Discussion on:

Why the Surface Pro won't fit my computing needs

You mention that the software problem is a big considerable for you... RT has a lackluster app store, but the Pro will run any desktop app you can throw at it. How is this a problem? Is this not far, far better than any tablet that's come out yet?

For me, the ability to run any Win8/Win7 capable desktop applications is the sole reason I'm going to get one. For that, I can take the hit on battery life.

Hi Jack,

The problem with Windows 8 isn't the over all software catalog, but applications that specifically work in tablet mode. As I tried to convey in the article, my ideal machine would be one that works like a traditional laptop (a use case Surface Pro nails) and one that can compete with the iPad in Tablet mode (where Surface Pro and RT fail).

Frankly, I don't care if Apple creates an iPad that will run Photoshop and Word, or Microsoft gets the Tablet side of Windows 8 working, neither can do both at this stage of the game. I find Microsoft seems to be thinking more clearly in this direction, and has come frustratingly close to executing on it, but for the reasons articulated in the article it's not yet there for my usage.

Ah, I didn't see that come through very well in the article. A fair point, though for myself it's more the "tablet that acts like a PC" that's the selling point. After all, we can expect that the available apps will grow, likely at an exponential rate from here on out.

I'm really rooting for the concept of "one device to rule them all," especially since MSFT seems to be the one that "gets" it conceptually at this point. We just need execution to catch up to the concept.

MSFT has got the concept right, the Surface W8 is not an annoying toy, I have to run virtualbox, Linux virtual machines and eclipse on whatever I use to replace my current Core i5 notebook running W8 Pro. My current notebook is fast and sort of light. I would go for a Surface if it had the power of my current Asus K-53.

"the Pro will run any desktop app you can throw at it" Not my experience! We've tried our astronomy software on Win 8 and most it and/or drivers won't install or run. Everything works on Win 7...

That's a W8 issue, not a Surface Pro one. I acknowledge you can't get a Surface without W8, but if the application won't run on any W8 platform then it's not a hardware issue.

If the Surface is a true Wintel platform, then it should be able to run Win7, and possibly Win XP 64-bit (drivers being an issue.) 7 And XP may not handle the touch screen too well, but (again with the drivers) could handle the pen input. An interesting thing to look at is to see if someone can get the touch screen input to translate to something like touch pad input, for times when it's inconvenient to use the actual pad on the keycover. As for the rest of the hardware, the specs look like about everything else that Win 7 already runs on with Ultrabooks. Don't forget there's always virtual XP mode over Win7/8--have fun with that.

It still has the same issues as its ancestors--the full desktop Windows. Yes, it does have everything so many people demanded was "absolutely necessary for any tablet" when the iPad came out, but every one of those arguments ignored the fact that tablets with desktop Windows had been out for almost a decade even then. The only difference now is that the device is easier to carry and lighter in weight, yet still suffers with next to no battery life which was one of its main failings originally. Add to this that the vast majority of Windows apps are STILL not touch-centric and the Surface Pro simply loses every advantage it should have.

What apps will you not have? How long it the battery life? If you stay in Metro and not Desktop, how slow are the apps you are running?

supported by a significant number of people who have reviewed the Windows 8 experience.

You won't have Facebook. You won't have Twitter. Sure, you can just drop into Classic mode and run those in a full fledged app - but that model doesn't work well when you're trying to use the device in a tablet mode, and the People tile is OK for light consumption, but poor for interaction. There are too many areas where the suggestion is, "you've got a full fledged PC there, why would you *want* to do this using a mobile app"?

Because, there are times when I'll write an entire two or three paragraph response on my Nexus 7 on Google Plus or Facebook. That kind of experience sets the benchmark for the mobile device experience, and Windows 8 isn't there, yet.

Speaking of which, no Google Plus app. Sharing isn't as well integrated into the Modern-UI apps in Windows 8 as it is on Android and iOS. I can name countless things about Windows 8 that disappoint me. I'm not the only Windows 8 reviewer who has noticed that the Modern-UI apps are too slow starting up. There are a *lot* of ways that I feel like the experience is superior to either iOS or Android, too, though.

I'm with Patrick on this. I've got an ASUS ultrabook with touch screen and Windows 8 pro at my desk right now, I'm writing a blog on it in Google Docs in the desktop browser (Chrome). That experience is superior to anything any Android or iOS device can currently deliver. But too frequently I find myself going right to the desktop and not using the Modern UI. Microsoft is headed in generally the right direction, but things are still rough right now.

Social media is where Windows 8 is weakest. If I had a hybrid or convertible or Surface Pro, it *would* have Netflix and Kindle - and those are two of the biggest mobile apps for a decent mobile experience. There are just some really big gaps in their app market offerings.

There isn't a facebook app yet so I access it through the browser. I would be surprised if one is not being developed though.

