comment correctly (bold specifically), then the SP2 in games should be roughly comparable with my old Envy 14? If so, there is much rejoicing, as the SP2 is tempting, but I have a hard time justifying it when I have a 7" tablet, 14" notebook (that I'm tired of taking on trips along with an engineering laptop for work), and a watercooled gaming rig for everything else at home. SP2 sounds like it may combine 2 of those and allow me to do sketching/notes in my free time.

I can play xcom/sc2 fine, lower graphic settings. Probably won't run crysis. gaming eats up battery/resources though.

w/o gaming, the battery life on this thing is fucking insane.

 

[bearxor]

I can play xcom/sc2 fine, lower graphic settings. Probably won't run crysis. gaming eats up battery/resources though.

w/o gaming, the battery life on this thing is fucking insane.

I was going to say I disagree, but then realize you have a SP2. I can barely eek out 4 hours on mine. I have to treat it more like a laptop as opposed to a tablet and it's kind of irritating sometimes. I'm really thinking that a Broadwell SP3 will be the sweet spot.

 

[zerogear]

The only weak spot is probably the inefficient hardware decoding for videos. Which is supposed to be addressed in Broadwell, which will lengthen video playback time. Otherwise, I would estimate the usage time would be roughly the same a Haswell. I think you are putting too much faith into an unreleased chipset at this point.

 

[bearxor]

The only weak spot is probably the inefficient hardware decoding for videos. Which is supposed to be addressed in Broadwell, which will lengthen video playback time. Otherwise, I would estimate the usage time would be roughly the same a Haswell. I think you are putting too much faith into an unreleased chipset at this point.

I'm expecting around the same run time as Haswell, which is fine. 6-7 hours is pretty decent. But Broadwell should let the Surface Pro trim down to the size of the Surface.

 

[zerogear]

I'm expecting around the same run time as Haskell, which is fine. 6-7 hours is pretty decent. But Broadwell should let the Surface Pro trim down to the size of the Surface.

That may be true, but I don't think it's any reason to not buy the Surface Pro 2 for most people since 2 Lbs is considered pretty light (by Ultrabook standards) -- by tablet standard, it's a bit heavy, but not a dealbreaker.

 

[wasabiman123]

I'm expecting around the same run time as Haskell, which is fine. 6-7 hours is pretty decent. But Broadwell should let the Surface Pro trim down to the size of the Surface.

It will get slimmer for the Pro 3, but not that thin, it still needs fans for thermal headroom, no point touting a high performance portable machine if it has to throttle and run at super speeds. I just want a few mm shaved off the Pro 2 chassis and we're fine, would rather just let the SOC run at higher speeds w/o throttling.

 

[Demo24]

I'm expecting around the same run time as Haskell, which is fine. 6-7 hours is pretty decent. But Broadwell should let the Surface Pro trim down to the size of the Surface.

Maybe, but last I saw broadwell wasn't going to be released until late 2014 at best. This makes me think the whole wait on sp3 for broadwell is going to be a long wait. Quite possible there will be an sp3 next year, but more of a design change than a chip set change.