A Video Demo of the Surface Pro from the Microsoft Launch

A look at Microsoft's tablet that runs full Windows.

On Saturday, February 9, Microsoft unleashed its second salvo against the dominance of Apple’s iPad in the post PC tablet world, the Surface Pro. Like the Surface RT, which was released last year to lukewarm reviews, the Surface Pro is designed and built by Microsoft, and is a full Windows 8 Pro device, unlike the Windows RT running tablet.

We were at the Toronto Microsoft Store for the launch on Saturday, and while there we were able to video a short demo of the Pro. Mitch Garvis, a Microsoft Technical Evangelist, took us through some of the Pro’s features, and showed us how the Surface Pro has changed the way he works. You can check out the video below.

In the video he addresses some of the issues people have brought up about the Surface Pro. For example, with regards to the usable storage on the Pro’s SSD, he shows how you can claim some of it back by moving the recovery partition to an external device. One topic that wasn’t brought up, though, was the Pro’s 3-hour battery life (in fairness we didn’t ask), which is probably, in our opinion, the tablet’s biggest weakness when compared to both other tablets and Ultrabooks.

Have you bought a Surface Pro? If not, do you plan to? Let us know in the comments below!

Microsoft Surface Pro Hands-on Demo

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There are 11 Comments.

Top Comments

20

MotherFerJones , February 12, 2013 6:42 AM

I bought the 128GB Pro on Saturday. I'm typing on the type cover right now. I use it for my work computer comfortably. Once i installed an app (Classic Shell )for the start menu it takes me straight to the desktop on bootup which is sweet. I've even played Torchlight 2 over steam for 1 hour using 1920x1080 res, high detail, didn't stutter a bit, as you can imagine the fans got a tid bit loud. I just got it so I'm still putting though its paces but the early verdict is extremely positive.

Other Comments

20

MotherFerJones , February 12, 2013 6:42 AM

I bought the 128GB Pro on Saturday. I'm typing on the type cover right now. I use it for my work computer comfortably. Once i installed an app (Classic Shell )for the start menu it takes me straight to the desktop on bootup which is sweet. I've even played Torchlight 2 over steam for 1 hour using 1920x1080 res, high detail, didn't stutter a bit, as you can imagine the fans got a tid bit loud. I just got it so I'm still putting though its paces but the early verdict is extremely positive.
3

cr_buck , February 12, 2013 12:14 PM

I bought the only 125gb Surface at my Best Buy. I will agree the that on regular settings the battery life is around 4 hours but its faster than any desktop at my work. If I want to keep it cooler and increase the battery life. I just change the power management from Balanced to Power Saver while in desktop mode. Its a little slower but still faster than my iPad 3 and I get 6-7 hours! That is a pretty food compromise to me. :-)
3

MotherFerJones , February 12, 2013 9:12 AM

boiler1990How does the stylus/handwriting work? The shut-off-the-touchscreen feature sounds great in theory, but I'm really wondering how it does in practice.

I agree with Vort, i didnt think i would be using the pen as much as i have been. OneNote is a joy to take notes in, I used it in our daily operations call today to jot a few things down. I suck at drawing but the sketch app i downloaded is still pretty neat. And you can pen input into pretty much any textbox by selecting the pen input keyboard.