Surface Pro 3 Experience - Day 3

Today I brought the Surface Pro 3 to workplace and see how good it was as my primary work machine.

First thing I realized was that everything was so small on the screen.  Sure I could adjust the scaling, but I was disappointed to find out that 150% is too small, while 200% is too big, and there's no option between those 2.

But the biggest blow on my face was when I tried using desktop version of Remote Desktop by Microsoft. The problem is that the remote desktop screen does NOT honor the scaling setting.  Thus everything becomes so tiny tiny tiny tiny on the screen.  I tried the Windows Store version of Remote Desktop and that has the exact same problem.  With that I know that this machine won't be able to replace my regular work laptop.

Surface Pro 3 Experience - Day 2

I may sound like a whining hater, but my second day of using Surface Pro 3 didn't seem any better than the first one.

In order to test the performance of the device, I was copying 23.9Gb of software from my desktop to SP3.  Here's NOT a complain on SP3, but merely a reminder to myself that copying over Wifi is just not as fast as copying over a gigabit network.  It takes several times more to coy the same amount of file.  I think for the way I use computer, I need a gigabit network adapter for my laptop.

But then, the copy STOPPED after 11% was copied, and this is when I CONTINUE to complain about SP3: why did the machine went into power saving mode (sleep) when the network adapter is obviously copying something?  And the power adapter was obviously connected!

Games

My next test is running games, so I copied over a 7 games that runs fine in "portable mode" (run without installing) (and yes that's the 23.9Gb I copied).  I realized that I need DirectX runtime.  So I installed directx_June2010_redist.exe, which also involves installing .Net Framework 2.0 and 3.0 .

To really enjoy gaming, I needed controller.  So I hooked up my wired XBox 360 Controller, and SP3 seemed to recognize it fine.

So here's my experience:

• Need for Speed Shift: got physXloader.dll missing so I skipped this game.
• Pac Man Champion Edition PLus: works great, proper screen proportion ... just great
• Pac Man Museum: works great, proper screen proportion ... just great
• Transistor: can't make it work, and not bother to try
• Broken Age: touch screen does NOT work, and I have to fall back to using mouse.  Other than that, the game runs fine.
• Final Fantasy 3: MSVCP110.dll missing.  Well, I am skipping this game too.
• Killer Is Dead: The game is kind of playable, but not a smooth experience.

SP3 became super hot, after gaming, that I couldn't use it as a tablet device anymore.  This is lame.   If I want a laptop, I have other better options that has more powerful CPU and GPU and such.

(To be fair, playing PacMan Champion Edition Plus and Pac Man Museum was way worst the experience on EeeSlate, and those are already low end games.)

Using OneNote 2013 desktop version is indeed better than the Windows Store version since the desktop one has the zoom in and out feature with pitching gesture.  Still, the hot display surface makes using OneNote painful.

Speaking of painful, another painful think about using SP3: Some application doesn't aware of the high pixel density.  For instance, Daz Studio 4.6 works ok, but all the UI and dialogue boxes are so extremely tiny that it's almost unusable.

And then I tried out more creative design related apps:

• Corel Painter 13 - Could not get the pressure sensitive working, and finally gave up.
• Photoshop CC 2014 - With experimental UI (scale up 200%), everything seems to work pretty OK.
• Manga Studio 5 - It works fairly OK if I turn on "Tablet PC" under Tablet setting in Preferences.  But then I need to make my G-Pen thicker, and also I lost gesture based zoom in and out, which is not a huge problem since I can do it with the keyboard and mouse.  Just not as "cool".
• Toon Boom Studio 6: After installed QuickTime, I got the application working, but the pressure sensitive pen stroke isn't available, which is make the app way less useless.  I rather use my desktop with Wacom.
• Blender: it a 3D app that doesn't really use stylus feature, so of course it works ok.  

Bluetooth and power problem

I found that my Bluetooth mouse didn't get recognized after the machine went into sleep.  Reboot the machine solves the problem, and since rebooting takes only a few seconds, but I don't see that a huge deal.  But still that's a little glitch that annoys me.

I also found that sometimes it takes a while for the machine to power up after I pressed the power button.  I read some post about this problem and I thought the problem has been fixed.  Seems like it may not be completely solved.

Media Consumption

If SP3 needs to replace my primary tablet iPad 3, it has to handle media well.  Using it as a laptop, that should be fine.  But that's a different story when using it as a tablet.

Watch video with XBMC : After setting the proper font in order to work with Asian characters (by going to Apperance-Setting, and set Fonts to "Arial based"), I was able to use my finger to navigate most of the time, but time after time I found myself failed to get the precise control I need, and end up using the keyboard.

