One Week with the Microsoft Surface Pro – Day 1

For the last two years, I’ve lugged around a 17″, 7 pound laptop everywhere I’ve gone. On vacations, business trips, day trips etc. It’s been a real beating to lug that much bulk and weight, especially taking it through airport security, or from meeting room to meeting room at work. It’s basically a portable desktop machine and isn’t suited for real mobility.

2013 is shaping up to be a year full of travel both domestic and potentially abroad. I don’t want to haul that monster around with me everywhere so I decided it was time to get an ultraportable computer so I could do more than just check email and surf the web when away.

The decision boiled down to either a MacBook Air, or a Surface Pro. Both had the slim and light thing going for them, and have both been highly recommended to me by friends who own them. I agonized over the decision for over a week, researching each. Checking store inventories etc.

In the end, I went with a Surface Pro due to the fact that it’s Windows (while I am getting back into the Mac world, my primary computing at home and work is still Windows based) and the Wacom stylus. My hope is to be able to use this as a digital notebook for meetings, and jotting down random notes. I go through stacks of moleskines every year, but they’re so jumbled that it’s often hard to go back through them. They’re also not especially organized, which I hope I can solve with OneNote.

But like any totally new form factor, coupled with a new OS, there are going to be growing pains and hitches. With that in mind, I’m going to try and document my thoughts and experiences with this new device over my first week of using it. We’ll see if the massive outlay of cash turned out to be worth it, or if I just got an insane boondoggle!

What I got:

• Microsoft Surface Pro with 128 GB SSD Hard Drive
• Type Cover
• Sleeve Case
• Office 365
• Protection Plan (in case I drop it or spill coffee on it, which isn’t out of the question)

Day 1

I picked up the Surface from a local mall Microsoft pop-up store late in the evening after work on a Friday, so my time at home playing with it the first day was a bit limited.

Setup

• Getting the Surface Pro initially up and running was exceptionally easy. It uses your Microsoft Live account (same as your xbox/Hotmail/outlook/messenger account) to login to the device and everything tries to auto-configure based off of your account profile. If you’ve ever used your account to log into a Windows 8 system before, you’ve already done most of the config work on your profile and that configuration will largely carry over to the Surface.
• Within about 20 minutes I had grabbed a few critical apps from the App Store and installed Office 2013 so I had a minimally viable computing environment.

Initial Experience

• Size & Weight – As many have noted, this is an odd device to use purely as a tablet. The size and dimensions of the screen feels a tad bit too tall and narrow. Additionally, this guy weighs about 2 pounds, which is a decent bit heavier than my iPad 2 or Nexus 7, my typical go-to tablets.
• Heat – When you get to doing a lot of stuff, especially with the desktop apps, the Surface starts to heat up. Now, it hasn’t gotten to the “melt your flesh” point my Dell laptop gets to regularly, but it’s still pretty warm and a reminder that what I’m using isn’t really a tablet device, but a full-fledged PC.
• Stylus – I love it. Played a little bit with handwriting and so far it’s been fantastic. We’ll see how it holds up when I try and take notes in meetings.
• Type Cover – So glad I went with this over the standard Touch Cover. I just don’t have the accuracy or comfort needed with a purely touch-based keyboard. I need the keys to press down to tell me I actually hit them. Plus I know when I hit too far to the side just by feel. It’s absolutely worth the extra cost and the extra bit of weight it adds to the device. If you’re looking at the Surface as an ultrabook/ultraportable that you’ll do even a moderate amount of typing on, this is a must-have. That said, the mouse on this thing is rubbish. You’ll want to get yourself a wireless mouse of some kind (Bluetooth since the surface only has one USB port). I recommend the Microsoft Arc Touch mouse.
• Using it as a “lap” top – If I have decent recline where I’m sitting, it’s not so bad. I’m typing this from my couch right now and I’m not having any trouble with stability or viewing angle. And because most of the contact is with the keyboard cover and the kickstand, I don’t have to worry about heat issues and searing my flesh.

A note on Windows 8
I’ve been using Win8 off and on in a test capacity on spare hardware since the first consumer previews came out and I’m still slightly baffled by how to use the OS. It’s a frankensystem that is trying to bridge the gap between PCs and tablets and it doesn’t know what it really wants to be yet. This compromise makes life on the Surface Pro a little bit odd since it’s obviously trying to be both a touch device and a regular PC all at the same time.

That said, the ability to easily use the keyboard for typing and then just reach out to the screen to start scrolling around or click on some UI element is VERY nice and feels like a natural blend of the experiences. I just wish the Desktop vs NewUI (Metro) divide wasn’t so abrupt and jarring.

That’s it for Day 1. Now it’s Saturday morning and I have an entire weekend ahead of me to play with the device in any way I can dream up. Lets see how it goes.