The keys are ever so slightly concaved, and though the amount of travel is minimal it’s a joy to type on.
The thinner Touch Cover is serviceable but the physical Type Cover is a dream considering its size. (Rant: Microsoft needs to bundle these together to combat the misconception of it being “just a tablet.”) The subheading here is intentional: to achieve the desired ultrabook experience and keep maximum productivity in mind, you’re best served purchasing Microsoft’s Type Cover with the Surface Pro.
Surface Pro Type Cover | Photo: Jason Evangelho The shooter was playable, but stuttered dramatically during scenes with numerous enemies and explosions.Īdditionally, Electronic Arts has fixed a bug with their Origin service which prevented games from launching on the Surface Pro, meaning titles like the addictive SimCity with its scalable engine will be perfectly playable (I promise I have a review copy installed!) Type Cover and Touchpad It struggled with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 even low settings with advanced features like antialiasing off, but we can’t expect miracles from integrated graphics. The same for Civilization V and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Portal 2 and Diablo III impressed, both outputting at least 25fps on near-maximum graphics settings (shadows and Antialiasing were bumped down slightly).
My testing in this category included one constant: running the games at the Pro’s native 1920x1080 resolution. Intel’s Core i5, HD Graphics 4000, 4GB of RAM and the snappy SSD cooperate to deliver surprising AAA gaming performance – yet another reason this machine sits firmly in the realm of ultrabook and not tablet. The Surface Pro is a prime example of synergy between well-chosen components. Valve's Portal 2 running with near-maxed graphical settings on Surface Pro If they aren’t, third parties certainly should since the Pro’s one weak point is its battery life. This means Microsoft may be developing battery-equipped keyboards like what we see inĭell’s XPS 10 and the ASUS VivoTab RT. The iconic kickstand and accessory spine (where the Type and Touch covers magnetically “Click In”) save for an important tweak: the accessory spine now has the capability of transferring a higher current between the attachment and the battery. It’s still lighter than your average ultrabook at 2.5 pounds with the Type Cover attached. The Surface Pro uses the same Titanium colored VaporMg casing as the Surface RT but is slightly thicker at 0.53” to facilitate integrated fans and discrete cooling vents. The unit’s Micron Solid State Drive (64GB or 128GB) also outperforms the NAND flash storage inside most tablets by a wide margin it’s more comparable to, say, a MacBook Air than an iPad or Nexus 10.
It further distances itself from the tablet market by running on Windows 8 Pro, meaning years of legacy Windows software is at your fingertips.