Microsoft Surface Pro 2

#1

Microsoft officially announced the Surface Pro 2 today:

[ul]
[li]Intel Haswell Core i5 ULV[/li]> [li]10.6" 1920x1080 display with “42% Improved Color Accuracy” over the original Surface Pro.[/li]> [li]Wacom Pen Input (Not sure what improvements have been made over the original Surface Pro).[/li]> [li]4GB of RAM w/ 64GB SSD ($899) or 128GB SSD ($999) | 8GB of RAM w / 256 SSD ($1299) or 512GB SSD ($1799).[/li]> [li]New selection of covers: Type Cover 2 (Backlit, Physical Keys w/ ‘improved travel’), Touch Cover 2 (Backlit, Touch Keys w/ 1092 touch sensors, the original had only 80 sensors) and The Power Cover which extends the total on battery life to ~9 hours.[/li]> [li]Optional Desktop Docking Station which features 1 Mini DisplayPort (not sure what version), 1 Gigabit Ethernet Port, 1 USB 3.0 port, 3 USB 2.0 ports and Audio I/O ports.[/li]> [li]Pre-orders start tomorrow (Sept 24th) and will ship on October 22nd[/li]
[/ul]Looks like a great piece of hardware for those who aren’t looking for a full workstation replacement but need high portability, great battery life, Wacom input, the ability to run full Windows applications and a healthy 8GB of RAM.

#2

Hopefully that will put to rest Wacom’s insultingly priced and specced offer :slight_smile:
I had high hopes for the price/performance of the SPro2, seems what I expected and hoped for.

Likely going to buy one at some point.
And the link:
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/pre-order

#3

This does look enticing, but I am wondering about the drawing setup. I’ve always used a Wacom or Cintiq with a keyboard positioned to the left or below the desk for hotkeys. How does this work with the SP2? Is there a way to connect the keyboard to the display without having it placed right in front of it? Is it wireless even when snapped onto the monitor/tablet, or does removing it from the display disable it?

#4

Under accessories, in the link ThE_JacO posted above you’ll find an official wireless adapter for the Type Cover keyboard which allow you to position both the Surface Pro 2 and the keyboard independently and in any orientation you wish:

Wireless Adapter for Typing Covers - $59.99

                                                             Connect any Surface Typing Cover to Surface  using Bluetooth® wireless technology. Type emails from the couch while  Surface is plugged into your TV, or work collaboratively in the  conference room.
#5

On top of that it’s worth noting that these days Bluetooth is both reliable and fast enough that you can simply go out and buy a multidevice USB adapter and happily connect whatever the hell you want :slight_smile:
Just plug in an external monitor set to clone, accept connections for keyboard and mouse, and you have your “workstation” by just sitting the tablet on the desk somewhere with one single cable plugged into it.

This is true of any tablet that has USB and bluetooth support though.

#6

They should have given you Steve Ballmer’s number.

I’m sure he would have loved hearing your story about the wonderful experience you been having with Microsoft’s products.

That said… somehow I do have a good feeling about this Surface Pro 2… It’s not too hard to build an Eco-System between all your Win 8 devices if you think about it.

#7

here is a video of the presentation for anyone who would like to see it. they were editing 6k red footage on the surface 2 in the presentation.

http://betanews.com/2013/09/23/watch-microsofts-surface-2-presentation-here/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed+-+bn+-+Betanews+Full+Content+Feed+-+BN

#8

Is it a lot better than surface 1? I heard 1 wasn’t well recieved.

#9

Which wacom driver were people using to make the pressure sensitivity work?
Is there any new info on the pen? How good was the first SurfacePro for doodling around in zbrush, given that the screen is tiny and the pen has no wrist rejection feature?

I googled/youtubed around but would be nice to have first hand views on this Qs.

#10

I believe the pen that comes with the Surface Pro has ‘palm-blocking technology’ as Microsoft puts it. It may have been the non-pro pen that came with the arm based Surface RT that lacked palm rejection.

If anyone has used ZBrush with the original Surface Pro, I would be interested to know as well.

