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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Dekker - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
I don't even like the 16:9 ratio on desktops or laptops because it letterboxes most of the stuff I work on. Particularly, because toolbars, menus and window borders eat up masses of vertical space.On a tablet, 16:9 is pretty hopeless for the same reason. In addition, for app developers it is next to impossible to write an app that is usable in landscape and in portrait mode.
In that sense, this review is a bit disappointing as it focuses mostly on the specs (if only it were a bit cheaper, less heavy and had more battery) and not enough on the usage model and software needed to support the tablet form factor.
I would be interested to know if Anand was able to write an article while on the go or cover a conference using the Pro. My guess is that it can be done, but it would not be an experience worth repeating.
phillyry - Saturday, February 16, 2013 - link
Anand addressed the form factor in his Surface RT review, which he wrote on the RT.Da W - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Can you replace the SDD?I would take my Kingston Hyper X 256GB from my soon to be former laptop, i would only need to buy the 899$ 64GB version.
Netscorer - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
No, the SSD is soldered and you can not even access it, anyway. Your options are either to buy a 128GB version or rely more extensively on flash storage that you can add via microSD. Of course, flash is very slow, so you won't be able to drive programs off it.netmann - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
How do you know the SSD is soldered?!! Have you look inside the Surface pro? I don't recall Anand mention it in the review. I have not heard of SSD soldered to motherboard!Jaerba - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
He didn't, but the Surface Pro team just did in their reddit AMA."[–]SurfaceTeam[S] 28 points 5 hours ago
Hi, this is Ed on the development team. The internal solid state drive built into Surface is not accessible for upgrade. However, the recessed micro SD memory card slot gives you unlimited memory expandability. The SDXC slot supports the highest performance SDXC memory cards."
Netscorer - Thursday, February 7, 2013 - link
As Mr. Smith said in Matrix, it was "inevitable". No ultrasmall portable has a luxury of extra space to accommodate for mSATA port and bracket. Same goes for memory.netmann - Thursday, February 7, 2013 - link
Well, the latest update from Anand's review indicates the storage is in fact a Micron mSATA SSD. I suspected this because the MS Surface has eMMC as storage which has a lot slower performance.I do not think mSATA SSD could be soldered onto the motherboard so most likely it is a separate card that is connected to a slot on the motherboard similar to Apple MBP or Asus Zenbook, therefore it could be upgraded to a larger storage and faster mSATA. The question remains if the mSATA is a standard one or is it a propriety Blade (Gum Stick) one?
Death666Angel - Thursday, February 7, 2013 - link
The Samsung ATIV Pro has an mSata SSD which is user replaceable.thecoldanddarkone - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
I really like this review it recognizes the strength and weaknesses of the platform. I've seen a lot of really bad reviews on the surface pro. Some of the complaints are because the reviewer doesn't know how to use windows 8 (it's a desktop os, it has options, it's not Microsoft's fault you couldn't find different lock options...), others want to complain about the kickstand for 5 paragraphs and others expected it to act like an Ipad. It's not a perfect product, but it's what I would consider as a baseline product. I'm hoping this forces oem's to make better and cheaper products that are like this. That will resolve much of the software situation for windows 8, most of the scaling issues are a result of lazy programmers.