Surface Pro Anticipation

I don't trust broadband companies enough to love the cloud like that. Mobile data is becoming expensive. All these companies are investing in the cloud and as soon as its actually viable for consumers broadband companies will screw everyone over and make it just as expensive or more than computing natively and locally.
 
wrxdrunkie said:
I don't trust broadband companies enough to love the cloud like that. Mobile data is becoming expensive. All these companies are investing in the cloud and as soon as its actually viable for consumers broadband companies will screw everyone over and make it just as expensive or more than computing natively and locally.
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Remote sessions are really not that bandwidth intensive. you would be suprised.
 
micrpsoft store houston called at 1pm today and i picked one up...
 
Wrench00 said:
I guess I am more advanced then even the more cutting edge people. I like cloud stuff. I mostly have my own private cloud and rarely go to public as I don't wish to have my or my clients located even accidentally outside of Canada or my province.
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Around here a lot of people have a lot of tech. Cloud computing is great for a lot of things but one of the biggest things that a lots of people who use Windows tablets for, handwriting, isn't viable via a remote host at this time as far as I am aware.

Wrench00 said:
Remote sessions are really not that bandwidth intensive. you would be suprised.
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It's not for relatively static desktop app screens. Gaming, video, etc. is a different matter.
 
These don't come with the keyboard do they? Kind of sucks. I really want one and might be able to justify $999 but if I have to spend $130 on a little keyboard too it really pisses me off.
 
darkhunter139 said:
These don't come with the keyboard do they? Kind of sucks. I really want one and might be able to justify $999 but if I have to spend $130 on a little keyboard too it really pisses me off.
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Go for the $899 64gb version then, thats what I did and just looked at it as $1000 total.

They dont come with the keyboard so you can pick type or touch and the color.
 
Grentz said:
Go for the $899 64gb version then, thats what I did and just looked at it as $1000 total.

They dont come with the keyboard so you can pick type or touch and the color.
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How much space does the 64GB leave you with?
 
Deinos said:
Here ya go
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Hmm that's actually not bad if you delete the recovery partition. If I added a 64 GB microSD card as well can I install programs on there?

Also have you guys that got one been happy with your purchase? I basically want one for bringing to school, taking some notes with the pen, and web browsing. Maybe some light programming as well (Has anyone tried programming on one).
 
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darkhunter139 said:
Hmm that's actually not bad if you delete the recovery partition. If I added a 64 GB microSD card as well can I install programs on there?

Also have you guys that got one been happy with your purchase? I basically want one for bringing to school, taking some notes with the pen, and web browsing. Maybe some light programming as well (Has anyone tried programming on one).
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I picked up the 128gb model on a whim yesterday to test it out, along with a touch keyboard. The pitch in my situation is that I wanted a very small and flexible (but not underpowered) machine. The battery life wasn't much of an issue as I'm used to my work machine which will generally do ~5 hrs (and this is supposedly more like 4). It's enough for my needs.

The screen is incredible, the performance is great (I don't think you'll have any issue programming, no more than compiling on another 1.5ghz i5 with an SSD), and I really like the build quality - this is an entirely different league to my android tablet, and given the price it should be. The only thing I'm not entirely sold on yet is the touch keyboard. It works very well, but I'm not sure I really need the additional thinness and may instead swap it for the type cover. I'm happy to answer any questions if anyone has any.
 
darkhunter139 said:
If I added a 64 GB microSD card as well can I install programs on there?
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I believe I read about someone installing Civ 5 on a microSD but keep in mind that it's going to be significantly slower than the SSD.

Best Buy finally had a TypeCover out today (it's almost like they actually want to take people's money!) and that thing is pretty fantastic. Way better than I expected, and definitely better than my Ideapad's keyboard.
 
Jaerb4 said:
I believe I read about someone installing Civ 5 on a microSD but keep in mind that it's going to be significantly slower than the SSD.

Best Buy finally had a TypeCover out today (it's almost like they actually want to take people's money!) and that thing is pretty fantastic. Way better than I expected, and definitely better than my Ideapad's keyboard.
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I tried the type keyboard and it was pretty sweet. Bestbuy didn't have the pen out with it though unfortunately so I didn't get to try that.
 
