Gadgetory

- Hey guys, this is Austin. Put the Eve V side-by-side with the Microsoft Surface Pro and you'll see that they look pretty similar. A quick glance at the Eve site makes the comparison obvious. But take a closer look and you'll see that this is a really interesting device. The second you open the box you'll see the names of a thousand people who contributed to the design of the Eve V. The idea was that this was a crowd designed device. Eve originally reached out to me over a year ago asking if I wanted to take a look at the V and in the meantime a lot of the specs have legitimately changed based on community feedback. This is a really cool idea. Of course, there are downsides to buying from a small startup, but you can't fault them for trying a new approach. However when you consider just how good the Surface Pro is the V has to do some really cool stuff to justify it's existence. And it kind of does. While at first glance it looks incredibly similar to the Surface. Take a closer look and there are some thoughtful details. Instead of a single USB-A and the bizarre Mini DisplayPort on the Pro, you're getting two full-size USB ports in addition to a pair of USB-C ports, one of which is full Thunderbolt 3 and both can be used for charging. Now there is no facial recognition with Windows Hello but you do have a slightly hidden fingerprint sensor and a very similarly adjustable kickstand. Again, at first glance the detachable keyboard looks nearly identical to the Surface but it has a surprisingly mechanical feel with a lot of key travel. It's not what you would typically expect to find on a laptop or a two-in-one. And while it took me a few minutes to get used to, it kinda makes the Surface feel a little bit spongy in comparison. You've also got the slightly unnecessary RGB backlight but it does double as a Bluetooth keyboard. Detach it from the V and hold control and F12 to sync it wirelessly. I don't know how often I would end up using this but it is a nice feature. I will say the trackpad isn't amazing. It's totally fine and combined with the touchscreen navigation is okay, but I do prefer the clicky-ness of the Surface Pro touch pad. Probably the best feature of the keyboard is that it's actually included in the box. This is almost a necessity on a two-in-one like this and on the Surface it will cost you another $130 to get the keyboard. Big props to Eve for, you know, including that basic necessity in the box. It goes beyond that too. They also include a pen. Another $100 addition on the Surface. To be fair, it's based on slightly older tech than the latest Surface pen but the slight difference in latency really isn't a big problem for me. And again, it's included in the box. One minor issue I've noticed is that while both tablets have a microSD card slot, the Eve has a little notch on it which makes it really difficult to actually remove the SD card, which is just kind of dumb. The rest of the hardware feels decent. It's a bit heavier and entire thing is more rounded, which feels a bit cheaper than the incredibly tight tolerances of the magnesium Surface. But importantly both have fan-less designs. Well mostly. The Eve uses lower wattage Core Y processors, so on paper this is a trade-off between performance and battery life. On one hand you are going to be losing a little bit of performance, especially in heavier tasks, such as video editing and gaming. But on the flip side at least in theory you're going to be getting better battery life. However when you stack it up to the Surface Pro not only does it offer a higher wattage Core i5 model, which is still going to be fan-less, but it also has better battery life at 13 and a half hours compared to 10 hours on the Eve V. The model I have here is almost top spec with a seventh generation Core i7 processor, 16 gigs of RAM, and a 512 gigabyte SSD, which comes in at $1,600. However if you want to pick up the base model with the Core m3, eight gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage, that starts at $800. Put the speced out V alongside the $1,300 Core i5 Surface Pro, and you'll see that they're fairly comparable in Geekbench and that holds up well in real world usage. The Eve is snappy and for normal stuff it's totally fine. Just don't expect to go and do anything all that taxing on it. You do have that Thunderbolt 3 port which allows you to take advantage of an external GPU but for most people that's going to be a little bit too much. Screen-wise the Eve has a 12.3 inch panel with a resolution of 2880x1920. It's a good screen. You're getting an individually calibrated display straight from the factory, that while on paper is slightly sharper than the Surface, but in reality both are top notch. I will say the rounded edges of the V does make the bezels look a little bit bigger but there really isn't much to complain about when it comes to the screen. However the speakers, while decent, fall quite a bit short of the front firing ones on the Surface. This is what the webcam looks and sounds like on the Eve V. So as you can see it's a little bit grainy but for stuff like Skype and Google Hangouts it should be okay. On the flip side the Surface looks significantly better. Not only is it going to be 1080p, but as you can see it is no longer the soupy mess of the Eve. The story of Eve is great. I mean who doesn't want to root for the underdog? And to be clear, the V is a good computer. Not only does it generally match or even exceed the Surface in a lot of areas, but it's around the same price or cheaper and it includes not only the keyboard and also the pen, which Microsoft is going to charge you over $200 for. The problem is that they're building these to order so availability is a lot more complicated than you might hope for. However if you're willing to take a chance on a new company the Eve V is absolutely worth a look. So what do you guys think? Is this a true Surface Pro killer? Let me know in the comments below and I will catch you on the next one.