Surface2 FIrst Impressions

[blehblehbleh]

Yeah.....Dont forget the 1080p screen which the Air can only dream of having, and the touchscreen on the Pro plus the Pen Input.. and a 128Gb with TYPE Keyboard comes down to $1,188

Ah you know that's my fault. I was thinking of the Pro 2 with a 256 GB ssd (what I'd like to get). So you're right, but some of those trade offs like RAM

 

[Daylife]

Ah you know that's my fault. I was thinking of the Pro 2 with a 256 GB ssd (what I'd like to get). So you're right, but some of those trade offs like RAM

Whats wrong with the RAM? its 8Gb with the 256Gb version.

 

[blehblehbleh]

Whats wrong with the RAM? its 8Gb with the 256Gb version.

Nothing, it just feels like a big price jump just to get there. However looking at a 11" macbook air with the additional 4gb of ram, I see it's starting the same price as the Pro 2...

Still it feels a bit of a premium in price for the Pro 2 considering you have to buy the most important component-- the keyboard.

 

[katakulli]

I'm going back tonight. I'll try to make a video of all three in action. The MS Rep brought a SurfaceRT for us to compare launching apps on the SurfaceRT vs Surface2. The results were night and day. In Metro app launching, I almost never saw the little busy/spinning symbol during the metro app splash screen when using the Surface2. The launch would almost instantly open, versus the surfaceRT. Launching the same app on the surfaceRT, your presented with the metro splash screen for that app and the busy/spinning indicator.

So you didn't record a video, did you? overall there is still no video which shows the speed of surface 2 (in hands-on videos they show mostly hardware only). so it would be cool if you could manage this?

 

[Greg Brannon1]

Anyone living in the Dallas area; the Stonebriar Mall in Frisco Microsoft Kiosk (Specialty Store) has Surface 2 (white/silver) and Surface 2 Pro (charcoal). I found it interesting that I keep referring to the Surface 2 as Surface with Windows RT and the store rep keep saying to me over and over you mean Surface 2. It appears that they may have received directive to not associate "RT" when talking about Surface 2.

Both devices are nice. The 1080p screen on Surface 2 looked great. It felt very light and the performance was snappy. The white was more of a silver color to me but still looked nice. I'd like to pair it up with a purple type cover. Speaking of covers if anyone will be at the Surface 2 events with Panos Panay at the various Microsoft Stores; could ask him if Microsoft has thought of having specialty covers like Burberry designed Touch Covers or Vera Bradley designed Touch Covers. I think that would go over well with women and perhaps drive more women adoption to the device.

 

[Daylife]

Nothing, it just feels like a big price jump just to get there. However looking at a 11" macbook air with the additional 4gb of ram, I see it's starting the same price as the Pro 2...

Still it feels a bit of a premium in price for the Pro 2 considering you have to buy the most important component-- the keyboard.

True, but i still think they are both even...I would still take the Surface Pro 2 over the MBA the Air might might have a little bit of a bigger screen but horrible resolution, plus the touch, pen feature.

 

[blehblehbleh]

True, but i still think they are both even...I would still take the Surface Pro 2 over the MBA the Air might might have a little bit of a bigger screen but horrible resolution, plus the touch, pen feature.

Yeah I would take the Pro 2 also. I suppose it could be argued the additional cost goes towards the features you pointed out. :S

 

[StuBeck]

At $200, would you still get a SurfaceRT over the Surface 2? My other thought is to spend $300 or so and get a basic Win 8 tablet with an Atom proc. Thanks.

 

[nuprotocol]

At $200, would you still get a SurfaceRT over the Surface 2? My other thought is to spend $300 or so and get a basic Win 8 tablet with an Atom proc. Thanks.

I just sold IMHO (in my humble opinion) the best atom tablet on ebay to get a Surface2. I had a Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 which was an awesome atom tablet. However atom is unable to handle desktop apps. I only sold my SurfaceRT for the Lenovo b/c I knew atom could handle metro apps better. Surface2 has meshed the two. The two being that now I can have really really fast desktop apps and even faster metro apps.

