Hands on with surface pro 3

I'm typing this update on the new surface pro 3, thanks to a very kind colleague who lent me their machine.

Here are a few thoughts from setting it up.

Initially the surface refused to turn on, despite having been plugged in and charging it for a good length of time.  I worked through the instructions here: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/surface-pro-wont-turn-on

Fortunately the very last step worked (essentially a hard reset).  I was holding my breath for a while there!  It took a long time holding down various buttons before I saw the screen come to life.

Windows 8 setups are usually pretty painless. I've been through several windows 8 installs now but got thrown with this one because I didn't have the stylus handy.  As part of the setup you need to do a Bluetooth pairing with the stylus.  It took me a while to find the stylus, unscrew it and check the battery was present (I removed the little paper tab that was inside with the battery).  By the time I had it ready the surface had tried pairing three times and gave up.  I continued with the install but it said it failed at the end, so I  redid it with no problems second time around.

One think to be careful of is to make sure you select the correct keyboard type.  In a previous setup I inadvertently selected UK (thinking I was selecting UK English), only to discover that I should have selected the US keyboard I had was typing different symbols when I hit certain keys (including the @ symbol which makes it tricky to email anyone!).  It took a lot of fiddling to set the keyboard back to US.

As mentioned in other posts, the first thing to install is Classic Shell: http://classicshell.net/.  It really does make a difference if you are used to previous windows versions.  Unless you are an experienced windows 8 user, you'll be forever trying to find settings and apps that used to be "easy" to locate unless you install this little app which gives you back your start menu.

The display on the surface pro 3 is stunning.  The extra size really makes a difference, as does the ability to position the kickstand exactly how you want (it means you can reduce reflective glare).  When using the surface with the keyboard docked, the larger screen makes it feel much more like a laptop that a tablet (particularly when compared to the surface pro 2 which felt cramped). This is probably helped by the new 3 by 2 ratio (so it feels less like a widescreen machine). If you undock the keyboard you still feel like you have a tablet.

I like the new larger form factor and it doesn't come at the cost of extra weight or thickness (in fact it is thinner and feels lighter).  It feels really nice in the hand, with a solid build.

The new keyboard is an improvement on the old on in just about every respect.  There is a surprising amount of travel and while an external keyboard is always going to be nicer, this will do well for on the go.  The backlit keys are a nice touch and the trackpad is a bit larger.  I actually prefer the keyboard to the "Chiclet" ones that are becoming standard on many laptops.  It seems easier to hit the right keys on the this keyboard.  It is also very useable on a lap and MUCH more so that the surface 2 or 1 was.  The new attachment mechanism which relies on attaching at two points with magnets gives a lot more stability.  My only gripe with this attachment mechanism is that it gets in the way of swiping up from the bottom of the screen (which is sometime useful, particularly for charm apps).

The pen feels MUCH nicer than the stylus that came with the surface 2 or surface 1.  It has a good heft to it and feels solid and more "pen like".  It is also much more accurate and this is particularly noticeable in the corners of the screen (which used to be very problematic to work with on the surface 1, which made hitting the correct option on menus tricky sometimes).  It is also nice to have somewhere to stash it on the keyboard (they included a little loop that adheres to the keyboard, so you can slide your pen in for safe storage when it isn't in use.  Overall the pen experience is a big improvement and I can see why they switched from the previous stylus (which was a Wacom one) to the new N-trig version.  I am slightly concerned that the new one requires batteries and this needs to be kept in mind (you'll want a spare AAAA battery and a couple of 319 button batteries on hand in case they die during something important).  The other thing I noticed is that the screen seems to be more slippery than on my older surface (I suspect this may change with use and could just be because the new unit is still pristine and extremely clean)

The sound is surprisingly punchy and there is no problem relying on the speakers if you are watching YouTube videos and the like.  In fact you may even be reaching for the volume down button.

Overall first impressions are extremely positive.  Microsoft seem to have got a lot right with this iteration.

Setting up surface pro 2 (and wishing it was a 3)

So the surface pro 3 is out and it looks fantastic.  Microsoft have tweaked the design to add all the features I thought were missing from the 2  (in particular I love the look of the bigger screen, better "lapability" and improved stylus).  I think the surface pro has really come of age.  Unfortunately due to being at the ends of the earth and having to order through preferred supplies, rather than unboxing a 3, I'm opening up my new surface pro 2 (which took a VERY long time to acquire). 

As I run through setup, I'm reminded of a few things I found tricky when setting up my initial surface pro and also just how many additional apps I install.

Here's a brief list of apps I think are worth having

Helping to get things done
 - Classic shell (makes windows 8 MUCH more usable by creating a "start" button).  Install this FIRST as it makes configuring windows to your liking much easier.
- Wunderlist  is the software I use for tracking todos, which in the past has worked reasonably well across multiple platforms (I have used it on windows, osx, ios and android devices).  The 3rd version just came out for several platforms but is not yet available for windows 8 so I'm making do with the chrome browser extension.
 
Web browsing
- Internet Explorer comes standard so you don't need to install it (you actually get two versions, as the one launched from the charms area is different and works better if navigating by finger)
- Chrome is worth installing as google stuff works better with it but be aware the fonts will look fuzzy on a surface.  This is easy to fix if you find the right setting (which took me a LONG time to track down the first time).  You have to disable display scaling on high DPI settings for chrome, the instructions on how to do this are here: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/fonts-appear-blurred-windows-8
- Firefox is still a favourite and I find some sites just work better in firefox.  If fonts look fuzzy try the same trick for fixing as described above for Chrome.

Mail
 - Outlook (I've switched to the dark side) although I really miss some Thunderbird features, I've found Thunderbird buggy of late (but Outlook isn't much better)

Media
 - itunes is particularly handy if you have an apple device but also helpful for managing media even if you don't
 - doubleTwist  is helpful for syncing music from an iTunes library to an android device
 - Quicktime  is handy for playing quick time movies and other media files
 - VLC player is still the best free media player out there
 - BBflashback player and recorder is the software I use this for screen capture (with audio) - Handbrake is great for optimising video files
 - Dropbox is handy if you have a dropbox account

 Office documents
 - Open office if I'm looking for a free solution, otherwise the MS office suite
 
 PDF creation
 - pdf machine merge  is handy for emailing personalised pdfs but it costs a bit of money, does a good job though and can save HEAPS of time.
 - pdf annotator is very good but again costs money
 - Adobe acrobat reader is an industry standard (although I find this can be a bit buggy)
 - Cute pdf editor (I sometimes use this to create pdfs if adobe products fail to work)

Technical
 - Matlab (ain't cheap)
 - Octave (free!)
 - Visual studio (for C++)
 - Tex works
 - Tex studio

Charms bar apps
Don't use these much as I tend to use other devices for touch based apps 
 - Kindle (for reading ebooks)