My New Tablet - Surface 2

[Raja]

I had a wonderful time with the iPad 2 for nearly 3 years which I had picked on the release day itself .

The day iPad air was released , I went and played with it. The iPad air was incredibly light , thin ,fast and like every apple product smooth, and fluid to use .

Somehow in spite of everything being nearly perfect in the iPad for my requirements, the iPad air dint give me a "WOW " feeling.

Being a windows phone user (recently shifted to blackberry) for 3years , I closely follow windows phone and windows 8 development.

Last year I played with the surface 1 in USA , in fact a friend of mine picked one too . so having played around with it I knew perfectly what kind of the device it was i.e how powerful and how limited it was.

Once the new surface 2 came , I could see Microsoft had implemented all the required features hardware wise and software wise as per the feedback .

Full HD screen , USB 3.0port , thinner and a bit lighter , better battery life and most important windows 8.1 which takes the functionality to altogether on a different level .

Last week I was in Hong Kong and I picked up the surface 2 32gb version with cyan blue type cover 2 .

I had initially planned a black cover but in Hong Kong they had a black cover but with Chinese alphabets . After moving around in 3 stores I just got the blue cyan version . And me and my friends thought it was looking cool.

So far I have used it only for 4 days and my impressions have been as follows -

Extremely solid and well build product made out of magnesium alloy which Microsoft calls vapor mag .

Beautiful , crisp , sharp and colour rich full 1080p screen , watching movies is just joy on the surface 2 because of the 16:9 aspect ratio.

A full USB 3.0 port , I can hook every damn thing there from my camera , mic, keyboard, printer, mouse , anything and no need of any drivers .

Expandable shortage up to 64gb .

Free office 2013 .

Free 200gb SkyDrive storage .

Free one year Skype calling worldwide plus access to Skype WiFi hotspots .

Unlike the iPad I can download songs straight from the internet.

Beautifully designed apps from Microsoft likd bing news, weather , email , food and drinks , health , reader ,photo editor.

Full desktop class browsing , flash enabled . Extremely fast browser.

Easy to type onscreen keyboard , plus the typer cover 2 is fun to use too and being back lighted makes it more useful too .

2 stage kick stand is a killer feature too .

Virus free , no need to think and worry about viruses anymore .

The only con so far in 4 days of my use I found is , like all versions of window its is not as easy and straight forward to use like a iPad or a apple product .
And being based on the RT platform legacy apps wont work .(anyway I don't need any legacy apps , and for that I have my MacBook air )

The windows store has all the apps which I require and used on my iPad .
Facebook , flip board , Skype , eBooks reader . Photo editors , And in some cases the apps are better then iPad too for example the mail client , nook reader , and Facebook offer superior user experience in windows 8.1 .

Hyper and metro tube are youtube apps and offer superb youtube experience on the 1080p screen of the surface 2 plus they are ad free .

In coming days I will update along with pictures review of the best apps native and found in the windows store here and also how it feels using a surface 2 everyday .

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask , I will try and answer them .

Here are some pictures of my new toy , THE SURFACE 2.

 

[tai_newbie]

Re: my new tablet -surface 2

Congrats on your growing family of gadgets. Surface 2 is one heck of a tablet from MS that got great reviews. Waiting eagerly for your review after you use it for some days.

 

[anshuman8]

Re: my new tablet -surface 2

Thats indeed a good gadget. Where did you buy it from and how much does it cost ?

 

[Raja]

Re: my new tablet -surface 2

Congrats on your growing family of gadgets. Surface 2 is one heck of a tablet from MS that got great reviews. Waiting eagerly for your review after you use it for some days.

Thanx , and yes the surface 2 is like a full blown computer a laptop with tablet functionality .

Thats indeed a good gadget. Where did you buy it from and how much does it cost ?

I bought it in Hong Kong on Tuesday , equivalent to the American pricing that is
450 US dollars for the tablet , and 130 US dollars for the type cover .

 

[vijay]

Re: my new tablet -surface 2

Congratulations once again Raja, it is indeed a full blown computer laptop tablet.
Microsoft with their latest windows OS is going stong and got out the best of the lot for this lablet laptop hardware.
Awaiting to see your user experience in coming days.

 

[Raja]

week one update .

Well the surface 2 has become my coffee shop companion now . It is handy thin easy to carry plus serves almost as a laptop in case you have some serious stuff to type .

Coming from a iPad , I found the surface more functional and gets the work done faster , for example the pictures posted below were clicked by my camera then straight via USB the camera was hooked to the surface , pictures were transferred in flat 30 secs and then I edited them on the surface itself and posted them on this thread too . While doing all this I had my Facebook open on the screen in the snap view . Such functionality was not possible in the iPad . Of course I can transfer the pictures via a adapter to the iPad but for that apple wants more money from me .

Battery life too has been amazing , after using the surface everyday for4-5 hours which involves watching some HD resolution youtube videos, picture editing , surfing , email , music the battery easily last 2 days for me .

Apps - posting some pictures of the apps which are my favourite and they are joy to use on the HD screen of the surface .

Keyboard/ type cover - this functional add on which works as a cover cum back lighted keyboard is truly a tech marvel . It's amazing to see Microsoft made such a thin keyboard that too with real keys and back lighted. The trackpad is small but functions perfectly with gestures and works with precision.

Overall so far the experience has been amazing .

