Anyone care to comment on an SPro (1st gen) and Windows 10 usability?

[Tiberian]

Considering getting a Surface Pro 1st gen (128GB) from someone on craigslist for $100, no stylus or keyboard, just the tablet and the original AC adapter. Can't speak for the full condition but he said he had just done a reset on it tonight (I presume it's still Windows 8 and not even 8.1 if that upgrade path is still possible). Of course with it being locked to 4GB of RAM that's not the greatest thing ever but I'd rather have an actual Windows tablet instead of something Android based at this point.

Yes I will be using it for actual Windows-based applications and usage, I do plan to get the dock for it since that single USB port (USB 3.0) isn't nearly enough, and at some point I'll probably get a Type Cover as well - gotta have moving keys so that's the one to get, I might look into the Power Cover to get a bit more battery life but I honestly don't think I'll be going full on mobile with it all that often, my LG V20 smartphone does quite a bit already in those respects on the go. I might even open it to upgrade the SSD to something larger/faster - I'm pretty sure that's possible, I know it's not an NVMe drive but even so there are m.2 mSATA SSDs that can offer better performance and of course more space. If I do decide to open it up I might also consider doing a battery replacement too considering it's 5 years old now.

But my primary concern as anyone's would be is how it holds up - I'm well aware it's a 5 year old tablet, that much is a given, but it will function obviously to various degrees that I'll discover if the guy and I decide to meet so I can check it out before handing over any cash. I do intend to test the SSD's speed and wear level as well as the battery (using BatteryBar) and praying for the best.

If anyone still uses their 1st gen Surface Pro (and from reading the past few hours it's quite apparent that many of you do), can any of you comment on performance over time from 8 to potentially 8.1 to now Windows 10 (whichever the latest build or update you might be using is) and how it works overall? Personally I'd prefer to just put Windows 7 on it (yes I know, I'm still a huge fan of it and use it on my primary laptop) and I know I can actually use Windows 7 from a VHD but considering the low 4GB of RAM in the SPro that seems seriously counterproductive, sadly. Oh if they had just put a single SODIMM socket in the Surface Pro, wow. And I mean the way the SSD is situated on the back of the motherboard and resting against the inside of the back cover, it would not have been a difficult thing to put a port cover there to allow for potential storage upgrades without all the fuss of disassembling it.

Anyway, 1st post here, I'm hoping to do more research and see how things go with this tablet once I acquire it but any info and tips are always welcome.

Thanks...

 

[Russ]

Tiberian --
Welcome to the forum.
I am still using my SPro1, except on weekends when I lend it to my dinosaur. I have, essentially, the device you are considering: 4GB Ram, 128 SSD, I5 CPU. I do have a TypeCover, and really prefer it, as I am an old-fashioned (or maybe just old) typist and like the key response.

My travel schedule is reduced, so I find it entirely useful for my occasional needs. I have desktop computers for any heavy duty stuff, so I don't need to approach its limits. Battery life seems to have declined, but that is an untested observation. I seldom have long flights now, and, if I do, I just carry a spare battery.

I am running Win10Pro (Build 1803, and awaiting 1809). If you have a free or reasonable upgrade path, I strongly recommend it. I never really learned to love 8.1, and was delighted with the Win10 upgrade. I don't think you would be happy running Win7 by comparison to Win10.

Unless you need the dock for another charging station, I suggest you just get a multi-outlet USB device. It's cheaper and you can more easily move it around. I have one as part of my travel kit. I don't store large data files on my SPro, so have found the 128G quite adequate. Hi capacity USB sticks are both common and cheap now.

My suggestions if you get the device:
1 - Upgrade to Win10Pro right away.
2 - Get a multi-outlet USB extender: 3 or 4 port. Cheap on Amazon and Ebay.
3 - Streamline your SSD down to program material and frequent use data files.
4 - Play with it and get used to it before you spend any more money or time doing replacements.

If you have any specific tests or questions, I will be happy to accommodate.
Take care,
Russ

 

[Tiberian]

Yah, been reading your quite hilarious posts from the past - I went all the way back to the oldest page here in this Surface Pro sub-forum and I've read almost everything from way back in late 2012 to the current day if it seemed to be of interest to me and you and your "dinosaur" stories and anecdotes made it more interesting at times.

Believe me, I did some extensive research yesterday into getting Windows 7 on it - I'm a 7 diehard, always will be, and while I can get Windows 10 Pro basically for nothing (I think the free upgrade still works from using the Accessibility thing, will find out if I actually get the tablet later today) I personally just have issues with that OS. As an alpha tester for Windows 10 for a long time, then the betas, RC, etc, and now the rolling release crap that tends to break things constantly for so many folks, on top of the privacy issues (I won't get into that), for a "free" OS one has to wonder if all that is worth it.

I suppose I'll muck with it for a bit, already found a dock and AC adapter on eBay, will more than likely get the Type Cover keyboard as I mentioned (gotta have moving parts under my fingertips), and go from there. If I can make use of it for a year or two I'll consider it a good purchase, and if it entices me to want to get a newer one then that's even better.