64gb is more than enough for most uses. I have full adobe suite, and my normal programs installed with 20gb still free (kept recovery partition).

Type keyboard is awesome, well worth it.
 
I should point out that the surface pro is something that I could see succeed at my office - our marketers always want to show our product on tablets but due to all the various constraints of android, ios, and our compliance department, it just hasn't been feasible. To have one machine that could serve both purposes (actual main machine productivity along with a mobile tablet), and well might I add, would be incredible. To boot, our IT doesn't have to worry about finding mobile alternatives to our current software suite since it is an actual PC.

Whether the first iteration of the surface pro cracks this market or it's haswell, I think Microsoft has the chance to do something very impressive here.
 
After a week with the 128 I have to say it is really great. I got a SIIG USB 3.0 hub from newegg and it does well with my bus powered drives. I also got a USB 3.0 CF reader and tried loading raw files from my 5DIII directly in. Wow! The photos transfer so fast and standard previews render quickly. I also picked up a type cover (returning my touch cover) and ordered a 64GB SanDisk Extreme micro sd. I wanted to get a Samsung as they are the fastest big cards as far as I can see, but it would have to drop ship from Asia. Excited for the other stuff to arrive!
 
Is there a backup service that I could use to dump data off my surface in a continuous way? Example I download my raw files straight to the surface SSD and they are uploaded to some cloud service and removed from my surface but retained on my cloud backup? I could then have them syncing to my desktop PC and only pull down 1 raw set at a time to work on on the surface.
 
Wrench00 said:
I guess I am more advanced then even the more cutting edge people. I like cloud stuff. I mostly have my own private cloud and rarely go to public as I don't wish to have my or my clients located even accidentally outside of Canada or my province.
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Depends on how you define "cloud"

To me just having hosted servers is not strictly "cloud". Then again a lot of the solutions marketed as "cloud" are not cloud in my mind either.

I run my own virtualized server farm that hosts all my files and apps, plus provides backup capabilities to clients. Just one of the reasons the Surface Pro is a great fit for me as it can hook right up to that infrastructure as another productivity device.
 
Grentz said:
Depends on how you define "cloud"

To me just having hosted servers is not strictly "cloud". Then again a lot of the solutions marketed as "cloud" are not cloud in my mind either.

I run my own virtualized server farm that hosts all my files and apps, plus provides backup capabilities to clients. Just one of the reasons the Surface Pro is a great fit for me as it can hook right up to that infrastructure as another productivity device.
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Can't you provide all of that with an ftp + Ajax development? That's what I'm currently doing. I'm setting up a LAMP(django)-based web server and via browser communicating via javascript. The tricky part is the back end server stuff, especially if you're not familiar with MySQL/PostgreSQL. It takes a little work, but in the end you've built everything yourself from the ground up and can handle all the requests on both the server side as well as a very easy client side model that interacts simply with a web browser.

You can find a lot of the javascript applications on the web that you can just copypasta. If you're going to worry about graceful degradation for clients with older browsers (getting the markup to work without javascript almost as well as with it) then you're going to be tweaking the javascript and markup quite a bit. Many of the premade web apps from hosting websites (the ones that you can just drag and drop onto your site) just don't work well with older browsers because the markup doesn't degrade gracefully. Unless you're doing it professionally where you have to worry about that sort of stuff then it isn't worth the trouble.

I'm finding it to be a little challenging but quite a bit of fun as well :D When it comes to cloud and virtualization, and in particular file transfer, there really is no need for any specific architecture or even hardware. All you need is a web browser and an FTP client (or just do that by browser as well) to interact with the host. It simplifies things a million fold for clients and users, though you're asked to do quite a bit more work on the hosting/development side. I'm finding it's much more reliable and better this way than asking people to interact with the host with X and Y hardware and software. 'Have you got a modern web browser?' is a lot simpler than 'What kind of tablet/PC are you running?'

