Surface Pro 2 thoughts
For those who are following, or even thinking about the new
MS Surface Pro 2 as a candidate for their next tablet, the link(s) below pretty much sums up what I have seen
so far. "So far" means that, like the reviewer, I have only been briefly exposed to a pre-production unit, and I'll have a much better idea once my retail device arrives (in a few days) and I get a chance to spend some quality time with it in (my) real world usage scenarios.
Of note, this reviewer (Anand Lal Shimpi) is a well known and respected/responsible reviewer vs. a lot of the dweeb blogger types that I have historically lambasted. This person has the real engineering "chops" to test things, but more importantly, writes with a (mostly) objective, true reviewer style. His particular usage scenarios do not mimic our (appraiser) usage scenarios exactly, but they are a valid "benchmark" IMHO.
That said, from what I have experienced over the years, the typical appraiser can expect about a 30 minute longer "typical" battery life than his tests indicate and with our outdoor usage requirement, the screen is never good enough ;-) Additionally, from what I know that is "in the pipe", we could reasonably expect further OS tweaks (and, more importantly, typical appraiser software tweaks) that will serve to eek out another half hour or so.
Summarily, I (also) have found that the performance on a pre-production Surface Pro 2 to be stellar, and a noticeable improvement in every way over the original Surface Pro. This is due to a much better CPU/GPU and OS (Win 8.1 vs. Win 8.0.) What is not particularly highlighted in Anand's review is how much better the screen is on the Surface Pro 2. His review, like others, tends to focus on synthetic measurements - brightness, contrast, g2g response, etc. Of those, with a
quality display, the contrast ratio is perhaps the biggest factor for us who use devices in mostly outdoor scenarios. I think that looking at measurements on things like color accuracy can really influence outdoor user types to think that the screen is sub-par. If you are an "imaging professional", then color accuracy is important, but we are not imaging professionals. True, we want to see things with reasonable accuracy, but the first order of business is to be able to see anything at all in our non-typical usage situations (non-typical for tablet users, in general, who mainly use devices like this indoors.) As I have said many times before, it doesn't matter how accurate the colors are if you can't easily see it outdoors. ("Hard to use a device if you cant read the screen.") Anyway, the Surface Pro 2 screen is NOT one that is rated as "indoor/outdoor" but it
IS one that performs adequately - arguably better than most with
our usage scenarios. That said, I still recommend a quality anti-glare screen protector (film) to improve the situation. They run about $25 and are good for about six months, given our environmental conditions.
FWIW, I personally ordered a model like the one he reviewed - 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB SSD - as I felt that this was the "sweet spot" for my purposes. My review unit had 512 GB of storage, but I felt that this was overkill for me. I further agree with his reasoning why we won't see a more significant improvement in the Surface (and other, similar devices) line until the next CPU implementation ("Broadwell" vs. current "Haswell") and while I would have liked for MS (and others) to configure things differently for this round, I understand their decisions from an engineering and manufacturing & marketing perspective.
Summary page:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7440/microsoft-surface-pro-2-review/5
(For those wanting to read more, the full review:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7440/microsoft-surface-pro-2-review)
Finally, I am still not convinced that the Surface Pro 2 is
THE best device for
most appraisers. There are (or very soon will be) Tablets by a few other players that may likely fit YOUR usage scenarios better. The Surface Pro 2 is mainly designed as an "executive class" device, best used indoors by folks who move from conference to conference, or similar, vs. while traversing the subject property or using it in your lap. For our "typical" purposes, the "Transformer" type (i.e. newer, Haswell class Helix-type)
may be a better fir for most of you. We'll soon see devices from Lenovo, Dell and even two others I know of, which may be a better fit for most of you. Some of these are already announced, some are days away.
Am I recommending that you skip the Surface Pro 2? Not at all - I am just saying that it is not the only device worthy of considering, and I believe that you should look at a wider gamut of devices before making a purchase. Also, remember that this device is closer to a "desktop replacement" class device, and many of you may be better served by a lighter weight, less expensive device (Bay Trail or lower-spec Core i3 device) used as a "companion" device rather than one which satisfies what is known generically as a "single asset" device. YMMV, and you should shop wisely - use your own criteria for making a decision. Read reviews, but be true to your appraiser roots and take ad-type reviews with a large grain of salt.
Hope this helps! I'll post more info, pictures, etc. within a couple of weeks. I hope to be able to include some side-by-side comparison shots when enough "full retail" devices are in and we have a bright, sunny day.
-Randall Garrett-
..Apex Software..
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