Google is intentionaly dragging there feet in writing apps for Win8 and Wp8. this is a strategic decision that is intended to hurt Microsofts new efforts because they are in direct competition with Goolge. So much for Google's "Don't be Evil" mantra. That left behind when they became a publicly traded company.

You're completely wrong about sharing too. Sharing is massively integrated into Win8 and WinRT. Maybe you don't know all of the features yet.

I do agree with you on some of the Modern UI. Some of the apps are great but some of them are too blocky (like the browser). Microsoft should automatically sense whether you are using the device as a laptop or a tablet and adjust the UI accordingly. Maybe detecting a mouse or something with the gyroscope would be successfuly.

Win8/Metro is definitely a first generation effort and hopefully will be tweaked to make it better with each iteration.

Last time I checked, maybe two weeks ago, it wasn't. Good. Although Twitter is the LEAST important social media outlet to me to have a native mobile app for.

And it doesn't matter if Google is dragging their feet or not... it is Microsoft's problem if they don't have hot apps for their platform. I used to make this argument about Linux all the time. If Linux doesn't have the competitive apps that users want, they don't care if it is because the vendors won't *write* for Linux... they'll go with the platform that has what they want. So Linux distros had to figure out that problem... how do we get Netflix, for example. Now Microsoft is in that situation. They better figure it out.

Sharing is massively POORLY integrated into Windows 8 for cerain, and if it works the same way in RT, for that platform, too. I'm not wrong. If you're at all familiar with how well integrated sharing is in Android and iOS, you can't deny that Windows 8 has a poor attempt at integrated sharing. Conceptually the IDEA is cool... but, just to double check, I'm staring right now at a Windows 8 Desktop with a side-bar that reads, "Share, Nothing can be shared from the Desktop".

Now I've opened an image in the Moder-UI image browser. I've opened Share, and my options are "Fresh Paint, Mail, Skydrive and Windows Phone". Sharing and sharing integration is massively LAME in Windows 8.

When I pull down the sharing menu in gallery on my Android device, it automatically has my LAST sharing destination selected, and has the following destinations.

Amazon Send to Kindle, Backup Assistant Plus, Bluetooth, Email, Facebook, Gmail, Google+, Online Album, Photo Share, Picasa, Text Messaging, Blogger, Color, Drive, Dropbox, Foursquare, Instagram, Messenger (FB), Perfectly Clear, Skype and Twitter.

Sorry, I'm completely RIGHT about Windows 8 sharing. Wish I wasn't, but I am.

It appears that the iPad is still the best overall option since integration is more capable, but I will also note that the current concept for RT/Win8 is still the better one. This may be a case, again, that even though Apple doesn't do the job first, they'll be the one that gets it right--first.

Will make it available to the masses under a more ethical business model.

But I would certainly say, 'less expensive business model.'

Can't find it in the market. Please elaborate.

If it isn't in the official market, by the way, even if it exists, it might as well *not* exist.

I found it through the Store icon which came as part of Windows 8. I am at work now so I can't give you many more details but I believe that it is the official Twitter app for Win8 Metro. I don't trust using 3rd party apps to login to anything so I am pretty good about checking who the developer is.

If it isn't coming up for a search for Twitter... that is a problem, too.

My, you're really racking up the '-1's on this one

When you search from the store and the Search interface pops up on the right hand side you might need to click on the "Store" entry. It was searching my machine and Apps instead of the store. I think that it was because of some settings that I chose previous to that.

My favorite kind...

"I don't like what you say enough to ding you, but not enough to tell you why..." Helpful readers are helpful.

I'ts just amateur hour around here - the same short blog style posts with no new content.

This is what passes for tech journalism these days; it's become a race to the bottom.

I'm using the Samsung Smart PC Pro, so very similar to the the Surface Pro. Samsung has a larger screen and different keyboard. And I'm told the active digitizer is better on Samsung.

I love mine. Finally great processor, RAM, screensize and active digitizer all rolled into one.

And OneNote is the best program ever.

I have been waiting a long time for this release. What interests me the most is the ability to run VBA macros in Excel. Currently this cannot be done on any tablet without third party servers (or at least I haven't found another way).

Aside from software though, I think the surface pro is great in regards to battery life. Yeah it may not outlast the Ipad on a single charge, but you can't replace an Ipad battery like you can with the surface. Carry an extra battery or two with you!

The two things I would truly like to read about in an article/review are the heat dissipation and noise level of this tablet. I work in sales and and clients will not be fascinated if this tablet is too hot to hold or too noisy to have a conversation over.

"...Im left with carrying a laptop and tablet for most of my computing tasks."

I've read similar comments from others who say they have to carry a laptop and a tablet. I'm not a mobile worker, and my tablet experience is limited to loading an OS and apps on XP-era equipment and handing it to the end user. With that background in mind, I ask:

If you're going to carry the laptop, why bring the tablet along? What functions does it provide that the laptop can't, and are they worth toting two devices?

