Gadgetory

well this is David with the verge and this is the Microsoft Surface 2 it's a tablet but it's also kind of a laptop it's for watching movies and reading books but it's also kind of for getting real work done it's four hundred and forty nine dollars it runs Windows 8.1 and more than ever it's competing head-on with the iPad Microsoft learned a lot of hard lessons about the surface last year and the surface to tries to address them point by point a low-res screen like the surfaces doesn't work on a tablet so the surface too has a beautiful 10.6 inch 1920 by 1080 display with gorgeous colors incredible viewing angles and awesome multi-touch capabilities last year's model is heavy and cumbersome to hold and use so Microsoft slimmed it down it's a little thinner and a little lighter though it's still so wide that it's kind of awkward to hold in either orientation it's a beautiful device in a new silver color really well made and cleanly designed but it's still best used in landscape and on a desk whether you use it on your desk or on your lap though the surface 2 is much easier to operate the kickstand on the back once prompted an awkwardly upright angle now tilts to a second angle and that second angle is just about where I'd put it anyway it makes the surface 2 much sturdier on your lap and a little easier to use on a desk since you don't have to crouch down so much to see it head-on there are tweaks like this everywhere there's now a USB 3.0 port the speaker's seem a little better and everything's just a little trimmer except for one really awkward seam on the back where the plastic strip connects to the otherwise unibody design it's a much better media machine than ever a great way to watch Netflix movies but frankly the iPads still better for that and that's not what the surface 2 is for anyway the surface 2 is designed to be for everything that's why it comes with Windows 8.1 even though it's not the full pro version that's compatible with your legacy desktop apps that's also why it comes with office and now outlook pre-installed and really the key to the whole productivity idea is the touch and type covers which have been updated slightly this year as well the type cover is easily the best accessory it has a tiny fabric II trackpad but a really great clicky keyboard and this year the keys are even backlit in a lot of ways the surface 2 is most productive when you plug in a mouse and keyboard and that does kind of defeat the whole point but when you're using the desktop optimized office apps or trying to navigate all the windows elements that come in tiny on such a high res screen you'll want a mouse and keyboard the type cover is by far the best available option and it comes in a bunch of great-looking colors too the smaller black touch cover is easier to use as well though without any clicky keys it's still not as good an experience even more than the iPad the sir - his designs replaced most of the things your laptop can do and everything the surface - does it does just amazingly better than last year Microsoft upgraded from a dual core Tegra 3 processor to a quad core Tegra 4 along with 2 gigs of RAM and I can't describe how much better it is to use this device it's still a smart phone level processor but everything happens so much faster so much smoother games do occasionally still stutter and lag an HD video and Internet Explorer can be choppy especially when you're multitasking but the last surface had problems scrolling it had problems with apps crashing and the whole thing started to bog down as soon as you had more than a few apps open here those problems are gone battery life is about the same as last year even with a higher res screen and those big performance improvements I always got a full day of heavy use before it ever died the problem though is that the surface 2 can't do everything it just doesn't have the apps the Windows Store is growing and apps like Facebook and Flipboard are a great step in the right direction but it's still a long way behind and it can't rely on desktop apps like the surface pro 2 can here you're stuck with the store and that's just not great the surface 2 is a great device for reading but there's no pocket or Instapaper just worse third-party alternatives same for Instagram or do even really cross-platform apps like Wunderlist you can replace some of those apps in a browser but they're never as good or as easy to use being able to multitask and put two apps side by side while you work is really nice but Microsoft has the same problem amazon does if you use Xbox music and SkyDrive and Office and outlook comm and Skype and OneNote you're golden otherwise there's a really good chance there will be more than a few critical apps you won't find in the Windows Store and even while Microsoft builds its offering of existing apps new ones don't ever seem to come to the platform at first using a surface 2 is lonely in a way iPad and Android users are getting a steady stream of cool new apps while the surface slowly builds a back catalog and that above everything else is why the surface 2 still falls short Microsoft's done basically everything it can with the hardware but it can't solve the app problem by itself the surface 2 is a great way to watch movies or listen to music but the iPads better it's a decent office machine but it really needs a mouse and keyboard or a more touch optimized app to be great and even then that's not worth four hundred and forty-nine dollars I still like what Microsoft is trying to do and with both Hardware tweaks and some of the new changes in Windows 8.1 it's inching in the direction of becoming a device that works well as both laptop and tablet right now though in both cases it still falls short you