microsoft surface Like your Surface? No, you can't (or shouldn't). It's a bad dev

[migo]

how is it not good, how does it not work ? oh you're just making things up.

Hardly, check my post history on Windows 8. I'm generally very supportive of them.

Very simple. I type, some letters show up, other letters don't. That's useless. I'd rather use the on screen keyboard where at least a letter shows up each time I tap it, even if it's occasionally the wrong one. Numerous other people have found this to be the case as well.

Agreed. You'll be disappointed if you expect it to work as well as a desktop keyboard but it's far better than a software keyboard and is pretty damned good considering that it is on a 3mm thick cover. It perfect when you need to type out more than just a quick note and less than an essay (for instance, a long email).

Typing on my PlayBook or my Lumia is far more enjoyable, and reliable, than typing on the Surface TouchCover.

[SionicIon]

I tried a Surface RT at one of the kiosks Microsoft set up, and "without question", I didn't experience one bit of lag. What things did you try to do with it? I tried out Office RT, browsed the internet a bit, tried out a few apps, tested the Touch and Type covers, and was even allowed to hold an untethered unit to test the strength of the much advertised magnetic lock on their covers. It's definitely as strong as claimed.

Also, I agree with you on Office. I think it would have been better as a Metro app, rather than a separate thing on the desktop. As others have said, it's probably because they didn't have enough time to develop everything needed to make it work.

Have you tried the Xbox Music app? Horrible. Takes forever to load, and it is slow when tapping on albums and pulling up the list of songs. The animations are very smooth and fluid. But if you were to snap the Music app and scroll through webpages in IE, you will see the lag. Idk, they need to fix that app, it works beautifully on Windows 8, not on RT. Also, it needs more functionality.

[Dashel]

There is more optimization to be done on resource handling that is for sure. The Surface can and does lag frequently depending on the open apps (and their sleep state).

Per the keyboard complaint, I honestly don't get that one. Its appreciably better than the onscreen for medium length docs etc. I'm especially confounded that you thought the touch pad was so good, as that is what I think needed improvement the most (its too small, the buttons are oddly placed for not having feedback, and the Desktop seems to have a case of 'lost cursor' syndrome at times when using it).

[migo]

The size of the touchpad is unavoidable, but for the size it works very well. It's responsive and accurate. The touch cover keyboard is useless. Since it misses letters, you're better off using the on screen keyboard.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Hardly, check my post history on Windows 8. I'm generally very supportive of them.

Very simple. I type, some letters show up, other letters don't. That's useless. I'd rather use the on screen keyboard where at least a letter shows up each time I tap it, even if it's occasionally the wrong one. Numerous other people have found this to be the case as well.

Typing on my PlayBook or my Lumia is far more enjoyable, and reliable, than typing on the Surface TouchCover.

you're on a display model, chances are it's taken a bit of a beating, so you should expect possible glitches

the touch cover is just fine

[mrdeezus]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6385/microsoft-surface-review

[ahhell]

Wireless networking seems to be a bit problematic at times. If it loses a connection, it's a huge pain to get it to reconnect some times.

Other than that, I've had no complaints with my Surface.

[Dashel]

Yea, even after the last patch citing that issue I still need to Airplane mode mine now and then to fix the wireless glitch. Much better than it was though.

I really don't get the missed key complaint, of course its not as accurate as a real keyboard but now you make it sound like you never miskey on screen which is a little far fetched. I'm easily 30% faster than on glass.

[migo]

you're on a display model, chances are it's taken a bit of a beating, so you should expect possible glitches

the touch cover is just fine

I'm not the only person reporting problems with it. The negative reviews it's getting are in part because of the crappy touch cover. It's not fine.

Yea, even after the last patch citing that issue I still need to Airplane mode mine now and then to fix the wireless glitch. Much better than it was though.

I really don't get the missed key complaint, of course its not as accurate as a real keyboard but now you make it sound like you never miskey on screen which is a little far fetched. I'm easily 30% faster than on glass.

The difference is if I miss a key on screen I get instant feedback that it wasn't registered. With the touch cover, when I miss a key or hit the wrong one, I'm already 3-4 letters further into what I'm typing, and I have to go back and fix it. On the touch screen I just tap again and keep going.

[Order_66]

My iPad 2 sometimes takes, wait for it, over a second to flip orientation at times. I have seen it even come close to taking 2 seconds. I live with it, always have, and I am just curious was that a news story when the iPad was released?

Funny you mention that, I've had 3 ipads and all of them were exactly like that, I bought all 3 at best buy and started wondering if I had a bad batch but wasn't bad enough to bother taking them back lol

[neo1911]

Used friend's SurfaceRT for an hr and found it too slow compared to iPad3. Music app on RT is a royal pain.

Same friend wants to trade in his SurfaceRT with my iPad now.

