Video: Microsoft Surface Boot Time

Check out this short video to see just how quickly the Microsoft Surface boots up.

 

 



Microsoft Surface: More Thoughts from an Early Adopter

Today was day two of my out-of-box experience with the Microsoft Surface tablet.  Here are some quick thoughts on the experience so far:

A little personalization of home screen

• Music and Photos -- I was able to connect my phone (a Blackberry Bold) to the Surface using a USB cable.  It was easy to transfer photos from the phone to the Surface.  I could also copy music files from the phone to the Surface by treating the phone as a connected drive and dragging files from the phone to the storage on my tablet. The files were recognized by the music player app and played fine. Like others have stated, the speakers aren't that good but they'll do.  Headphones sound great.  One odd thing is that M4A (AAC encoding) files play on the Surface but you can't view the cover art while the song plays.  Cover art does show properly on MP3 encoded files.  I contacted Microsoft support and confirmed that this is they way it is.

• Scanning - There's a USB port, can I just connect my scanner and push the scan button? Sadly no.   My scanner is an Epson GT-S50 scanner that uses generic TWAIN drivers so I was hopeful it would be supported.   Definitely not, as Microsoft support confirmed.  On a more positive note, the Windows Store has an HP app called Scan and Capture that works with their all-in-one printers.  I successfully scanned a document over wifi using the HP Officejet 8600 Pro in my office.  I haven't tried yet to connect the printer to my device with USB but I have successfully printed to the 8600 from the Surface. 

• Printing - Printing is much better with Surface than with iPad or even with Chromebook. It's more like printing from a Windows computer. Even though I use HP wireless printers that support e-print and Google Cloud print, I have better control over output and the print job happens much faster than  with the other devices.  If you need to kill trees to get your work done, you'll appreciate the Surface over the iPad or Chromebook. 
• Remote Desktop Connect - If your work involves connecting to a server with Microsoft Remote Desktop, the app is included and works great! I was able to map the local storage on Surface to the remote server and transfer files.  I was also able to print from the remote server to a local printer much like I can do on a PC or Mac.  Chromebook will also print local if I use Sparkview or Ericom Access Now, but it's a more complicated process involving a separate tab with a PDF view.  Find the remote desktop connection app from the home page by swiping up from the bottom and selecting all apps.  You can drag down slightly on the RDC app icon and a menu will pop up on the bottom with an option to pin the icon to the home page.
• Typing - I bought the red touch cover with my Surface.  Yesterday, my typing was atrocious. Today it is way better.  I'm touch typing with greater speed and way fewer typos. I still have some room for improvement.  Propping up the Surface on my lap with kickstand and typing on keyboard works better than I imagined it would.
• Reader - I love the news reader app.  You can opt to pin particular publications on your home page if you want.  It is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and there's a lot of free content.

• Mail  - This app is an abomination. I can't believe this app comes from the creator of Outlook!
• One Note - I'm rediscovering this app.  It's not as touch friendly as I'd like.  Still, it's nice that the app is included.  Evernote is available for download from the Windows store if you've moved on.
• Browser - This is a one-app town.  It's IE 10 or nuthin'.  I'm okay with that for now, but I still miss Chrome.

I hope these random thoughts give you a better idea of what it's like to use the Surface tablet.  I'll post more thoughts over the next few days.

Microsoft Surface Tablet - Initial Thoughts

In my previous post, I described the shopping experience in buying my new Microsoft Surface tablet. I'm just getting started with using the device but I wanted to share some initial thoughts.

Belle is checking out the new tablet. Who knew she was a Microsoftie!

Although I did the initial set-up of my tablet at the Microsoft store, I had much more to play with when I got home. After adding additional email accounts, Twitter and Facebook, I checked out the app store.  Like you've read, the cupboards are pretty bare at the moment, but I did download Netflix,  Youtube player, USA Today, Youverse Bible, Kindle Reader, Overdrive Media Console, Pocket Recorder and a couple of other apps. In addition, to the downloaded apps, there were 15 apps that needed to update...

Out of the box, Office 2013 is a "Preview Edition." However, there is an update that will install the final version of Office 2013 as well as update the Flash player for Internet Explorer.  Curiously, this update wasn't accessed from the Windows Store like I figured it would.  Instead, I had to go to the Windows 7 style desktop, find the control panel (point with your mouse to where the start button would be in the lower left corner and right click), and run software update like I was still running Windows 7.  The update is over 500MB and takes a while to install. 

I will write more about using the Surface Tablet later, and I will compare to Chromebook and iPad. I did discover that my Sirius XM Online would play, but only so long as I didn't open another browser tab or switch to a different application.

The Surface is a beautiful device and I think it holds a lot of promise.  The UI is a bit confusing.  I'm not always sure which way to swipe to do what I want to do, and sometimes, even when I do know what to do, I have to repeat the gesture a few times to make it work.  I can imagine this would be maddening for many people.  Still, I plan to use this device a ton and will share more thoughts over the next few days.

The Microsoft Shopping Experience

 

Today is my first day with the Microsoft Surface.  I was reading all the launch reviews like I usually do when some exciting new tech gadget is announced.  While my wife and I were at dinner, Friday night, she mentioned that she'd seen a news story about the new Microsoft tablet and that there was what TV called a "pop-up" Microsoft Store in the neighboring community of Frisco, TX.  She asked me if I wanted to drive over there and see the new tablet first hand.  My wife is very tolerant of my fascination with shiny objects, and this was very cool of her to make this suggestion, so I jumped at the opportunity.

 

At the Microsoft Store, I was able to spend some hands-on time with a demo model and confirm that remote desktop connect (a mission critical app for me) was included and that it would work with my virtual server. It is included (even though the sales rep insisted it wasn’t) and it worked fabulously. Unfortunately, they were sold out.  The sales rep said another shipment was arriving overnight.

This morning, after my weekly Saturday morning breakfast with a couple of friends, I decided to head back over to Frisco and see if I could score a Surface Tablet.

There was a line, but not bad….

Several Microsoft event staff were there to take our orders and answer our questions while we waited in line. They also offered us breakfast bars and bottled water.   Blue is apparently the most popular touch cover at this location (I chose red).  Most of the people I saw in line were selecting colored covers rather than choosing the $599 bundle with black cover.  One software developer in line near me selected the type cover.  It was only slightly thicker than my touch cover.  I chose the 32 GB model with the red touch cover and I also purchased the VGA and HDMI adapters. 

When I got to the front of the line, they called my name and had my order bagged and ready.  They rang me up and asked if I wanted to stick around for the "out of box experience" (aka set-up).  I opted to do that because I didn't want to go all the way home and find out something was not working.  I asked and was told that they had a 14-day return policy, contrary to a blog post that I read that there were no open-box returns.  The whole wait, order, and set-up took only an hour and I was very impressed by the way the Microsoft staff handled the event.  They opened up with a ra-ra Microsoft cheer at 10AM and their enthusiasm and excitement about the product was evident as they helped the customer in line.  Apple may have pioneered the modern computer shopping experience, but these Microsoft employees have learned how to execute good customer service as well.