Surface Pro first impressions
Surface Pro first impressions
Hello all,
I picked up a 128gb version yesterday. On a side note, I walked up to a MS pop up store in a local mall at 4pm and they had plenty in stock. Shortages seem to be hype. At least thats my experience.
I bought on launch day because my old laptop was dying and needed replacement. Ipads/tablets are neat but just dont have the capabilities I need over and above my phone. I decided on the surface pro for the hybrid qualities. Can be used as a tablet but has full pc as well. Battery life will be an issue Im sure.
So far the metro interface of windows 8 has me kinda baffled. Ill figure it out soon enough Im sure. The dual nature of windows 8 is weird. I downloaded the dropbox app from the metro store and it runs like a phone app...only active when you run it..doesnt sync when not active and doesnt save to the file system as far as I could tell. Ended up installing the app from the website which puts an icon in the taskbar or the start screen like all windows. Now it acts the way I need it to. downloaded all files to a folder tree that I can access on or off line. Strange.
Also, Ive had a couple incidents when typing in passwords when my knuckle would brush the screen and suddenly focus is not on the text field anymore. That will take some training to avoid in the future.
Fit and finish seems fine. We'll see how it goes.
I was hoping to get one for work but I cant seem to get one from my regular reseller partners (Zones, CDW, OfficeMax). They say its being offered as a consumer device, not a business device even though it has Windows 8 Professoinal on it. So hopefully they'll hit my reseller channels soon and I can pick one up on works dime :) I love the concept of a laptop replacement tablet.
It will take time I guess. I think MS is trying to play the apple card and have planned scarcity. For awhile with the surface rt you could only get them at MS stores or MS online..best buy is the only retail outlet so far...that has to change someday.
In other news, Ive only had the internal fans come on once. During a majjong game..which was pretty graphically intense for a ms game...lots of flying tiles and fireworks. Watching movies, surfing the net and email the thing is silent.
The dual metro/desktop environment is still causing me headaches. Touch doesnt work flawlessly in the desktop environment. Its meant for a mouse or pen. Theres 2 versions of IE. One for Metro and another for Desktop. The metro IE is optimized for touch. big fonts, pinch to zoom and all that. Unfortunately if you make chrome or firefox your default browser, your stuck with the desktop version and the Metro IE icon completely dissapears. Cant even call it from the command line. Its a headache. Its gonna take some time before the other browser companies figure it out...if they think its worth their time/effort.
Laying in bed and wanting to watch some netflix or surf the web, the touch interface sure is handy....I definitely want to get it figured out. Sitting at a table, the desktop is the way to go.
Also, I cant find the touchpad settings in the control panel. I can only find mouse settings. Trying to disable tap to click on the touchpad...so far its eluding me.
Ya it's like an OS on top of an OS, it doesn't really make sense. That's why i didn't bother downloading Windows8 for my touchscreenless laptop, take metro away and you're basically left with windows 7 which i already have.
If you google around , i've read there are ways to get Metro as out of the way as it can get without outright uninstalling it (which you can't). But then again i'm sure the metro interface is nice for tablety stuff. I guess you just have to think of it as tablet mode or laptop mode and use the appropriate interface for the situation.
Keep us updated, I've ben thinking about getting one, excpet the price is absurd to me. I could get an ultra book for less. So I really ned some convincing, but from the Windows 8 reviews I haven't been to pumped. Let me know how it works out.