Monday, June 17, 2013

Surface Pro review

So earlier this year, I did a Surface RT review, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of Microsoft's tablet offering, in my biased opinion.  I do work for Microsoft and am thus predisposed to liking Microsoft products so take my reviews with whatever amount of salt you deem appropriate.

The Surface Pro is the best device I've ever owned.  The form factor and usability surpasses basically anything I've ever bought, in my opinion, it's that good.  I wanted a note-taking/sketching tablet that had an active digitizer.  I got that, plus a decent, if not fantastic laptop.  The tech blogs I read criticized the device for not fitting into any category.  It's noticeably heavier than an iPad, to the point of being slightly uncomfortable to use in certain situations where the iPad isn't uncomfortable, though I would argue those situations are few and far between.  Generally I find the iPad is too heavy for most long-term tablet holding tasks anyway.  The Surface Pro also has a smaller screen than any laptop I've ever used, and unlike the iPad criticism, it's hard to argue that the Surface Pro's screen isn't too small to be effective as a laptop.  But it has an active digitizer and runs metro apps!  

This means I don't really need to use it as a laptop.  I turn it sideways and use the dreaded portrait mode to take notes during meetings and doodle off to the side in One Note. I can use it to paint or draw as needed with several fantastic apps available for Windows 8, including Art Rage, Sketchbook Pro, and the free Fresh Paint which is actually an app that runs in Windows RT.

The other really nice thing about the Surface Pro is that you're not limited to Windows RT apps and all your legacy windows 7 apps not only run, but run pretty well.  And if the Surface Pro is a heavy iPad, it's an amazingly thin and light laptop, even with the type cover.  

I've found the battery life to be basically perfect for my needs.  I'll be out of juice by the end of the day, but I don't need to charge during the day with my workload.  Bear in mind that most of the work I do is done on a full Desktop PC, so generally the Surface Pro is relegated to taking notes. I probably get about 5 hours out of it before a charge.  I recently took it on a flight to Los Angeles, and used it to stream music over Wi Fi via X Box music, and paint some pictures, and I still had half a charge when I landed. That's about 90 minutes of heavy use, which I think is highly acceptable.

The device does get extremely hot for a tablet, but not uncomfortably so.  I have yet to hear the fan, though I've felt it blowing air out, so it is very quiet.   I'd rather not need a fan or have the device get hot, but it suits my needs pretty well.  

Overall if the battery life were closer to 10 hours, I think this device would be even better, though I find it incredibly good right now.  Highly recommended for anyone that sees the utility of the active digitizer.  

It's kind of late so apologies for the quick/dirtiness of this, but I wanted to get it out there because I am super happy to have a Surface Pro and if a new one comes out with a Haswell chip, I think you'd have to be a fool not to consider it.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Next Gen Digital Rights

So anything I say here is utterly and completely personal opinion and has nothing whatsoever to do with the company I work for.  I am obviously biased because I do work for one of the console manufacturers and I will admit that that bias plays into my overall thinking, but nothing I say here is in any way official or reflects any kind of official Microsoft statement.

So what I have to say is that I'm really surprised that gamers are so willing to embrace the notion of disc-switching in a digital era.  This is something that gamers bitterly fought on PC for nearly a decade until Steam, with the least objectionable DRM in the industry, ended up ending disc switching on PC once and for all.  Do people not remember how annoying it was to dig through discs and put each disc in the PC when they wanted to play another game?

I'm not going to try to argue that Microsoft has the best DRM situation possible, I haven't really analyzed it, but I will say it's not that objectionable to me, personally.  I understand that I'm not every consumer and others have various problems with it, but overall, it meshes well with how I tend to play and buy games.  I hope Microsoft can get its lending story sorted out soon, but otherwise I don't have a huge problem with any of it.  I'm not saying that someone who does is in the wrong, everyone's situation is different. 

What I will say is that people acting like Sony doesn't have any DRM are fooling themselves.  Sony absolutely does a DRM check on your game, it just happens to check local media instead of the internet.  And for me, that's considerably worse than a manufacturer asking to have my console online.  I am many times more likely to play different games if I don't have to go hunting around for discs.  This is a major reason I switched to PC.  And being able to fast swap in and out of games looks absolutely amazing to me.  On the PS4 there will either be some kind of check to ensure you have the rights to the game you're playing via the Internet, or via local media, or else, in the least likely case, there will be incredibly rampant piracy that will destroy the platform (this is basically impossible). 

I know I have friends who work at Sony and I am not going to say the PS4 is terrible or even in any way bad, I'm actually pretty excited for it.  That said, I plan on never buying a single retail disc for PS4.  Since all games will be digitally available day and date and since games can play while they're downloading, I'll happily buy all my PS4 games digitally rather than have to constantly change discs.  If I'm being honest I'll have to say the same for X Box One.  I probably won't buy any retail discs for X Box One either (though I might get a few free from work here and there). 

In a few years I doubt people will even be buying video game media in stores at all, but for now, if I'm buying media, I love the idea of installing it on my console and forgetting about it, just like PC games have done for the past 5 years.