Trading 2520 for Surface pro 2 advice

tcedwards

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Hello,

I am thinking about trading my Nokia Lumia 2520 with keyboard for the Surface Pro 2 and I want to know if it is worth it.

Reasons:
1. I want to download programs (like media monkey for easier music management)
2. Stylus support for taking notes. But I have a question, is the stylus support work well?
3. Hoping that it would be fast?

Figured I can get ~550 for my Lumia tablet. I don't use the LTE

Any advice/answers to my questions?
 

SwimSwim

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Feb 1, 2013
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Totally worth it! My Surface Pro 2 /is/ my laptop and tablet, it does a great job at both! I LOVE this thing, it's so worth it!

It's incredibly fast, fluid, and powerful. It's definitely heavy for a tablet, and while the battery isn't terrible, do be warned that it's still short compared to most tablets. I typically get through the day on a single charge, but I am sometimes desperate for power, so do keep that in mind.

Anyways, it's a fantastic device, Microsoft really did a great job. So long as you can put up with the following cons:
- Thick and bulky for a tablet. Not too horrible, especially for how power it has, but this ain't no iPad Air, that's for damn sure.
- Battery is very decent by the standards of most other devices with the same hardware, but once more: it doesn't hold a candle to a typical tablet.
- One USB is kickass while on the go, but you do need a dock if using this as your main machine, or that one port just won't cover everything.
- *DO NOT GET A TOUCH COVER!!!* I'm sorry, but those just aren't there yet. Touch cover is a definite con, avoid at all costs!
- The track pad on both the Type and Touch Covers, gen 1 and 2, SUCK. Thankfully, you get an awesome stylus and have a wonderful touch screen mere inches away, but I'd highly recommend and extra mouse, as the track pad is terrible.
- Display Port is great, but we live in a VGA/HDMI world, so you're likely going to need a converter(s).


.... Then you get the full benefit of (pun definitely intended) Pros:

- This thing is POWERFUL. It's super fast and just awesome. It's not the most powerful thing ever, but it's still pretty badass. This thing just breezes through daily tasks, and it's powerful enough for casual-moderate gaming, and it's also good for Photoshop on the go. Don't expect this to hold a candle to $2000+ gaming laptops or other professional high-end hardware, but this thing is more than powerful enough for 90%+ of daily tasks and activities.
- The stylus is incredible! Going for Wacom was a great idea. While it struggles at the corners, it's overall a really great stylus an works wonderfully. Do take care not to loose it, however, because there's no dedicated slot other than the charge port, and even then: it can easily be knocked out.
- Full Windows 8.1! Run 95%+ of any Windows program out there that your heart desires. Program you like? This machine has more than likely got it covered.
- I don't care what Apple or Amazon say: this 1080p screen is great! I'm not saying it wouldn't benefit from more pixels, but it ain't no slouch either. The screen is great, both in terms of looks and feel. Just make sure to scrub fingerprints and smudges off frequently, which is really easy.
- The speakers are really great quality! Sadly, their sound output is easily drowned out, so noise quickly kills the experience. Still, the sound is really crisp in quiet environments, they're great!
- The Type Cover is a dream to type on. It's ever-so-slightly smaller than a regular keyboard, so you'll be off at first. But once you adjust, it's just like typing on any regular keyboard, with full speed and accuracy.
- That one USB port still has most other tablets beat, it's very convenient to be able to use USB devices anywhere.
- A bazillion more!

So would I recommend? HELL YES!
 

onlysublime

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my thoughts on the Surface Pro 2. let me start off with the opinion that I love the machine!

But in terms of your questions... the stylus has been iffy for me. sometimes it works great. other times, the palm rejection is iffy for me. A classic example is this: Go to handwriting personalization (Control Panel > Language > Options > Personalize handwriting recognition > Teach the recognizer your handwriting style) and run through the training. I had set the pen to be for left-hand users (I'm left-handed). For me, when I lay me hand down to write the training sentence, as soon as I lay my hand outside the handwriting personalization window, the focus goes away from the box to the desktop that my hand hit so I have to tap the window to bring it into focus first. This is totally disruptive as I lift the pen and put it back on as my hand will occasionally shift the focus from the window to the desktop. So as I'm writing (and lifting and dropping the pen to write), sometimes the focus shifts which basically forces me to tap. And as a lefty, I'm lifting my hand often which exacerbates the problem. When I slide my hand, the problem isn't there but I can't slide my hand as easily as on real paper.

Now, if the program takes up the entire screen, this minimizes the problem as you are not tapping another program to change focus to the tapped program. But I'm trying to train Windows 8.1 like I trained my Tablet PC in Windows 7 (my ancient HP TX2000) and it's far harder to train since my TX2000 had a resistive screen and easily rejected my palm because it was resistive instead of capacitive. But in the grander scheme of things, the pen works great and better than pens on other systems (I tried the pen on the Android Galaxy Note and the Note 3 and the clumsy fat capacitive pens on the iPad).

It is a fast machine. It's fast when compared to laptops, let alone tablets (which are much slower). I'd use it for PC gaming if games didn't cause the SP2 to heat up so fast.

You don't need a dock unless most of your work is on a desk. I have a USB 3.0 hub which works great. I also use my little army of display adapters, all very inexpensive from Monoprice. I haven't ever tried the official Microsoft display adapters. From past experience with Xbox 360 VGA cables, the official Microsoft one had much better picture quality than the cheap Monoprice version. And these Monoprice adapters for the Surface are good but the picture quality is not as sharp as I would've expected. Since I've never tried the official adapters, I have no baseline to judge whether the Monoprice adapters are "poor". However, for how much they cost (these 3 adapters together cost less than 1 Microsoft adapter), they're worth it.

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In terms of music, I'm an Xbox Music convert. I love the ability to stream and whatever songs I want for offline playback, I can download them. Since space is precious with a non-upgradable SSD, I can't store all my media anyway so stuff like Media Monkey is more for my desktop machine than my SP2. It was the same way for my laptop. No need to waste space on duplicating songs across both systems.
 

flotto

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I just upgraded from a Surface 2 to a Surface Pro 2. Went into Microsoft just to look at the SP2 and had a conversation with the salesman. He let me return my S2 that I had used for 2 months for the SP2. Couldn't be happier.
 

tcedwards

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The problem is thay I use a desktop for my main computing, just wondering if having the laptop instead of tablet is worth it, because when I'm gone and really need my computer for something can't do on my tablet, I am SOL, I am thinking I will have to pay ~ 300 to upgrade

I am gonna wait till MS announces the new surfaces on the 20th, I got a feeling that the Intel surface will be a cheaper pro tablet
 

erasure25

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1. Games too (Steam, etc.).
2. Stylus is awesome... best stylus ever. No input lag. Palm rejection works great. I got rid of all my paper notebooks for work and only use my SP2. Co-workers were amazed at the stylus and said they were "going to check if their ipads/kindles could do the same." I didn't have the heart to tell them "No, yours can't do the same...."
3. It's fast. Bootup is fast.

I have a desktop as my "main" PC at home.. It's a gaming rig so obviously more powerful. But my SP2 is a great mobile device that can play games (albeit with graphics turned down). I used to have a traditional laptop... but sold it since my SP2 can be both a tablet and laptop (I have the type keyboard 2). The SP2 is heavier than your 2520 (it feels like twice as heavy as the Surface RT).
 

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