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.