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
Display
Like Surface 2, Surface Pro 2 ships with 150% DPI scaling enabled for classic desktop applications. Unfortunately even under Windows 8.1 there are a lot of issues with DPI scaling in 3rd party applications and touch targets. Chrome for example is mostly unusable as a touch browser in classic mode.
There’s not much difference between the new 1080p panel in Surface 2 and what’s in Surface Pro 2. Both feature a laminated cover glass and the same increase in color gamut. The end result is a big improvement over the previous generation, but not quite up to the level of color accuracy we’ve come to expect from cheaper tablets.
Surface Pro 2's display does get substantially brighter than the panel in my Surface 2 review sample. One thing I don't have a good feel for is just how much variation there is between panel suppliers into the Surface lines.
It really is a very good display, it just could be better.
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Shivansps - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
You cant put a Kabini in a fanless tablet, in a 15W margin the I5-4200U seems to be a good choice, for a fanless tablet you have to use the A4-1200, that cant compite with BT.There is a reason for AMD not getting design wins.
JumpingJack - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
As stated by the other gentleman, Bay Trail and Kabini are in the same area in terms of computational performance, but Kabini chews over 3-4X the power. In terms of energy efficiency, Bay Trail crushes Kabini.kyuu - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
There is a lower wattage version of Kabini called Temash that still kicks Bay Trail's arse in GPU power and still offers better CPU performance than any of the ARM SoCs.Also, if you're basing your comparison of power consumption solely on TDP numbers, then you're doing it wrong.
Wade_Jensen - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
"Mechanically I don’t know the right solution for Microsoft but I do feel like for the kickstand to realize its true potential, it needs to be able to open and hold at multiple angles. It doesn’t necessarily need to have support for infinite angles, maybe even a few would work, but I do believe it’s necessary going forward."by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 5, 2013 9:00 PM EST
Wade_Jensen - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Anand, did you spend much time using SP2 on your lap? What's your opinion on the usability?Shame about the battery life, although still good enough for my own use case.
Wade_Jensen - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Sorry, went back to check. Missed a paragraph:"Surface Pro 2 inherits the same kickstand and branding decisions as Surface 2. As I mentioned in my Surface 2 review, the new 2-stage kickstand is awesome and a huge improvement over its predecessor. The kickstand now opens at 24 and 40-degree angles, the latter enables more comfortable use when you’re not typing at a desk. The new kickstand also ditches the Windows 8 logo in favor of the Surface logo across the back.'
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Way more usable than before, I wrote the entire review with SP2/S2 on my lap.Wade_Jensen - Tuesday, October 22, 2013 - link
Thank you.GTRagnarok - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
For being so crucial to the Surface experience, it's disappointing that the keyboard is still not included in the price.nerd1 - Monday, October 21, 2013 - link
Samsung galaxy devices have supported spilt-screen multitasking for a quite while. It is a bit sad that anand is now quite biased toward apple devices.