April 23, 2014
Feedback submitted!Unable to submit feedback! I can only partially understand the rave reviews that users give this product. It must be due largely to the fact that most users are sick of carrying two devices - a heavy laptop and tablet which is overly limited in functionality. I bought and used the Surface Pro 2 8GB RAM/256GB SSD for a period of 3 weeks, and finally returned it. The problems I encountered in order of severity are:1. GLITCHY: I had delays and crashes with MSIE, File Explorer, Outlook, and Word. I had to turn off right and left swiping with the mouse because of eratic behavior caused by accidentally engaging the charms menu when editing documents (or do anything else, for that matter) with the keyboard. Miracast simply didn't work, and MS Support could not get it to work, either. Neither were they able to resolve the missing/broken OS features that I encountered. 2. UNCOMFORTABLE: As a laptop it´s too small, and as a tablet it doesn´t meet my needs. For example, it doesn´t have instant-on functionality (OK, it boots very quickly, but it´s not instant-on), or enough apps. Also the apps installed by default often duplicate, and are poor siblings of actual applications on the desktop. Not enough screen real estate to work comfortably for extended periods. Keyboard is too small, and quickly becomes a pain. The pen, which is fantastic with One-note, is also fundamental when working with Office applications because parts of the UI are so tiny you HAVE TO use the pen. Unfortunately, things like double clicking don´t come easy with the pen. I also found that the proximity of the X for closing the pop-up keyboard and the Backspace key on it caused problems from time to time. Unfortunately, there are many, many issues like this which mean that you have to learn to live with them for this to be a viable working platform for you.3. EXPENSIVE: It´s not expensive for the actual quality of the hardware. It´s expensive because it doesn´t provide enough bang for the buck. Also, if you want to use it as a laptop for work you´re going to have to buy lots and lots of peripherals - VGA connector, LAN connector, HDMI connector (if you travel a lot), and the touch keyboard, minimally. If you buy the battery keyboard, add another $200. (Does anyone know how many charges you can expect from that $200 keyboard? Also, there's a reason that they offer the battery keyboard. I didn't get close to the benchmarked battery time.) You have to buy MS Office separately, and you´ll need to buy a case. If you only get the case and touch keyboard you´re looking at $1550+. That´s not cheap for a core i5 device, by anyone´s standards. (OK, you get a touch screen, and the Haswell processor).For anyone who´s skeptical about this review, I did the following when I bought the device: upgraded the OS,and all the latest patches, via Windows update, installed MS Office and checked again for updates...and transferred my files to the new machine. Other applications that I installed were mainstream ones that work on my other laptop. I love the concept, and really, really wanted this to work for me. Oddly enough, I´m still tempted to go back and buy one - despite all the problems. But, that´s just it. I think I'm suffering from the same euphoria that is at the root of the rave user reviews. We've all been waiting for something just like what the Surface Pro 2 is supposed to be. BUT, IT´S NOT WHAT IT´S SUPPOSED TO BE. ...And, that´s the problem. So, I am forcing myself to be realistic in my rating, and give this a 3, which is what it truly deserves. My advice is to wait for the Surface Pro 3 or 4, when MS will finally have worked out the bugs.