Microsoft Surface Pro Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 5, 2013 9:00 PM ESTThe Surface Pen
While you don’t get a keyboard with Surface Pro, Microsoft does bundle a digital pen with the device. Based on Wacom’s technology (presumably Electro-Magnetic Resonance), the SurfacePen supports 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity. The pen itself is passive, all of the power consuming circuitry is contained within the display stack itself. A weak EM field is generated by Surface Pro which enduces a current in the digital pen that then powers its resonance circuit, which in turn impacts the EM field and is used to determine the position and angle of the pen itself. Surface Pro will recognize the pen starting from about an inch above the display. The pen won’t work on Surface RT as the requisite Wacom EMR grid and logic don’t exist on that tablet.
It's not clear to me whether or not Microsoft is using Wacom's RRFC to enable capacitive touch in addition to digital pen support. Regardless, I didn't notice any impact on touch response when using Surface Pro without the digital pen.
The Surface Pro pen doesn’t store anywhere inside the device, but it can be docked to the magnetic power connector as long as you’re not charging the tablet. The magnetic dock doesn’t charge/power the pen in any way, it just holds it in place. The tablet is a bit awkward to hold with the pen in place, and there’s also the problem of where do you store the pen if you’re using the tablet while plugged into the wall, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.
Microsoft does a good job of palm rejection with the pen in use, although I did occasionally have to erase an errant line or two caused by the edge of my hand in a drawing app.
Tracking and responsiveness were both excellent in using the pen. I’m not much of an artist but I did have a good experience sketching with Surface Pro’s pen. Creative professionals who are already Wacom users will probably appreciate the inclusion. Surface Pro doesn’t really offer the same drawing surface area as some of the larger Wacom tablets, but I can see how it’d be a nice addition for those who don’t want to carry around a separate drawing tablet.
You can configure Surface Pro to work in second screen mode, allowing you to use the entire display as a pen surface while using the integrated miniDP out to drive your display to an external monitor. In this mode Surface Pro approximates a Wacom digital tablet, although without the software customization that you get with those tablets. The biggest issue I had in second screen mode is the lack of a toggle to switch between pen and mouse positioning, Surface Pro operates exclusively in the former.
In pen positioning, every point on the Surface Pro display corresponds to a similar location on your external display. To draw something in the upper right corner you need to move your pen to the upper right corner of the Surface Pro display and draw there. Wacom’s own tablets let you switch to mouse mode, allowing you to use the pen as a mouse to place your cursor wherever you want it. Pen mode is something you may or may not be able to get used to, but it’s worth pointing out that the inflexibility is a limitation of Surface Pro’s pen implementation.
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maximumGPU - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
it might not be the best of both worlds but for a lot of poeple it beats carrying a laptop AND a tablet.LetsGo - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
But you can't use it in your Lap so its rubbish as a laptop, and you can't use it as a tablet because its too heavy. so really its a portable desktop replacement with a digitizer.amdwilliam1985 - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
It really depends on your point of view, what you see as shortcoming is exactly opposite of what I have in mind. I guess everyone has different needs, and NO one size fits all, of course unless you're iSheep, then one size does fit all.Anyway, I would love to give up my Samsung Galaxy S3(4.8" screen) and Google Nexus 7(7" screen) for the upcoming Galaxy Note 3(rumored 6.3" screen).
*YES, I will be holding it next to my face to make phone calls, I'm already doing it on my Nexus 7 with wifi-calling.
*YES, I can do it next to those iTiny with 3.5" or 4.0", so they can laugh at me, or I can laugh at them, lol.
*YES, I am able to fit it into my pocket, I am currently carrying both S3 and N7 in my pockets.
*NO, I do not have oversize pockets, they can easily fit into my work trouser and my jeans.
*NO, I do not care about your opinion of me.
*YES, I believe you over care about what other people thinks.
"It's amazing that some people will do anything to 'fit in' while others will do everything to 'fit out'". -some "wise" guy
beginner99 - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Considering the hardware the price makes sense but it just feels too expensive. For $999 I expect the full type cover at least.The best thing about this is the USB port on the power brick. So you can live with 1 charger and leave the one for smartphone, eReader and other gadgets at home like when you go on vacation.
Jaerba - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Thanks for the great review, Anand. It confirmed my worries about the battery life and kickstand/lap usability, so I'm wondering if there's a possible battery keyboard dock on the horizon, like the Helix or Transformer Prime have. Can you even do power transfer through the magnetic clip?It seems like that one accessory would fix all of the major issues.
Byte - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Been waiting for this since my compaq tc1000. awesome screen, but one q, is it big enough to be able to play starcrft2? Not sur ehow ivy handles sc2 but I'm hoping haswell will be able to handle it.althaz - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Yes it plays Starcraft 2. I have played SC2 on identical hardware and it works fairly well, obviously you'll not be playing on High or Ultra settings.This is one of the reasons I'm picking one up as soon as is humanly possible. Portable Starcraft machine? Check. Football Mananger PC on the train? Check. Angry Birds/web-browsing from the couch? Check. Can run visual studio and photo shop? Check.
Winner! (I don't care about battery life past 2-3 hours and find the weight quite acceptable, ymmv).
tdtran1025 - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
So it's the fastest tablet out there, but for what? RT is sluggish, Windows 8 did not take off like MS expected it to, what else is there? Maybe XBox 720 will rescue MS.amdwilliam1985 - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
RT will be fine when they get tegra 4 or Snapdragon S4 pro in the next iteration along with more apps.Windows 8 is doing just fine, they're having decent market shares, I also bought a copy for my 5 years old (athlon x2 @ 2.5ghz) and it works great :)
I do plan on getting that awesome Lenovo Yoga to take full advantage of touch.
MS has more than xbox, they have the heart of business world.
The world can live on if suddenly facebook or Apple cease to exist, but the world will crumble if Google or MS falls. Just my 2 cents, probably why Apple(fashion) stocks UPs and DOWNs like crazy, because it can easily be replaced.
Simple test here, imagine tomorrow morning if your iphone/ipad/ipod ceased to exist, huh, just pick up some other replacements. Now imagine, tomorrow windows ceased to exist, lol, god forbid.
duploxxx - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Scrolling in web pages, application install time, file copy time, everything is just significantly faster on Surface Pro than on any competing tablet. Oh, and it boots (from full power off) in less than 10 seconds. It’s really the combination of the great CPU performance and fast SSD that deliver the responsiveness of the Surface Pro.cpu performance that's all nice, questionable if it is really needed vs the reduced battery life, you get, higher cost, weight and size. but anyhow.
NO GPU performance benchmarks? Is it really usable with the downscaled GPU ghz, typical issues with even general adobe flash games crashing with these kind of gpu, afterall that is where some of these tablets end up, a kid playing on internet games....