Surface Pro 2

Hello,

I'd like to ask some feedback on something I'm thinking about purchasing. I've heard good things about the Surface Pro 2, and have been thinking about getting an 8/256 gigs version of it. From what I hear the SP3 isn't much of an improvement over the old one, but quite a bit more expensive.

I'm mainly looking to it as a hybrid tablet/pc, where I can play some not-so-hardware-demanding games, browsing and consuming of web content, doing some work in visual studio, etc.

Anyone have any experiences with it? Thing is I'm not on the move so much that I'd absolutely need it, but from doing some research it sounds like a great mobile PC/tablet hybrid and would like to own one. But, it's more of luxury on my end, as I said, I don't really need it. But would probably use it.

But I do have a slight worry about it ending like my Nexus 7, which I bought and found that I used it very rarely. But, this being able to run win32/64 apps seems like it might make all the difference between it and the Nexus, which honestly was more of an oversized version of my Nexus 5 (or the other way around).

My sister has one, and I think it's an excellent machine. I think it would meet the needs you described very well. I would have bought one myself, but the Linux support is flaky, which is a pain for me.

I was going to get one but the anand forums were buzzing with rage at thermal throttling which apparently kicks in way too soon and way too often especially relative to SP1. It seems MS didn't do enough testing on the cooling, which is likely to lead to a shorter lifespan even on less demanding apps. Apparently the Yoga 2 on the all new broadwell is also suffering from cooling woes. Seems this is a bad Christmas to be shopping for a good and up-to-date tablet.

I hear Divinity:Original Sin plays decent on them.

The Sp3 is lighter I believe and more square. I have an SP1, but because of the way its video drivers, some devs, like overhaul/beamdog refuse to support it. Pisses me off as it's a great machine

blatantninja said:

The Sp3 is lighter I believe and more square. I have an SP1, but because of the way its video drivers, some devs, like overhaul/beamdog refuse to support it. Pisses me off as it's a great machine

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Hmm, not good since I was hoping to play all the classic rpgs like Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate on it. Did they change they stance for SP2 or 3?

I think the classic rpgs Also run on the baytrail atom devices.
Asus t100
Aspire switch 10/11
Dell venue pro 11
Etc

danutz_plusplus said:

Hmm, not good since I was hoping to play all the classic rpgs like Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate on it. Did they change they stance for SP2 or 3?

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No. However, just because it is not supported doesn't mean it doesn't work, just if you have problems, they won't help you. I played BGEE on mine the whole way through and it was awesome. Only issue was that the 1.3 patch caused some problems launching the game. It worked fine once launched, but it crashed half the time when launching. I rolled back to 1.2 as I was almost done anyway. I haven't tried BG2EE yet though since the 1.3 patch.

blatantninja said:

No. However, just because it is not supported doesn't mean it doesn't work, just if you have problems, they won't help you.

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As a laptop gamer since ... forever - this is pretty much the mantra I have gotten since the Doom era from game makers I have played some of the greatest games ever made on unsupported hardware

I was looking at a SP3, but for me the big thing is that Win8.1 is by far the WORST tablet OS, and really isn't even in the same league as Android or iOS. And at the same time you can get an ultrabook with similar specs for much less money. Or the new Alienware 13" with much better specs ... for much less money.

I have one of those $79 HP Stream 7 tablets running Win8.1 ... and it plays Divine Divinity reasonably well

txa1265 said:

I was looking at a SP3, but for me the big thing is that Win8.1 is by far the WORST tablet OS, and really isn't even in the same league as Android or iOS. And at the same time you can get an ultrabook with similar specs for much less money. Or the new Alienware 13" with much better specs … for much less money.

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I have to seriously disagree. Having an x86/64 OS capable of running any win32/64 bit app blows anything iOS/Android are offering. Being capable of running Visual Studio, Photoshop and win32 games, at least for me, is not even a comparison. Of course, this depends what tools you usually use. And even if I had an issue with Win 8.1, you can easily upgrade to Win 10 when that ships.