I don't mind being an Apple fanboy for now. SurfaceRT sucks. Hopefully game changes when SurfaceRT 2 gets released.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

I may like the surface and all, but there's a reason I'm waiting till the Surface 2 to buy one. the first generation device is never as good as it could be when it comes to tech devices (with the exception of the Nexus 7)

[HawkMan]

The difference is if I miss a key on screen I get instant feedback that it wasn't registered.

ummm, you get the same feedback on the touch cover, provided you know how to type and you're watching what you're writing and not where you're placing your fingers, in witch case, learn type.

[migo]

I may like the surface and all, but there's a reason I'm waiting till the Surface 2 to buy one. the first generation device is never as good as it could be when it comes to tech devices (with the exception of the Nexus 7)

The Nexus 7 isn't really a first generation device either. It's a smaller follow up to the Transformer Prime, which is itself a second gen device.

ummm, you get the same feedback on the touch cover, provided you know how to type and you're watching what you're writing and not where you're placing your fingers, in witch case, learn type.

I can type 70WPM with a good keyboard, both QWERTY and Dvorak. I know how to type. Incidentally, you don't know how to spell.

With the touch cover, I have to slow down my typing speed to keep a handle on the missed letters. With the touch screen, I can type as fast as is feasible with no tactile differentiation (something the touch cover has very little of) and use autocomplete when convenient. The touch cover is a joke, plain and simple. The people who are satisfied with it don't need it for anything heavy duty, and wouldn't be able to tell a good keyboard from a bad one otherwise. Even using a Canadian Multilingual Standard keyboard, as crappy as that is, is better than using the Surface touch cover.

[pes2013]

I can type 70WPM with a good keyboard, both QWERTY and Dvorak.

And we have a liar.

It is impossible to do BOTH 70WPM on BOTH QWERTY and Dvorak. You will have slight differences either way (probably slower on Dvorak)

[MorganX]

And we have a liar.

It is impossible to do BOTH 70WPM on BOTH QWERTY and Dvorak. You will have slight differences either way (probably slower on Dvorak)

Wow!

[Tangmeister]

Well I only have very limited experience with the Surface, having played around with it a bit at the Eaton Centre when travelling... what I can say is that, compared to another Windows 8 tablet (which, for perspective, was running Windows 8 Pro), it did seem only slightly slower on the desktop (I'd played enough with the Modern apps).

Resizing the MS Word window by dragging the corner was slightly chunky. On a side note, I'm happy that the employees were pretty honest about the product. I made a comment about the white Touch Cover being a filthy grey, and the rep told me they don't usually recommend the white ones for that reason. Yay, honesty!

[migo]

And we have a liar.

It is impossible to do BOTH 70WPM on BOTH QWERTY and Dvorak. You will have slight differences either way (probably slower on Dvorak)

And we have someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. Dvorak is a more efficient keyboard layout, if anything, typing would be faster on Dvorak. You also don't understand significant figures, nor typing speed. It varies from minute to minute, hour to hour and day to day on the same keyboard layout. Differences between the two layouts are less significant than differences within a certain layout.

[HawkMan]

And we have someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. Dvorak is a more efficient keyboard layout, if anything, typing would be faster on Dvorak. You also don't understand significant figures, nor typing speed. It varies from minute to minute, hour to hour and day to day on the same keyboard layout. Differences between the two layouts are less significant than differences within a certain layout.

funnily, that's no longer true, when it was made that was true, but due to some weird linguistics or something mostly because of the time QWERTY has been in existence, QWERTY is no faster. I believe it was talked about in some tech documentary that was linked here as well.

[mrdeezus]

I have a 64gb Surface and have never has any issues with WiFi after update. Before update I may have had a few but nothing worth mentioning. Only issue I have with my Surface/win Rt is the music app. I don't know why they don't just rename Zune to Xbox music and release that, very frustrating. Also, please do a preset up on the music app so we can decide whether we want to sync to cloud because once that starts there's no stopping it which is lame....but I digress, other than that I really like my Surface.

[migo]

funnily, that's no longer true, when it was made that was true, but due to some weird linguistics or something mostly because of the time QWERTY has been in existence, QWERTY is no faster. I believe it was talked about in some tech documentary that was linked here as well.

If it's because of how long QWERTY has been in existence, it's not because QWERTY is faster, it's because so many people use QWERTY that you're more likely to find someone who's talented at speed typing using QWERTY than Dvorak.

[migo]

Checked another demo unit out, this one had the Type Cover. No complaints with it - well spaced, I don't mind the lack of travel as I've been using laptops for so long. Not quite as fond of the trackpad on it though, it could have used the texturing on the Touch Cover. The Touch Cover isn't even flexible though, so I see no practical reason to get it over the Type Cover.

[blade1269]

Can you replace the hdd on the surface? Go from 32 gig to say. 500 gb?

[Astra.Xtreme]

Can you replace the hdd on the surface? Go from 32 gig to say. 500 gb?

Nope. The solid state NAND chips are soldered to the motherboard.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Can you replace the hdd on the surface? Go from 32 gig to say. 500 gb?

no, the flash memory is not replaceable

just use an SD card if you need more space