New Microsoft Surface 2 (32 GB)
This is My Opinion About This Product
After I buy this New Microsoft Surface 2 (32 GB) (Personal Computers)
I heard a lot of lackluster reviews about the original Surface tablet but I heard that Microsoft fixed a lot of issues in the Surface 2 so I checked it out. I liked what I saw in the store demo so I bought it. After using it for 2 days solid, I can say that this is an excellent tablet and entirely underrated. I give it 4 1/2 stars overall.
The good:
1) Excellent look and feel. The frame is made of a beautiful alloy and it feels both strong and light. Unlike all the other tablets I've seen, this one is widescreen. This is great for media viewing, and provides a substantial and useful difference in viewing between portrait and landscape mode. The screen is full 1080p and everything looks super clear. Comparing it with the ipad, the ipad is sharper but not quite as clear. It kind of feels like with the ipad you are looking through thicker glass so it seems "cloudier" than the Surface 2, even though the iPad has higher resolution.
2) Microsoft Office comes bundled FOR FREE. This is awesome. No other tablet has anything comparable. Fully functional versions of Excel, Word, Outlook, Powerpoint, and Onenote.
3) A micro SD slot for expansion of primary storage. Up to 64gb additional storage. Ipads don't have this, and with androids some do and some don't. Very useful and welcome.
4) A mini HD port, so you can output the display directly to a tv or monitor. You might need a mini HD to HDMI adapter, depending what you have on your bigger screen. This is awesome because you can play movies, show photos, etc directly to your tv from the tablet. Apple has airplay, which only works over wireless IF you have a $100 apple tv box, but the direct cable is better in my opinion because you never have network lag or loading issues, which I sometimes get on my apple tv. I think this also can do wireless streaming to a tv via an xbox but I don't have an xbox.
This is also great because you can attach a type cover or keyboard and mouse, and connect this to a monitor, and use it like a full pc dual monitor system.
5) Bluetooth support for keyboards and mice and other devices.
6) The Surface has a built-in kickstand with 2 angles that makes viewing and using very convenient, especially when used with the touch or type covers or a usb keyboard.
7) A fully functional USB 3.0 port. This is another HUGE advantage. If you need more storage you can connect a full hard drive and have all the storage you want (I connected a 1.5 Terabayte media drive to mine and transferred files using windows explorer). Also this makes it easy to transfer files to and from the device. I was always emailing or texting stuff to myself on my ipad because the ipad doesn't have a better way to do this.
8) You can have 2 apps open on the screen at the same time, split with a vertical bar between them. You can change the size of the split to anywhere you want by dragging the divider left and right for 50/50, 80/20, 29/71, whatever breakdown you want.
9) There are front and rear cameras. I think the front is 3.5 megapixels and the rear is 5.0. You can record video as well.
10) Live tiles. This means that tiles are large enough to show useful information without opening the app. The weather app shows the current weather, the email app shows the latest email subject, the NFL app shows recent scores. These update in the background automatically.
11) Gestures. Open by tapping, close by swiping down, go back to the main page by swiping in from the right, switch between open apps by swiping in from the left, and open split screen by swiping down and then to either side. I find them second nature after a couple hours.
12) Battery life is fine. Over two days I used it about 10 hours before charging it at 12%, including about 4 hours of video streamed to the device. The charger is a cool magnetic clip.
13) Handwriting recognition. This works with a stylus or your finger, and reads both block and cursive. I love this because I like to write out my onenote notes. Some people may not care about this but this is one of the Galaxy Note's key points and the Surface 2 can also do it.
14) There is a desktop app that looks like the windows 7 desktop with a few basic things like control panel, windows explorer, ms office, etc.
15) The type and touch covers are awesome, they are like 3mm thick and provide both a protective cover and a full keyboard and mousepad. The connector is a cool magnetic thing that can be pulled right off.
Now for the not so good:
1) This is not a full version of windows 8, so you can't install standard windows software on it. To do that, you need a Surface Pro. A lot of reviewers in the media made a big deal out of this, but it's not like you can install Photoshop on an ipad, or any other mac os software on the ipad. Android doesn't even have a desktop OS that I know of. So this to me isn't a big deal but be warned that you need to have Surface Pro to install standard windows software, and the pro costs about twice as much.
2) The app selection is fairly limited. It's much better than it was 6 months ago when I first looked at the older surface but it still is noticeably behind Android and IOS. The difference is enough that it may be a dealbreaker for some people. I found most of the major apps I cared about but I don't use a whole lot of apps in general. Check out the app store online to see if you will be missing anything you use a lot, because that is super important. This alone may outweigh everything else if your favorite apps are missing.
3) The type covers ($120), micro SD cards (up to $50 for 64gb), hdmi adapter ($10), stylus, and other add-ons are not free.
4) If you hold the surface in portrait mode, it is possible to have your thumb bump the start button, which returns you to the tiles screen. After this happened twice, I got around the issue by rotating it 180degrees so the button was on the opposite side of my hand.
5) The version with LTE connectivity (i.e. cell phone data) is slated to be available in Spring 2014. This doesn't bother me because that's not how I use this, but if you need a data connection everywhere, you might want to wait for the LTE version.
EDIT:
6) The operating system takes up more space than I originally realized, so you don't get the full 32 GB of built in storage. It's more like 20 GB. I looked up the iPad and IOS uses about 2.5 GB of space. I take off half a star, but a) you still get more than 16 on the base model and B) the micro SD slot mitigates this somewhat. Still, it feels a little deceptive since the OS is big.