Sorry, but the range of apps that you get support for, is just no comparison. And, imo, the mass of apps that you get with iOS/Android, are just light consumer apps, which personally I have almost no use for. And for those, I'll just my nexus 5. No need to be carrying a full-sized tablet for those kinds of apps.

And having an i5, with 8 gigs of ram, and 256 SSD just sounds lovely. And true, it is on the price point of an ultrabook, but it being usable also as a table is great. I can hardly wait to be playing old-school rpgs in bed.

Plus, from the sounds of it, I will also easily be able to use it as my development machine when on the go. Running Visual Studio on a tablet sounds amazing. And being able to dock it and hook up a regular sized monitor just makes it all the more versatile. Of course, more on this after I get it. And I think I'm gonna get the Surface 3 actually. But I can't find if the n-trig pen is included with the tablet.

danutz_plusplus said:

I have to seriously disagree. Having an x86/64 OS capable of running any win32/64 bit app blows anything iOS/Android are offering. Being capable of running Visual Studio, Photoshop and win32 games, at least for me, is not even a comparison. Of course, this depends what tools you usually use. And even if I had an issue with Win 8.1, you can easily upgrade to Win 10 when that ships.

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I think you are completely missing the point, so let me be more blunt:

The MS Surface is a very good touchscreen laptop, and a completely shitty and inferior tablet.

The two - laptop and tablet - are unique and complementary functions, and pretty much you need to choose. And MS chose to have a Windows laptop. And like I say - it is a good one. I think that for the money you can do better than the Surface - heck, you could get a nice Asus or Samsung and STILL have enough money for a 8" Samsung or iPad tablet that is a good tablet.

Programs made for a laptop are NOT made for a tablet. So you can run MS Studio ... great - that is a laptop function. What about Instagram? Nope. Spotify? Use the web browser version. And on and on.

Again - great laptop, pathetic tablet.

txa1265 said:

Programs made for a laptop are NOT made for a tablet. So you can run MS Studio … great - that is a laptop function. What about Instagram? Nope. Spotify? Use the web browser version. And on and on.

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Well, two issues with that. As I said, I'm not much of a user of consumer apps like instagram. And when they'll release that for the WinRT store, that'll easily run on Windows Pro OS version, since most WinRT apps can be easily compiled to run on its pair OS.

Secondly, I'm always a way bigger fan of the browser version of these apps. Considering most native mobile apps are built by developers who often have no idea what they're doing security-wise, (and it's a wonder that this check isn't part of iOS store checks that get done when you submit your app), and it's common knowledge that most mobile apps are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, I'll always prefer to run those in the browser, and let the browser deal with the underlying security checks (like server certificate chain validation, performing proper certificate pinning. etc)

Hopefully, most serious native apps perform these checks correctly, even though there still are sometimes failures even from the big devs who should know how to get these things right. (and just a funny side-note, the above article on securityaffairs.co also seems to be under misinformation as to what certificate pinning is and where the vulnerability is in what they're reporting, or maybe they just explained it incorrectly)

Some extra reading on this if anyone is interested: http://www.troyhunt.com/2013/09/unearthing-hidden-shortcomings-in.html

EDIT: And while the browser is a lot better at alerting the user when some check fails, it also has some problems with other checks. For example, if you attempt to make payment using unicef's secure payment web app, the browser will say everything is ok, and put the green padlock (in chrome anyway), but if you inspect the encryption cipher that the browser negotiated with their server, you'll notice that it's RC4, which is now considered insecure. If you go more in-depth and do an ssl check of their server, you'll be amazed at the vulnerabilities their server is exposed to, and the browser says nothing.

All of this I mention just to raise awareness of apps that talk over https. Browser apps have their faults, but mobile apps are way worse, since they're harder to debug and inspect transport layer security problems, without external tools (like fiddler, wireshark, etc), and because developers aren't always aware of what they're doing.

And, I just realized that maybe we're going off-topic. Just a bit

I disagree on it not being a good tablet. I use mine as a tablet most of the front and it's awesome. I despise Android.