Here are a couple of examples:

1) On the plane, if I want to relax my tablet (these days usually an iPad) goes in the seatback pocket. I'll catch up on a book via Kindle, read the WSJ through their app, or read RSS feeds. There are no good "standard" Windows 8 equivalents to these apps (except perhaps Kindle), since desktop apps are designed for a connected, keyboard/mouse-driven experience.

2) In meetings, I use the iPad as a digital notepad. I know many people use their laptops to take notes, but I find this diminishes the client interaction (ever try talking to someone while furiously pecking away and staring at a screen)? A nuance perhaps, but 95% of my job is interacting with people in a small conference room setting, so this is a major factor for my type of work.

I use the laptop for standard business tasks: spreadsheets, email composition, document creation. The tablet doesn't do this well, but does the above tasks so well it's worth the space in my bag.

I want my leisure device and my content creation device to be a single, thin, light, quick, silent device that runs for an entire coast-to-coast flight with juice left over when I land and can sit on standby for an entire day and still have most of its battery left when I need it.

But I also want something that will work with web apps like Google Docs, that will get me into Facebook and Google Plus and Tech Republic so I can write posts like this.

Without having to lug around a backpack full of so many cables and wires and electronic devices that I end up holding the entire TSA patdown line up an extra 20 minutes while they figure out what to do with me.

It is a holy grail for highly mobile users who do a lot of content creation, I think, especially those ones who like to use their devices for personal as well as professional pursuits.

Android is moving in that direction, and Windows 8 is moving in that direction, but they both still have enough challenges that I see myself carrying around a Windows laptop and an Android tablet for at least the next 11-18 months.

I don't really care if ARM gets me there or Intel gets me there, if Windows, Android or iOS gets me there. Whoever can get me there first will get to take my money.

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I agree completely. I don't care who gets the feature set correct first, but right now it looks like Surface Pro is my jam. I need that USB-Serial support. I need that "external monitor that isn't just duplicating my tablet display" support. I need that digitizer pen support, not the usually-pathetic capacitive stylus that forces awkward palm-rejection solutions.
Unfortunately I also want 10 hour battery life but I guess that's the thing to go for now.

Both Gray and dcolbert above point out that they want a single device that can do everything they need. As yet, no one device really meets those needs, though the Surface tablets and the iPad come close--with Android carrying a couple of different advantages. Still, if they don't have the battery life, would any of them truly meet mobility needs?

A small anecdote:
I write fiction and do private tech consulting for income. I use an iPad whenever I'm not at home. This past Wednesday, I had to take my wife to the doctor's for a followup after cancer surgery (no, I'm not asking for condolences or pity, just making a point). My iPad was fully charged and by the time my wife came out I'd used about 10% of that battery. On returning home, I accidentally left the iPad in my car--where it remained for 48 hours in temperatures that went from near-70 degrees on Wednesday to 26 degrees on Thursday night. When I retrieved the iPad from the car, the battery still read 89% despite the 36 hours off of a charger and sitting in sub-freezing temperatures for a minimum of 16 hours. Please note that this is a first-generation, 3G model, not one of the 'latest and greatest' with the newest battery technologies.

With this, I personally feel that the iPad is still the best all-around product for productivity and entertainment in a mobile device--despite the other platforms' other advantages. The Surface RT is, to me the best non-Apple device despite its other limitations while honestly Android for now seems to be the better productivity platform--on a hybrid device like the ASUS Transformer. Microsoft has the concept down, but doesn't yet have the execution. Android lacks the concept and the execution of integration while iOS lacks the concept but succeeds with the execution as far as it goes (based on this article Apple's integration and automatic synchronization of data is still better, though it doesn't run desktop apps themselves.) Use what you like; hate what you will; no one product will meet everybody's needs or desires.

Maybe Apple got the standby thing right from the get-go. Android didn't. My first tablet drained so fast, I had taken to shutting it down on longer periods of inactivity. Nothing to do with battery chemistry or capacity, thus was all software.

My replacement, a Transformer, seems to use no power for even days on standby. Even with a faster clock, it seems way ahead of what I've heard of the Surface RT. The good news is, they're similar enough hardware, this might be a patch to the Surface and/or WinRT. First place to look: Android uses the tiny 5th processor in the Tegra 3 during standby. The Surface, not yet.

As for the Pro, sleep mode on regular windows may be more evolved, but with hotter hardware, that may just take some time...

and only lose 1% of battery charge in 48 hours--with a first-generation model. Why?