Check if the apps you want are available or coming soon, and if you need cell data wait for the LTE version, but in every other way this is an excellent tablet with a lot of advantages.
The good:
1) Excellent look and feel. The frame is made of a beautiful alloy and it feels both strong and light. Unlike all the other tablets I've seen, this one is widescreen. This is great for media viewing, and provides a substantial and useful difference in viewing between portrait and landscape mode. The screen is full 1080p and everything looks super clear. Comparing it with the ipad, the ipad is sharper but not quite as clear. It kind of feels like with the ipad you are looking through thicker glass so it seems "cloudier" than the Surface 2, even though the iPad has higher resolution.
2) Microsoft Office comes bundled FOR FREE. This is awesome. No other tablet has anything comparable. Fully functional versions of Excel, Word, Outlook, Powerpoint, and Onenote.
3) A micro SD slot for expansion of primary storage. Up to 64gb additional storage. Ipads don't have this, and with androids some do and some don't. Very useful and welcome.
4) A mini HD port, so you can output the display directly to a tv or monitor. You might need a mini HD to HDMI adapter, depending what you have on your bigger screen. This is awesome because you can play movies, show photos, etc directly to your tv from the tablet. Apple has airplay, which only works over wireless IF you have a $100 apple tv box, but the direct cable is better in my opinion because you never have network lag or loading issues, which I sometimes get on my apple tv. I think this also can do wireless streaming to a tv via an xbox but I don't have an xbox.
This is also great because you can attach a type cover or keyboard and mouse, and connect this to a monitor, and use it like a full pc dual monitor system.
5) Bluetooth support for keyboards and mice and other devices.
6) The Surface has a built-in kickstand with 2 angles that makes viewing and using very convenient, especially when used with the touch or type covers or a usb keyboard.
7) A fully functional USB 3.0 port. This is another HUGE advantage. If you need more storage you can connect a full hard drive and have all the storage you want (I connected a 1.5 Terabayte media drive to mine and transferred files using windows explorer). Also this makes it easy to transfer files to and from the device. I was always emailing or texting stuff to myself on my ipad because the ipad doesn't have a better way to do this.
8) You can have 2 apps open on the screen at the same time, split with a vertical bar between them. You can change the size of the split to anywhere you want by dragging the divider left and right for 50/50, 80/20, 29/71, whatever breakdown you want.
9) There are front and rear cameras. I think the front is 3.5 megapixels and the rear is 5.0. You can record video as well.
10) Live tiles. This means that tiles are large enough to show useful information without opening the app. The weather app shows the current weather, the email app shows the latest email subject, the NFL app shows recent scores. These update in the background automatically.
11) Gestures. Open by tapping, close by swiping down, go back to the main page by swiping in from the right, switch between open apps by swiping in from the left, and open split screen by swiping down and then to either side. I find them second nature after a couple hours.
12) Battery life is fine. Over two days I used it about 10 hours before charging it at 12%, including about 4 hours of video streamed to the device. The charger is a cool magnetic clip.
13) Handwriting recognition. This works with a stylus or your finger, and reads both block and cursive. I love this because I like to write out my onenote notes. Some people may not care about this but this is one of the Galaxy Note's key points and the Surface 2 can also do it.
14) There is a desktop app that looks like the windows 7 desktop with a few basic things like control panel, windows explorer, ms office, etc.
15) The type and touch covers are awesome, they are like 3mm thick and provide both a protective cover and a full keyboard and mousepad. The connector is a cool magnetic thing that can be pulled right off.
Now for the not so good:
1) This is not a full version of windows 8, so you can't install standard windows software on it. To do that, you need a Surface Pro. A lot of reviewers in the media made a big deal out of this, but it's not like you can install Photoshop on an ipad, or any other mac os software on the ipad. Android doesn't even have a desktop OS that I know of. So this to me isn't a big deal but be warned that you need to have Surface Pro to install standard windows software, and the pro costs about twice as much.
2) The app selection is fairly limited. It's much better than it was 6 months ago when I first looked at the older surface but it still is noticeably behind Android and IOS. The difference is enough that it may be a dealbreaker for some people. I found most of the major apps I cared about but I don't use a whole lot of apps in general. Check out the app store online to see if you will be missing anything you use a lot, because that is super important. This alone may outweigh everything else if your favorite apps are missing.
3) The type covers ($120), micro SD cards (up to $50 for 64gb), hdmi adapter ($10), stylus, and other add-ons are not free.
4) If you hold the surface in portrait mode, it is possible to have your thumb bump the start button, which returns you to the tiles screen. After this happened twice, I got around the issue by rotating it 180degrees so the button was on the opposite side of my hand.
5) The version with LTE connectivity (i.e. cell phone data) is slated to be available in Spring 2014. This doesn't bother me because that's not how I use this, but if you need a data connection everywhere, you might want to wait for the LTE version.
EDIT:
6) The operating system takes up more space than I originally realized, so you don't get the full 32 GB of built in storage. It's more like 20 GB. I looked up the iPad and IOS uses about 2.5 GB of space. I take off half a star, but a) you still get more than 16 on the base model and B) the micro SD slot mitigates this somewhat. Still, it feels a little deceptive since the OS is big.
Check if the apps you want are available or coming soon, and if you need cell data wait for the LTE version, but in every other way this is an excellent tablet with a lot of advantages.
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