The more I work with javascript the more I'm realizing just how few tasks need to run natively. There's just so much you can do via web browser that your average user does that it makes the hardware essentially a non factor. Cloud can be incredibly convenient provided you know what you're doing and you know exactly what can and can't be accomplished. You're not going to be able to run/load complex CAD on your browser, but pretty much everything else can be handled with client > server > client requests.
 
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I dont really understand where you are coming from, you are talking more on the interface layer...I was just noting that I also host all my own stuff as well and do not necessarily think of it as "cloud" as it does not have the elasticity and flexibility I believe is paramount to the definition of "cloud". That and the Surface Pro interfaces very nicely with all of it.

I can interface with my systems via Web Browser, FTP, VPN, SMB, RDP, and other protocols and mechanisms, just depends on the needs.

And no, FTP + AJAX through a web browser is not the easiest for a user, you cannot direct save back from programs and it ends up creating local copies that you then have to upload/download to the server. Great for certain use cases, not for many standard office workloads.
 
I think it depends on what/how you're doing it all. I'm approaching it as a standalone web-based application that's interactive. It's built for accessing information FROM a server via web app and not working on a PC and then bouncing the stuff back and forth. I'd argue that Javascript/Ajax makes it much easier for people :p Interactive web apps requiring fewer back and forth between various pages is always a huge plus. And if you're doing anything locally that you want to send back to the server then it doesn't matter if you have to upload, as you'd have to upload anyway. For example, if somebody wants to access a particular file then they type in their login info, sign in, and they can find the files associated with their projects regardless of what platform they're on. They can grab .PDFs on their tablet, smartphone or PC and have the option of uploading it and adding comments via form, all done without ever reloading the page (thanks to js). All of this minimizes the interactions with client side, as the site doesn't have to keep refreshing for every little task, rather it's the Ajax model that sends only the bits that need to be sent to the host and back. I'm also working on a way of representing the information directly in the browser as well but datacaps are putting a huge dent in my plans ;P

Whatever "cloud" applications spring up, they're going to have to interact with the client and server in a "quiet" and unobtrusive manner, and that sort of stuff is exactly what asynchronous javascript and XML does. Rather than having your page reload every time the user does something, the Ajax model allows the browser and web page to act as a fluid application. One tiny quick load while they're completely unaware and their request is already brought up. If your user needs to log in or access information from the server then you need some sort of SQL+PHP/Perl/Python anyway.
 
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Again I fail to see how we got here, your points are valid but on a slightly different topic.
 
Ugh Surface Pro or Helix? And I want a Haswell processor so I might have to wait even longer.....
 
I think the Helix price will most likely end up putting me off of it. I can't imagine the end cost to get the upgrades for the i7, 8gb RAM, and 256gb SSD... Will probably just pick up a Surface Pro as a supplement device for travel and drawing.
 
Deinos said:
I think the Helix price will most likely end up putting me off of it. I can't imagine the end cost to get the upgrades for the i7, 8gb RAM, and 256gb SSD... Will probably just pick up a Surface Pro as a supplement device for travel and drawing.
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Or if you just don't do any of those upgrades, you still get the same performance as the surface pro with the helix chassis.
 
OldPueblo said:
Or if you just don't do any of those upgrades, you still get the same performance as the surface pro with the helix chassis.
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Last I had heard or read was Helix was going to start somewhere around $1399 to $1499 before upgrades. That's quite a bit more than $999 or $1128 (with type cover). Granted you get the Thinkpad keyboard and extra battery life.

My other issue is Lenovo better get this product into stores. I've always wanted to purchase a Thinkpad, but I have been reticent because there is really no place to try many of their models out, and it sucks to have the potential restocking fee if you end up not liking your order.
 
Deinos said:
Last I had heard or read was Helix was going to start somewhere around $1399 to $1499 before upgrades. That's quite a bit more than $999 or $1128 (with type cover). Granted you get the Thinkpad keyboard and extra battery life.

