Microsoft Surface Pro WTF

[grawk]

they're doing you a favor, giving you a chance to cancel

[Dreadhead]

Thanks Dan

[Edwood]

I'm still waiting on my 512GB SP2, but my Type 2 cover already arrived, so I can stare at it in the meantime.   Sigh.   . Be fair, shipping estimate is still Oct 29.    That they shipped the Type 2 cover early. 

[Dreadhead]

After 5+ phone calls Staples finally released mine to shipping and it supposedly shipped a couple hours ago. After learning that the sellers take on all the risk with fraud, I understand why, but I just wish they had more people dealing with the backlog. Supposed to arrive today but we will see. Edit: UPS says out for delivery. This plus 3D printer making it feel like Christmas.

Edited October 25, 2013 by Dreadhead

[shellylh]

Awesome!

[Dreadhead]

It is light and responsive and awesome

Edited October 25, 2013 by Dreadhead

[morphsci]

Congrat! It sounds like my MacBook Air

[Dreadhead]

Well played

[Edwood]

Still waiting on mine to ship, hopefully it at least makes  the original Oct 29 estimate. 

[Dreadhead]

As far as I know they are still meeting their ship dates so you will not be waiting too long. I have to call Microsoft and cancel my order that will ship in a few weeks. Edit: done!

Edited October 26, 2013 by Dreadhead

[cutestory]

Woohoo!

[morphsci]

Since I still need to use Windows for SAS and Excel (with the Data Analysis plug-in), I will probably buy one of these when my little Acer laptop bites the dust.

[Dreadhead]

I really like this bag as it has great padding and holds everything plus Blu-ray drive. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009RV2EOI

Edited October 27, 2013 by Dreadhead

[nopants]

How often does the fan spin up? Is it noticeable under load?

[Dreadhead]

After reading about the fan I made a point of looking for it on my wife's one and it took me a while. I honestly had no clue it had one before that.

I have never noticed it turn on on mine but I have not really done anything CPU intensive that I can think of other than installation of software and updates.

 

Edit: I used it for a few hours yesterday and I could never hear any fan going etc. I'm still getting used to all the gestures etc and need to practice but all in all I am loving the device and OS. In particular the hand writing recognition is very good considering how terrible my hand writing is. I now have to figure out a way to get my work to purchase me one of these or similar.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Dreadhead

[Edwood]

Got shipping notification, should have it tomorrow. 

[Edwood]

My 512GB SP2 arrived.   Has about 450GB free in stock from. 

 

Man,  this thing is beautiful.   Quite the thick brick.   But it's small when I realize it's a full power computer. 

[Dreadhead]

Glad you are liking it.

So I am going to have to wait for IT to approve windows 8.1 which will likely be a year or so but it looks like I might be able to get one of these on the work network which would be awesome.

[Edwood]

It looks like they didn't change the Wifi  section, as it has the sleep of death problems when in Power Saver mode.  But Power saver mode is annoyingly leggy because it keeps powering things on on and off constantly.   Oh well, so  for trying for 8+ hrs of power.   

 

But I bought the SP2 for power use,  so Balanced Power is fine,  keeping  the screen brightness down to 50% puts battery life estimate at least to 5-6hrs, maybe more if I'm just doing light Internet browsing. 

[Dreadhead]

I had not heard of the sleep of death thing before. Fingers crossed my wife and I don't hit it as it seems to have lots of possible sources.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Dreadhead

[Edwood]

Looks like Microsoft may have fixed the Wifi low power states  which should fix the sleep of death problems,  although I haven't had them since switching to Balanced Power mode. 

 

I would  paste the Anandtech link about the firmware update. But Opera mobile on Android is not letting me on this forum.   Sigh. 

Edited November 2, 2013 by Edwood

[Dreadhead]

I will have to track that down

Edited November 2, 2013 by Dreadhead

[dsavitsk]

Since I still need to use Windows for SAS and Excel (with the Data Analysis plug-in), I will probably buy one of these when my little Acer laptop bites the dust.

 

Sounds like a job for VMWare ...

[morphsci]

Sounds like a job for VMWare ...

But then I couldn't buy a new computer.

[Edwood]

After living with my Surface Pro 2 for a few days,  it's overall a great experience.   Battery life is fantastic, especially after the firmware update they pushed, or at least I think it was,  all I know one of of the updates took a long time and required a few few reboots.  

 

Windows 8.1 still kind of sucks.  I boot straight to Desktop mode now.   Sick and tired of  nanny bullshit of having change settings to run any older programs as administrator even though the primary account is the administrator. 

 

My biggest criticism of  Surface Pro 2 is that it doesn't have instant on capabilities like my Atom based Lenovo Think pad Tablet 2 does.   While the SP2 wakes from sleep and hibernation really fast,  it's  far from instant on.   It's more like a few seconds. 

 

So you still have to treat it like a laptop rather than a tablet power management wise. 

Edited November 6, 2013 by Edwood