View photos with Fastone Image Viewer : It does an OK job for me to navigate using my finger, but again, eventually, I have to use trackpad, mouse or keyboard once in a while, and that's a bit anonying.

Read comics with CDisplay: Again, same problem: the application is great for the job, but not designed for tablet.  eventually I need to use mouse and keyboard.

And if you wonder why I didn't use Windows Store app to do these jobs, that's because no Windows Store app provides all the features I need, like support support almost any codec of video, viewing photos on network at ease, support .cbz, .zip, .rar with manga ....   That's exactly why I get a intel based tablet.

Conclusion for today

At the end, it's still that hot hot hot touch screen that breaks the deal.  I wonder if there's a way to solve that problem.

Irritating Bluetooth problem on Asus EeeSlate

I always have this love hate relationship with my EeeSlate.  On one hand I like the ability of using it  as my portable sketchbook.  On the other hand, this damn machine constantly have this flicky Bluetooth problem in a way that, if I installed the wrong Bluetooth driver, it failed to run with Bluetooth devices ever again.

Fortunately, I have Acronis TrueImage 2014 backup in one of my harddisk.  Yes, the restore process what like taking forever, but at least I was able to do that without baby sitting next to it.

Surface Pro 3 experience

I've been waiting for a device that allows me to do sketching whenever I go at ease.  Lenovo X60T gave me the first taste of that experience, but the weight of that device was just too heavy, and the keyboard was so hot that it almost burned my hand.  Asus EeeSlate was lighter, but the digitizer was simply horrible as only small region of the screen can accurately map the point my stylus touched the screen and the pixel on the display.  It took me years to tune the accuracy.  In addition, the performance of that device was simply terrible, has problem working consistently with my Bluetooth devices.  Yeah I still kept trying to make it work.  I even think that I developed a Stockholm Syndrome situation with that device.

And now I got Surface Pro 3.  I tried it long and hard at both Microsoft Store and BestBuy with Paint Brush and FreshPaint, and I really hope that this device would work for me.  Still, being burned for multiple times, I took a skeptical view on it.  I told myself, if I was not totally satisfy with this device, I will send it back to BestBuy 12 days later and get a full refund.

In fact, I was so skeptical that I decided to NOT get the latest version of SP3 keyboard, and simply use my Surface 1 Type keyboard.  I worked without any problem.

Let me be clear about one thing:  I was planning to use it mainly as a sketching device, so a few criteria MUST be satisfied:

• It has to be cool enough for me rest my palm on the screen for HOURS because that's what I use it for: as a sketching device.
• It has to work well with my main sketching application: Sketchbook Pro 6.2.5, a x64 based application
• it has to have at least 6 hours of battery for my non stop drawing.

The day one experience ain't good.

After I unboxed the device, I set up the machine and did what I would do to any new Windows machine I got: apply all the Windows update.  With that process kicked off, I found myself starring at a black screen with words like "please wait for update" for ... more than 15 minutes.  The right side of the screen is getting really hot.  Eventually all update got applied.

To gave SP3 the benefit of doubt, I closed the machine (in sleep mode now) and let it fully charge until the battery was full.  I went to bed in the meantime.  So yeah I was sleeping while the SP3 was sleeping and charging too :-D .

The next morning I found SP3 fully charged.  With that I unplugged the charger, and let me machine cool off.  I did realized that the right side of the screen (the side where the charger hook up to) was warm.  So ONCE AGAIN, I let the device cool off before I tested it.

Here's a few things that I found really FRUSTRATED ME:

• The responsiveness of the stylus is terrible.   Because there's no way to adjust the sensitivity, I found myself either drawing too light, thus no brush stroke was drawn on the screen, or the stroke being too thick.  I used the "Stylus Responsiveness..." and "Steady Stroke ..." to adjust the setting and managed to make it workable.  But I still didn't like the fact that I had to compromise after spending US$1400.
  
• Heat problem: this is the BIGGEST PROBLEM I experienced so far.  I started the machine from icy cold stage.  After using Sketchbook Pro 6.2.5 for 10 minutes, I found the fan of the device kicked in, and the right size of the screen already got pretty hot.  That was just terrible, because even my crappy EeeSlate when generate as much heat on the screen after I drew for less than 15 minutes.  Sure the fan stopped after a few minutes, but the right side of the screen still stayed warm enough to be uncomfortable for sketching.  If I couldn't find a solution for this problem is the coming a few days, I will definitely return this product.

I will continue documenting my experience on SP3, but for what I want it to do, it failed, and that makes me depress, as I so wanted it to be awesome.

To be continue ....