Journal 20140202

Going mobile, aka, …the price of their toys

OK, so I already had four mobile devices — an Android cell phone, a 7″ Cobe Android tablet (that I got for “free” just before my credit card points expired), an older Kindle (not backlit, but with an LED in the case), and a Dell Precision laptop (WIndows 7 Pro). Still, when the MS Surface Pro came out last year I really wanted one, but with a price tag up around $1,000 I just couldn’t justify it.

So, why did I NEED a Surface Pro? The Precision laptop is incredibly well built, and has the weight to prove it. Sitting in a comfy chair at the coffeehouse with it balanced on my lap (one leg crossed), I have to swap legs regularly to avoid them going to sleep. And, the 7″ tablet is just a bit too small for easy reading (at least with my eyes), not to mention it doesn’t do Windows apps. And, the cell phone is even worse in terms of both reading size and apps. The Kindle is fine for reading text, but it doesn’t behave well with figures and graphs, so for those I have to run Kindle on the tablet or on the laptop.

I drooled when the MS Surface Pro 2 came out in time for Christmas, but it cost somewhat more than the original, and didn’t provide that many improvements. I knew the price of the original would have to come down, so I patiently waited, and, finally, Best Buy cam through with a two-day sale price on the original Surface Pro, 128G of storage (and 4G of memory) for $499 (versus the regular list of $899 ($999 for Surface Pro 2). In a moment of weakness, I succumbed to the siren song.

The total price tag was a little over $600, after buying the “touch cover” (that includes a keyboard), and, because I had used up all my Norton subscriptions, another $49 for a three pack. (I had let Norton lapse on an old XP laptop that I just use for music and Netflix, so I will reinstall virus protection there.) The good news, though, was that I had another install on my MS Office Pro 2010!

What follows provides my first impressions of the Surface Pro and some quick hints about quickly adapting to Windows 8.

Surface Pro

First, don’t think of the Surface Pro as a tablet, recognize that it is really a very small (10″) Windows 8 ultrabook, complete with an Intel I5 processor. The biggest downside — it’s a fair amount heavier than most tablets, coming in at around 2.5 pounds, although admittedly pretty light for an ultrabook. The second downside is battery life — not much more than 3 hours between charges. That said, it’s early, but so far it has seemed to work with everything I’ve thrown at it. MS Office apps are fine, and I even loaded the Spyder IDE for Python (see Journal 20140112). It makes reading Acrobat and Kindle books with figures much easier than either the Kindle or the 7″ tablet. One suggestion — I didn’t know there were two types of covers, and I got the “touch cover” (all that Best Buy offered). You definitely want at least 128G of storage, after loading the OS and the apps there’s not a lot left over on the 64G model. I’m sure 256G would be nice, but with a real USB port, I can move bigger file folders in and out pretty easily. I recommend paying a bit more and getting the “type cover,” or, holding out for the “battery cover,” which is supposed to be released RSN (real soon now).

OK, so I’m pretty much happy (at the $500 price point)  — but note that I am in a unique position. I can jump over to the laptop when I need “more power” than 4G of memory can offer, and I can switch to my Kindle if I’m just reading text, or the Cobe table it I’m just net-surfing. The most accurate review of the Surface Pro was in Forbes and can be found here; so far I agree with everything it says.

Windows 8

The Surface Pro came with Windows 8, and this was going to be my first experience with the MS interface horror show referred to as Metro. It was with some trepidation that I took the plunge. The learning curve was very, very short, a matter of a couple of hours. There were two reasons for this. First, I’m pretty good with Windows 7. And, more important, on the first day of use I ran into one of the coffeehouse regulars, who is a BestBuy Geek, and in about 15 minutes he answered all my questions and gave me a half dozen tips (OK, so that is going to cost me a beer or two in the not too distant future). I pass the tips on below, in the hopes that I too will earn an amber return on the investment.

The most important tips involve five (5) keyboard shortcuts using the “Win”   key —

• <Win><d>: open Windows Desktop
• <Win><f>: open Windows (file) explorer
• <Win><e>: open Windows (Internet) Explorer
• <Win><i>: open important settings menu, including shut-down (given battery life, its better to shut-down then let the system go to sleep)
• <Win><x>: open quick access menu, including Task Manager

The second set of tips relate to the Metro screen itself —

• If you “pinch” the Metro screen, you can move “blocks” of icons. This was good because I wanted to see the icons for the apps I commonly use, e.g., MS Office, not the crap Microsoft initially puts on the left hand side of the Metro screen.
• On the un-pinched Metro screen you can move app icons from one block to another.
• If you go to the “All Apps” screen and right click on an icon you can move it to the Metro screen.
• And, of course, I already had moved several apps I regularly use to the desktop’s app bar.

And, bingo, bango, bongo, I had an interface that not only was touch enabled but almost as easy to use as Windows 7.