Do I miss the iPad ? Well yes and no . Yes because the eBook reading on the iPad is truly best when relatively compared to the surface . But the surface outclasses the iPad when it comes to functionality. So in my experience they out class each other in different areas .

I will update more and more observations as I use the surface more and more .

My wife being a MacBook user , enjoys the surface more then the iPad , maybe its novelty of a new gadget or not needs to be seen in long run .

In case you have any specific questions please feel free to ask and I will answer to the best of my capacity.

Time for pictures now .

 

[Raja]

Last set of pics

 

[codename47]

No doubt Microsoft products always have a good build quality.
Full USB 3.0 support is a show stopper.
good buy I must say. And color looks cool

 

[Indian]

Congratulations Raja, It looks fabulous. Being very light it adds lot of value for people like you who are always on the go.
But even though it is powerful as full fledged laptop still I feel it may not satisfy the power user. Not because of the hardware but because of windows 8 I have powerful Thinkpad X230 convertible Tablet with Windows 8 and I am cursing Microsoft everyday for their lack of understanding on the design of desktop interface. Even for simple things you need to add extra touches typing what not.

But as a tablet I think we(you) will enjoy it .BTW you have become a wonderful photographer!

 

[Raja]

Congratulations Raja, It looks fabulous. Being very light it adds lot of value for people like you who are always on the go.

True , both the iPad and surface 2 make sense for me for my use which is basically ebook reading , email , consuming media , photo editing and browising the web . This time opted for the surface 2 for a change .

But even though it is powerful as full fledged laptop still I feel it may not satisfy the power user.

Ofcourse the surafce 2 and in that case even the iPad is not for power users atall specially users who need to run legacy apps for whatever reasons . It's is by the end of the day a media consumption device with some extra functionality .

Not because of the hardware but because of windows 8 I have powerful Thinkpad X230 convertible Tablet with Windows 8 and I am cursing Microsoft everyday for their lack of understanding on the design of desktop interface. Even for simple things you need to add extra touches typing what not.

Microsoft will be this spring coming with a substantial update ( windows 8.1 update 1) which will solve the misery of keyboard and mouse users and also will be making some interface user experience better for power users . You can read here

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2093...ak-more-changes-for-start-screen-desktop.html

I personally don't need any of those things because I hardly go to desktop , my needs are perfectly taken care by the metro interface itself .

But I get perfectly what you mean , if you read in the very first post of my review I have mentioned that Microsoft has the habit of making simple things complicated . And I being a OSX and iOS user I found it a bit overwhelming too , because in OSX everything is simple and straight forward and extremely user friendly .

But being a windows phone user for past some years it helped me to understand windows 8.1 easily . But it is no denying of the fact that Microsoft needs to un complicate things and make them more easy .

But as a tablet I think we(you) will enjoy it .

Ohhh yes iam enjoying the overall package a lot . Plus what the device is capable of is shown in this video , I won't be able to show as perfectly as this surface 2 user has shown , the video shows some of the cool things a surface 2 can do .
Why I Love my Microsoft Surface 2 : Tips and Tricks - YouTube

BTW you have become a wonderful photographer!

Mind blowing photographers like you and others on our forum around it's like a free tutorial for any newbie like me to learn and try . Credit goes to all of you .

 

[raj_5004]

Great review Raja. And amazing set of pictures. The cyan colour looks quite nice, I must say.

Do we have any other good tablet in the market, but with Android or Windows 7? A table with similar cover which doubles up as a keyboard. I find Windows 8 to be extremely confusing to use, infact really irritating.

 

[Indian]

@Raja,
I agree with almost all the things you said.

Great review Raja. And amazing set of pictures. The cyan colour looks quite nice, I must say.

Do we have any other good tablet in the market, but with Android or Windows 7? A table with similar cover which doubles up as a keyboard. I find Windows 8 to be extremely confusing to use, infact really irritating.

Raj, as a tablet I think win 8 is the only option for you and it works just fine. Main problem is when you try to use it as a full fledged pc. Accessibility of programs very difficult especially when you have many apps and want to access them randomly. I do software development and its a pain to each time bring in the search bar and start typing the name of the app to launch it Win 8 is built with the touch interface in focus so as a tab its just fine IMO.

 

[Raja]

Great review Raja. And amazing set of pictures. The cyan colour looks quite nice, I must say.

Do we have any other good tablet in the market, but with Android or Windows 7? A table with similar cover which doubles up as a keyboard. I find Windows 8 to be extremely confusing to use, infact really irritating.

Thanx buddy for the compliments .

Windows 7 is not touch friendly and I don't think any of such tablets are available now or in production .

Android well plenty of tablets are available , with third party keyboards which do act as covers too .

Samsung and lenevo has launched some android tablets , can't give you in depth details since they are android based and I have zero interest in android and don't prefer it personally as a operating system at this point of time .

Nitink would be the right guy who will guide you in the right direction concerning everything android .

 

[karthick raja]

Congrats Looks fantastic. I guess memory could have been better even 32GB+64GB is not enough today if you are going to use them as laptop replacement. Btw, care to share what other gadgets you have?. Thanks

 

[Indian]

@Raj
Check this one out ThinkPad Helix Convertible: Tablet Laptop & Tablet Computer | Lenovo (IN)

The X230 which I have been using, its not ultra sized but can be used as tablet or laptop ThinkPad X230 Laptop | Extreme Mobility For Professionals | Lenovo (IN)