My other issue is Lenovo better get this product into stores. I've always wanted to purchase a Thinkpad, but I have been reticent because there is really no place to try many of their models out, and it sucks to have the potential restocking fee if you end up not liking your order.
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Yeah technically you could call them comparable in a way, because a Surface Pro with keyboard is within a couple hundred bucks BUT you also get more cool stuff for that couple hundred. Longer battery, larger screen, better keyboard, etc.
 
OldPueblo said:
Yeah technically you could call them comparable in a way, because a Surface Pro with keyboard is within a couple hundred bucks BUT you also get more cool stuff for that couple hundred. Longer battery, larger screen, better keyboard, etc.
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Yeah, I think the biggest benefit would be the longer battery and the extra ports on that keyboard dock.
 
Got a 64GB coming my way. Really excited. Will probably pick up the type cover if I manage to find one for around the touch cover price, but not really a concern now as I'll use it 90% tablet and 10% laptop.

Will probably be on the hunt for a better stylus too.

I assume the stock stylus pen has removeable tips, but are they hard plastic or do they have little plastic rubbery tips that adds friction like Samsung tablets?
 
Agenesis said:
I assume the stock stylus pen has removeable tips, but are they hard plastic or do they have little plastic rubbery tips that adds friction like Samsung tablets?
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Hard plastic but do yourself a favor and pick up a screen protector. I have the 128 GB Surface Pro (using it now from couch as I reply) and picked up the Incipio Plex Screen Protector, comes in a 2 pack, for $20. I can give you tips on getting it on bubble free and aligned perfectly. It gives me piece of mind using the included pen, which is pretty darn cool.

I have to say, I absolutely love my Surface Pro. I have both the touch and type cover and actually prefer the touch cover.

Have fun with yours!!!
 
heatlesssun said:
The Surface Pro screen is Gorilla Glass 2? A plastic pen tip isn't going to scratch it.
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No...you are correct but I'm very protective of my touch screen devices. I like them to look their best for as long as possible. Plus I have had other Gorilla Glass devices in the past, maybe not version 2, that have gotten tiny hairlines scratches on them without using a screen protector.

To me, its worth the extra $$$ and Time applying them.
 
byoungjr said:
No...you are correct but I'm very protective of my touch screen devices. I like them to look their best for as long as possible. Plus I have had other Gorilla Glass devices in the past, maybe not version 2, that have gotten tiny hairlines scratches on them without using a screen protector.

To me, its worth the extra $$$ and Time applying them.
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I hate the feel of them, and this isn't in your pocket like a phone. I put one on my S3, but won't waste my time with it on the SP. I do plan on getting insurance, as I'll bet 1 bad drop on the corner will shatter the screen.


btw, just checked BB today and almost all stores in my area (socal) have the SP 128 in stock. So looks like the shortage might be over already.
 
Biznatch said:
I hate the feel of them, and this isn't in your pocket like a phone. I put one on my S3, but won't waste my time with it on the SP. I do plan on getting insurance, as I'll bet 1 bad drop on the corner will shatter the screen.


btw, just checked BB today and almost all stores in my area (socal) have the SP 128 in stock. So looks like the shortage might be over already.
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We had some in central ohio 2 days ago... Sold out again immediately :-/
 
We got some of these Surface Pro's in a couple of days ago. Just got my hand on one.

As a laptop, I like it. As a tablet, I need to strengthen my arm muscles. That damn thing makes my Ipad feel like a feather... Plus it gets way hot..

Ill stick to my Ipad. :D
 
jordan12 said:
We got some of these Surface Pro's in a couple of days ago. Just got my hand on one.

As a laptop, I like it. As a tablet, I need to strengthen my arm muscles. That damn thing makes my Ipad feel like a feather... Plus it gets way hot..

Ill stick to my Ipad. :D
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Works great as a tablet on your lap though, Lapblet, laptop?

Still smaller and more "relaxed" than a laptop in your lap though :D
 
I really want the people who say that it is too heavy for a tablet to post their forearm measurements ;-)
 
It is very bulky. I wouldnt want to use it as a tablet. But it is thick enough that it double as a bullet proof chest protector though.


So it does do that well, I can imagine.
 
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