For me, the Surface2 is worth the extra money over the SurfaceRT since its performance in launching apps is very similar to the Pro2. I'm going to head back there today and run those benchmarks others suggested. However in real world testing of just launching desktop apps and metro apps, the Surface2 is very close to the Pro2.

 

[StuBeck]

For my use, it'd be mainly Internet browsing and netflix, nothing very difficult (otherwise I would get a Tablet 2 for its digitizer support). Does it make that big of a difference with the new one? It sounds like the original Surface is almost unusable based on some of the descriptions which are coming out.

 

[nuprotocol]

For my use, it'd be mainly Internet browsing and netflix, nothing very difficult (otherwise I would get a Tablet 2 for its digitizer support). Does it make that big of a difference with the new one? It sounds like the original Surface is almost unusable based on some of the descriptions which are coming out.

Thanks for that info. For what you'll be using it for, the SurfaceRT will be fine. The digitzer was/is an excellent tool with the Tablet2. I really didn't need a mouse b/c of the digitzer. Choosing between the SurfaceRT and Surface2 really just comes down to how fast you believe your tablet should be. Even with browsing, I want the IE tabs to open up fast and close fast, but IE Metro lagged on the SurfaceRT.

Even for nextflix, internet browsing and some word processing, I would rather pay for an Surface2 over an RT. I would look at the Surface2 as a future proofing purchase. I really liked the RT, but hated hated hated the performance issues. This seems to be resolved with the Surface2. I'm actually going to output the Surface2 to a monitor and use it as a mobile desktop/laptop. This could be done with the SurfaceRT, but the desktop performance was horrendous.

I was one of those people that reserved and purchased the SurfaceRT on day one. I believe I spent almost $800, lol. I think that's the most I've ever spent on a non gaming device. lol I build beastly gaming desktops for myself and friends and the SurfaceRT total cost was close if not the price of a nice gaming rig.

$499 SurfaceRT
$129 Type Keyboard
$100 Warranty (just in case, lol)
---------
$788 was my total I believe after taxes.

 

[Daylife]

At $200, would you still get a SurfaceRT over the Surface 2? My other thought is to spend $300 or so and get a basic Win 8 tablet with an Atom proc. Thanks.

Me personally, i would still get the Surface 2 the performance difference is just too much, and dat screen!

 

[nuprotocol]

Me personally, i would still get the Surface 2 the performance difference is just too much, and dat screen!

True! Forgot about 1080p. The screen looks amazing....! So amazing I kept adjusting my contacts b/c I felt like the screen was tooooooooooo crystal crip/clear. lol The performance has to be seen too. If your near a MS store, the pro2 surface2 are side by side. Just test it yourself and launch the exact same app on both at the same time. You will be blown away at how fast the Surface2 keeps up with Pro2. The SurfaceRT will just be there, spinning, processing, waiting, thinking. lol

 

[StuBeck]

Thanks for the advice Unfortunately we won't have a MS store until November...and even then its 70 miles away. I think I'll look at one this weekend and see how the performance is. I'm comparing this to a modified HP Touchpad with Jelly Bean, so I'm expecting it to be faster!

 

[Christian Kallevig]

It definitely ought to be, It's just a more powerful machine, and Metro has always been smooth for the most part.

 

[LMZR]

Has anybody managed to try the new Type Cover?

I was rather disappointed with the original and i want to know if it's worth getting the Type Cover 2.

 

[nuprotocol]

Surface2 Benchmarks

Surface 2 benchmarks

 

[nuprotocol]

Pro2 Benchmarks

Pro2 Benchmarks

 

[nuprotocol]

Re: Pro2 Benchmarks

Comparing the RT to the Surface2. The cpu benchmarking has doubled and I'm not sure what Microsoft did with the ram, but the Surface2 owns the SurfaceRT in ram benchmarking. lol




Surface RT Benchmarks thx (azcruz)

 

[nuprotocol]

There is an app I use called PC Benchmark, that I use to keep track of performance improvement from Surface RT 8.0 -> 8.1 Preview -> 8.1 RTM.

This is the recent benchmark of my RT running 8.1 RTM. If anyone can install this app, run the benchmark and take a photo, will be highly appreciated.

View attachment 44215

thanks for the tip. the MS reps were surprised about this app. most of them thought it came with Surface and they just didn't know about it. lol