Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 21, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Surface
- Surface Pro 2
Final Words
Surface Pro 2 is a good improvement over its predecessor. The platform is quicker, quieter and boasts longer battery life as well. The new kickstand is awesome, as are the new touch/type covers, and the new display is a big step in the right direction. If you were tempted by the original Surface Pro, its successor is a solid evolution and that much more tempting.
I really like using Surface Pro 2 and Windows 8.1 in general as a productivity focused tablet OS. The screenshot below really helps illustrate what I would love to do on most tablets, but what I can only do (well) on a Surface:
Writing an article on the left, touch enabled web browsing on the right. Switching between both applications is seamless, and I’m just as fast (if not faster) from a productivity standpoint on Surface Pro 2 than on a traditional notebook/desktop – at least for this usage model. There’s really something very compelling about having the best of both worlds in one system. I literally can’t do this well on any other tablet, and ultimately that’s what Microsoft was trying to achieve with Surface. You can do it with Surface 2, you can just do it a lot better with Surface Pro 2.
When Surface Pro first launched, it wasn’t just a good device, it was arguably the best Ultrabook on the market. Surface Pro 2 launches into a much more competitive marketplace. I don’t know if I can make the same statement about it vs. Ultrabooks today. That’s not a bad thing as it is still a very different type of device, but it does make for a more difficult buying decision.
Surface Pro 2 isn’t the perfect notebook and it isn’t the perfect tablet. It’s a compromise in between. Each generation, that compromise becomes smaller.
What I was hoping for this round was an even thinner/lighter chassis, but it looks like we’ll have to wait another year for that. Battery life is still not up to snuff with traditional ARM based tablets, and Surface Pro 2 seems to pay more of a penalty there than other Haswell ULT based designs – I’m not entirely sure why. Parts of the rest of the world have moved on to things like 802.11ac and PCIe based SSDs. Microsoft appears to be on a slightly strange update cadence with its Surface lineup, and for the brand’s sake I hope we see that rectified next round. It’s not enough to just put out a good product, you have to take advantage of all technologies available, when they are available. Just like last year, my recommendation comes with a caution – Surface Pro 2 is good, I’m happier using it than I was with last year’s model, but the Broadwell version will be even better. What’s likely coming down the pipe are improvements in the chassis and in battery life. You’ll have to wait around a year for those things, if you can’t, then this year’s model is still pretty good.
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chizow - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Exactly! Glad I wasn't the only ones to remember the chief complaints about Surface Pro. Price, size/weight, battery life. They really only addressed the last concern, battery life, and even then it's only marginally better (40%) and still FAR off from other devices that use the same Haswell ULT guts (MBA 2013).I must say Surface 2 Pro is still a disappointment. Surface 2 is much more interesting but the ARM-based Windows RT is just a non-starter for me right now. Wish it was Bay-Trail!
kyuu - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
It's not true. Surface Pro 2 uses a different chassis than the original; it's 2 pieces instead of 3. Keeping it the same weight/thickness was a deliberate design choice, likely related to not having to redesign the thermal dissipation system, not due to reusing the old chassis.Klimax - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Few people. You have only assertion without any evidence, which BTW is all you can get, because poor sales can't be matched to your arbitrary terms with any analysis as there is significant problem with Surface - No World Wide distribution. Hell not even my country, bordering with Germany has it and we fall under EU, but not Irish definition of Europe...BTW: I suspect that only tiny portion of market has same lust after incredibly thin and fragile devices which you have to replace as soon as you drop it by few centimeters, because it suffered serious damage. (Note: Bit hyperbole, but point is, that thinness has severe trade offs in it self including battery and features)
chizow - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Right, because we don't have about a billion reasons to think the Surface underperformed last year relative to Microsoft's expectations or anything.....All I got from the Engadget review was a 3-stage kickstand instead of 2-stage, and I do believe that part is linked to just the kickstand itself. Could easily be retrofitted into the old chassis if needed.
backbydemand - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Apart from it is not the old chassis, it uses less parts, so is obviously not the sameschuckles - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
i need to go with sweenish on this one...Microsoft may have over produced the previous gen surface pro/rt but that doesn't mean they are going to order 10's of thousands of a single component (chassis) without also ordering the same amount of all the other sub assemblies and building finished product. MOQ's are largely irrelevant once you go above 10k units, and microsoft already did a massive 1B $
I'm not going to speculate too much on why they didn't do a re-design and get it a few mm thinner, but i would point you to one of the positives in the review - it barely spins up the fans when lightly loaded, and that didn't cost them any time/effort to redesign the heat management on the inside...
KPOM - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
??? Maybe they haven't changed the chassis because they are selling as many as they like and saw no need to change it. I do think we'll see a more dramatic redesign next year. It's time for the Air to go "Retina" and I think in 2014 they'll be ready to make the leap. OS X doesn't handle 150% scaling particularly well, so they are probably waiting until they can go to 200% economically.This is another reason why I think we're more likely to see iOS "grow up" into a desktop-class OS than OS X and iOS merge. OS X will still be there for enthusiasts and Pro users, but iPad will grow into a more powerful device as Apple makes the push into 64-bit.
Deepcoiler - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
You must have missed when it what said that the chassis went from being three pieces to two. Microsoft kept the size the same, but did not reuse the old chassis.backbydemand - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Shhhhh, let the trolls spread their liesMadMan007 - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Looking over the results here and from the Asus T100 article, all I can think is what a shame it is that AMD gets virtually no design wins. I know they wouldn't be comparable to Haswell CPUs, but compared to Bay Trail Kabini is competitive in CPU performance and far better in GPU performance...the only catch would be battery life, but how will we ever know if there are absolutely no devices to compare?