Yes, I would have to say it's in the software, but it's also in the design of the device. An ARM or Atom processor doesn't draw as much power as an x86 and as such automatically extends the life of a given battery by some factor. It has already been reported that the Surface RT gets roughly 8 hours of battery in use while the Surface Pro gets about 3 hours. Assuming all else the same for just the moment and we see that the different processor alone makes a huge difference in performance. By turning things around and jailbreaking the SurfaceRT, you find you get access to all of Windows 8--but desktop performance is abysmal.

In other words, it's not just software that gives longer battery life, it's the combination of hardware and software--the engineering of the device along with the operating system that controls how well a given product will perform. This is also why the so-touted "tech specs" are such a poor measure of how well a machine will work for any given individual.

Apple is miles ahead of anyone else on battery technology in these areas, although it looks like Android smartphone manufacturers have caught up and even exceeded Apple on the iPhone/iPod Touch.

But even the Macbook Air does magic things with standby and battery runtime that the best Windows Ultrabooks can't quite match.

I think it has something to do with Steve Jobs and black magic.

I had my Android tablet just yesterday, in a meeting that went from 8AM to 6:30PM, taking notes with a stylus all the while. Most everyone else had to plug in, and type. I had a keyboard when I needed it (some involved emails at lunch), but I find this far superior to a laptop for this kind of thing. And while the Surface Pro may find a niche, it's basically a keyboard-optional ultrabook, even to the price. It's going to need a plug, just like all the laptops. To me, anyway, having used Android tablets even before they got good, the fundamental thing about a tablet, the thing Apple got right after a decade of Windows tablets, is all-day untethered operation. Without that, you may not have a keyboard, but you're not a proper tablet.

The Atom tablets may fix that for Windows 8. And they'll probably run Metro apps as well as the Surface RT. But they'll offer the same real-Windows performance that's all but killed the Netbook. And if users are complaining about Surface Pro performance -- with a mid-range laptop CPU -- that doesn't bode well for Atom driven Win8 tablets. Also, Microsoft got one thing fundamentally correct in the Pro: the wacom-style digitizer. You don't have the right interface to Windows desktop with a finger driven capacitive touchscreen.

Or the lack of storage.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/29/3929110/surface-pro-disk-space-windows-8

On a device that can easily hook up to a 1TB external 2.5" hard drive.

If you purchase the high-capacity version of any tablet, Android or iOS, you spend far more than the extra memory actually should cost. If you buy Android and you buy the right tablet, then it is a simple matter to hook up an external USB drive, be it a Thumbdrive in 32, 64 or 128GB capacity or a hard-drive with up to TBs of storage.

On the original Surface RT 32GB the space remaining is very limited and that can cause a lot of hardships when trying to install larger mobile-Apps. The wildly popular Nexus 7 only released in 8GB and 16GB versions, and Google decided to disable the ability to mount external filesystems. THAT was a mistake. The 8GB is now discontinued, the 16GB is the low end, and the 32GB is the answer to that problem... which is still not an ideal solution.

But with a Windows device, this isn't a question. It is part of the OS philosophy to mount external file systems and the hardware supports it through SD cards, and USB drives.

16GB on a Nexus 7 wasn't enough for me, ever. 16GB has never been a problem for me on my TF101 or TF300 tablets, though - because they both easily support external memory.

But seriously, that's the base install, after a year of windows updates, you will have no space left at all.
And most applications still want to install to the C drive, especially everything from Microsoft.

And I have a Nexus 7 32gb, so they made them with more storage.

"And most applications still want to install to the C drive, especially everything from Microsoft."

So override the default and install to an external drive. Yes, you're going to have to lug that around too, but I suspect if you're installing enough apps to fill the drive, a tablet may not be the best device for you.

Just one ignorant opinion based on a complete lack of practical experience, you understand.

Like everything labeled windows live, or metro apps.
Various frame works.

So what would take up 23 gigs?
My whole music folder is 22gigs.
Movies are about 700megs and up, a 1080 movie reaches around 13 gigs.

I guess if the typical use is web browsing, its fine, but then why not use the RT model instead?

I don't have a need or desire for a portable computing / communication / entertainment device. Among my reasons are the limited drive space issues you point out.

However, my previous point was referring only to 'traditional', non-Metro applications. I haven't seen one of those in years that didn't allow redirecting the installation process to the folder or drive of your choice. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

about storing your complete music collection and movies on your Nexus 7 with only 16GB of storage?

Really... I don't get this... you're complaining about a Windows device only having 23GB free, yet you have an Android device that comes out of the box with less than 16GB available, and the Android device is NOT user expandable *by design*.

That makes no sense.

So it is less of an issue.

The Surface Pro is targeted as a PC replacement.

Modern-UI apps are? I'm assuming they're smaller than full blown Classic Desktop apps. But I don't know.

I don't think it is a replacment... it is a HYBRID. Somewhere inbetween. If you're a power user, they would probably suggest an Ultrabook. You've got to know what your target use is.