  The Surface Team had a Q&A dicussion on Reddit yesterday:
  [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1mz20e/hi_im_panos_panay_corporate_vp_of_surface_at/](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1mz20e/hi_im_panos_panay_corporate_vp_of_surface_at/)

[/QUOTE]

#11

The RT wasn’t on account of a number of things, including relatively poor battery life for a tablet format and a storage hog win8 that left little available on the lower storage models.
The Pro version was constantly sold out flat and pre-ordered for weeks despite Wacom holding proper drivers for the longest time, it was very well reviewed, and received another boost when finally proper drivers with across-the-board pressure sensitivity came out.

The Pro2 builds on that with Haswell CPU (better battery life)., lower entry price for something that was already cheap, win 8.1 taking away some suck (finally multiwindowing even in metro), more storage options, and generally beefier specs.

MS failed, and might fail again, at the tablet market with win8 on an RT platform. The super slim laptop market the Pro faced was actually a success, and the fact they moved the Pro2 release to a lot sooner than expected instead of leaving a long gap between that and an earlier RT release shows they realize they still have a poor tablet, but an excellent pressure sensitive laptop.

#12

Everyone I support with a Surface Pro loves it. That’s about 12 people. I don’t know anyone with an RT version.

#13

Check polycount forum. There is a Surface Pro topic there with guys who use Zbrush.

EDIT: I think it’s here

#14

I trialed a surface pro 1 last week and LOVED it. It is way better than Wacom’s overpriced cintiq companion. Had no trouble using zbrush, photoshop and sketchbook pro with it. It is great for sketching on the go.

I will definitely pick up the 256gb one with 8gb ram. It should run zbrush just fine. Just get one of the logitech game board things and put it next to you when zbrushing:

http://gaming.logitech.com/en-ca/product/g13-advanced-gameboard

#15

I will definitely pick up the 256gb one with 8gb ram. It should run zbrush just fine. Just get one of the logitech game board things and put it next to you when zbrushing:

after watching the presentation i think i might get that version myself. A good sized sd card will come in handy for some extra storage. i am glad the presenter made mention that they are already working on the next generation of the surface because i will never forget what they did to the zune.

#16

You say that like it won’t happen again. :curious:

Here’s my prediction: It will be a good product marred by poor dev support. High-ups at MS will give it a couple years, look at the numbers, grumble about quarterly losses and never hitting “iPad numbers,” decide that public didn’t want fast, convenient tablets after all, dump remaining units, then head to BJ’s to wait an hour for a table.

#17

If anything the previous version and the response to this one insofar show that people are bloody starving for a reasonably priced, high performance slim, and have no need for more clutter in the tablet market.

The RT version was a failure (but Microsoft can’t afford to stop trying, they HAVE TO get a slice of that market to survive the winter of local computing), but the Pro was a major critical and sales success.
It was constantly flat out pre-sold, they completely misjudged volumes and got them swapped (RT was overstocked and rotting the Pro was short produced and constantly selling out).

The fact it’s a full fledged laptop also makes support a non-issue.
It’s a piece of hardware like any other (the pro), you don’t need any more support than the default OS availability already provides, and unlike Win RT, iOS and Android, Windows Pro doesn’t require you stay on the edge of updates.
If you buy one, it dies when the hardware nears obsolescence, not when they cut support (unlike stupid ipad and android tablets).

#18

You say that like it won’t happen again. :curious:

hey, i have to be somewhat hopeful :slight_smile:

#19

Agreed. I was making a joke about the ass-backward MS habit of looking at sales numbers, being disappointed, and concluding that it was the platform that failed, and not the product that they were offering.

In other words, they would see their tablets aren’t selling and determine that “people just don’t want tablets” while that is probably not the case at all.

#20

Thanks for the link mantragora :slight_smile:

@Sheep: Can the joystick on the Logitech G13 be mapped to allow you to orbit the model in Zbrush?

Also I’m used to the Intuos pen where the side button can be clicked ‘up’ or ‘down’ (mapped to middle mouse and right click functions). Does side button on the Pro pen have that dual use ability or is it limited to a single click function? None of the reviews I’ve watched make that distinction. Thanks