Microsoft Surface Pro Review Part 2

My continuing use of the Microsoft Surface Pro can only be described as nearly perfect. The Surface Pro is definitely the best PC and tablet I’ve ever bought. I’m not even being paid by them to promote the thing!

What made me express my ‘delight’ was a request to do some graphic work and create an animated GIF, which I hadn’t done is quite a while. The only software I had in my arsenal with the last of the line Ulead GIF animator from the early 2000’s. So I installed the program on the Surface Pro expecting at least a few incompatibilities BUT NO – it worked perfectly without any problems! I was very happy.

In tablet or PC form the Surface Pro is fast and responsive runs all the elderly software I have installed on it and has not had any ‘blue screen’ problems. Sure the physical screen size is small for graphics work in particular but that is expected, however my main point is that at least the you can actually produce quality results. No other tablet is capable of doing what I simply had to do this week.

Speaking of graphic design, the Surface Pro features the most useful feature and not often mentioned or featured in any reviews  that it’s touch screen is also a WACOM digitizer for drawing and writing on the screen. I can only imagine digital artists or graphics designers going nuts over being able to run full Adobe Photoshop anywhere they want. Initially I put the pen that came  with the Surface Pro away but after giving it a go I was hooked. You can write and drawn professional pictures with minimal adjustment from regular WACOM tablets and even paper. In fact I’m now learning to draw more advanced images on the tablet as another hobby.

Resolvable problems with the Surface Pro – the screen is small but you can adjust font and icon size to meet your requirements or hook it up to a large screen monitor. This is expected since it is essentially a miniature laptop. The battery doesn’t last long enough, usually clocking out at just over 3 hours for my usage but that’s again expected since it is a proper Intel i5 CPU hidden in there. It is a bit heavy for a tablet weighing over 500 grams but then its a fully functional PC in there too so that you get a proper notebook as well which by any measure is a very light notebook. The type pad is essential if you want to edit BLOGs on the Surface – pun intended as the touch screen is really just an emergency of this sort of use.

Finally the biggest issue the Surface Pro faces is that it runs Windows 8.1 while works really well, will take some time to familiarize. It is unfortunate that Microsoft have yet again  have not understood how to promote their new operating system relying on overcharging PR companies who have clearly have even less understanding of the product or the market. Yes the only company in the world that spent a millions, quite idiotically featuring the detachable touch cover – WTF.

Back to automotive articles next week!