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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repoman27 - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
The Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch medium tablet provides equivalent pen and touch capabilities to the Surface Pro 2 (similar active area with 1024 pressure levels, multi-touch, etc.) and costs $199. Even with the Wireless Accessory Kit it only comes to $239, and you can use it with any Mac or Windows PC you care to.The last microSD card I purchased (Lexar 600x) came with a free (and tiny) USB 3.0 microSDXC UHS-I card reader, so I wouldn't place a particularly high value on that feature.
beggerking@yahoo.com - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
stop kid yourself.drawing on a tablet is DIFFERENT from drawing on a screen. you might as well draw using a mouse...
drawing on a touchscreen like the Wacom pad (similiar to Pro) on the other hand, allows much much better productivity.
beggerking@yahoo.com - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
omg stop kid yourself... so you rather have to bring a card reader with you all the time vs just have it build in?fyi, iCrap pad doesn't even have a usb
Penti - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Apple doesn't sell any tablet (PC) only their mobile tablets on ARMv7/v8 (soon 64-bit). Modbook does have a USB (3) port, MicroSD/SD, Thunderbolt, Firewire and ethernet port. Plus 1024 pressure levels. It's the mid-2012 MBP 13 though. The third party modification that is. It's still better than some other offerings, has wacom and all the software support. Writing on the screen is more for notes and sketches rather then work though. Having a wacom tablet and an external monitor is what you do for your work.Plus your kidding your self if you think this is comparable to an enterprise convertible Tablet-PC that you don't have to remove the keyboard to write or paint on it from Lenovo, Fujitsu or HP.
repoman27 - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Most of my microSD cards live in USB card readers and I use them as I would USB thumb drives. If Microsoft had specced a full size SDXC UHS-I card reader here, it might actually be useful. I'm not sure what the point of a built-in microSD slot on this device is.Also, this thread has gone a little nuts, but I believe we were comparing the Surface Pro 2 to the MacBook Air (11-inch, mid 2013) since they are priced the same and use very similar hardware despite the difference in form factor. However, since you bring up iPads, they do have USB, they just use a proprietary connector on the device side. Most iOS accessories communicate via good ol' fashioned USB. Device class / driver / application support is obviously spotty for devices that weren't designed as part of the MFi program, but many HIDs work just fine anyway.
nerd1 - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Air has CRAPPY TN display, no touch screen, no active digitizer, cannot be used as tablet. HD5000 doesn't mean anything - you still cannot play any proper game anyway.repoman27 - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Actually, the MacBook Air has a very well calibrated TN display with decent brightness and contrast levels and an appropriate resolution for a PC screen of that size.Yes, the Surface Pro 2 is much higher resolution and packs almost twice the pixels of the 11-inch Air, but it also ships with DPI scaling set to 150% by default, which makes the effective pixel density 139 ppi, which is awfully close to the MBA's 135 ppi. It also drops the effective desktop area to 1280x720, which is less than 1366x768, and it has 16.5% less viewable area to begin with. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more pixels, but the 11-inch MBA doesn't have to deal with any DPI scaling that could get messy on a traditional desktop OS in order to provide essentially the same usable desktop area. The Surface Pro 2's screen does go 36% brighter and has a contrast ratio that is almost 50% higher, but uncalibrated dE 2000 values are at best a push with the MBA. The Surface Pro 2 being IPS and all should have a larger gamut than the MBA, but I haven't seen any directly comparable numbers yet as far as that goes.
The bottom line is that I think both Microsoft and Apple specced the displays they needed to for their respective devices, but Apple is still more aggressive with factory calibration.
The MacBook Air can never be a tablet, but it is very good at what it does. The Surface Pro can be a tablet or a notebook replacement, but it definitely makes some compromises to fit in that space. Unfortunately, I feel like even with round two, Microsoft is still making more compromises than they need to.
jasonelmore - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Pixel density effectively, or non effectively is the same no matter if there is DPI Scaling or not.repoman27 - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
True dat. The point I was trying to make is that MS scales the UI elements by default to be exactly the same size as they would be on the MBA. Of course all the pixels are still there, which works brilliantly for apps that can handle them properly and not so brilliant for many others that weren't expecting a 208 ppi display. I kinda feel like a lot of the reason for wanting a full Windows Pro x86 tablet is for running desktop apps that unfortunately don't handle dpi scaling very well.Silma - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
How qualified are you to make such a statement?How long have you been using the Surface Pro 2 as a desktop replacement?
Please stop the B.S. already.