My wife has an older very simplistic Wacom Bamboo art tablet (one of the $50 ones iirc) and I presume it will function with the Surface Pro - I told her she'd be able to do artwork on the device itself and not have to be "blind" anymore. If we were independently wealthy or lottery winners I'd get her a Surface Studio but of course that's well beyond our means.

I wanted a Surface Pro when they first came out, hell I wanted one of those original Samsung developer devices that they used to really kickstart the Surface tablet devices into action but never could acquire one. I made a joke to my wife the other day that I usually end up getting what I want, it just takes about 5 years after a product is released to finally get it and well, it's been a bit over 5 years now and I'll finally be getting a Surface Pro.

We'll see what happens later when the seller finally makes it and we meet. I intend to do a pretty good check of everything that matters including the speakers and headphone jack (I hope the Surface Pro has some relatively decent audio output power for headphones, can't stand devices with no power - I use Koss PortaPros and Sony V6 headphones for most everything so I'm not an "audiophile" by any means but they sound good to me so that's what counts).

I can see that the dock is an absolute must for me, however, too bad it only offers 10/100 Ethernet but I suppose that's not a big deal presently - my current Internet service is only 60 Mbps so it's not likely to saturate it on the Ethernet port. I do have one of those Startech USB 3.0 to Gigabit adapters, got that free a few years ago and it works without issues in Windows 10, and I have a USB 3.0 4-port hub but it only supports USB 3.0 devices oddly - if I plug in any USB 2.0 device at all those devices don't receive power, and the hub didn't come with the little 5V adapter so I suppose I need to finally purchase one of those.

I've read a great deal of content since last night and I'm still reading at other forums and websites, I know the Surface Pro is older and a lot of people have moved on from it but again, it might have taken 5+ years but I'm finally going to get one (presuming the seller shows up) so it's all new to me.

Thanks for the information and responding...

 

[Tiberian]

OK, so I got the Surface Pro, it appears to be in excellent physical condition, nothing I can see in terms of damage, no scuffs or anything so good to go there. The Bamboo stylus for my wife's art tablet doesn't appear to be recognized/seen, perhaps that's a driver issue but it's not a major concern as I knew I'd be buying a proper stylus at some point. As he said he'd done, the device was reset and ready to go so I played with it for a few minutes and checked out the speaker audio, headphone jack, AC adapter and connector (seems to work just fine for me on this device, no issues noted at all), and the USB 3.0 port is fine if not a bit tight (at least for the one USB stick I was using for testing). AIDA64 presented me the technical specs I was looking for and it all looks great so far.

My Bluetooth mouse - a Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 8000, manufactured way back in 2008 - works perfectly as expected and has zero lag that I can detect (it has it, it's just so low I can't notice it consciously). I searched for a full size Bluetooth mouse for years and never heard of this thing, not once, ever, but suddenly in a search just a few months ago I saw it on eBay and was like "WTF has this thing been all my life?" so I of course grabbed it instantly and it's worked fine since. My preferred primary mouse is a Microsoft Intellimouse Optical 1.1 but of course that's not wireless unfortunately - I wish someone would hack one and put a Bluetooth transmitter in it but I guess that'll never happen. But the 8000 is pretty nice, the wheel sucks - I prefer indents so I know it's functioning and the 8000 is a free-spin type wheel and the wheel button is very tough to push, sadly. But it works, and it's full size, and I have never been able to find anything else like it that satisfies me so that's that.

Here's a few screenshots of the SSD performance and I was pleasantly surprised because all the info I'd read said the Micron SSD should be ~520MB/s reads and ~90-95MB/s for writes. So when I saw the write performance I was downright astonished, and apparently it just hasn't been used all that much. The battery wear, just 6.5% so far that BatteryBar can measure (that will more than likely change in the next 24 hours or so), probably means it wasn't used very much since manufacturing so I'll keep an eye on that for the immediate future.

I know none of this is new info to any of you, but like you all are aware, anytime you (and I) get "new" stuff, even if it's such an older piece of hardware, well, dagnabbit sometimes we just gotta spread the excitement I guess.

I'm going to do research into getting that Windows 10 Pro upgrade done for free and go from there.

The adventure begins, I suppose...

EDIT:
Already getting the dreaded "Limited Connection" crap from the wireless, ugh, I knew it was eventually going to occur but geez.

 

[Russ]

Tiberian --
Glad to hear that you got the SPro1. Sounds like it is in good condition and you got a good deal.
Some stuff:
1 - Stylus: I think there is a driver issue between the Wacom stylus and Surface device. I still have the one that came with my SP1, but have never used it. My Ladyfriend used hers extensively for her product design efforts (she had an SP1 before me) and continues that use with her SPro3.

2 - Full size Bluetooth mouse: I have one and love it, but don't remember how or when I got it. (I have a lot of computer stuff.) I think mine is older than yours; it has no model number -- just "Wireless Intellimouse Explorer for Bluetooth." There might be one lurking around on Ebay.

3 - "the dreaded "Limited Connection" crap from the wireless" -- I guess I didn't get that memo, as I have never experienced the problem. Mine lives on the WiFi system here, plus countless connections on Guest WiFi at weekly business meetings, restaurants and other such. The only time I have that problem is when I abuse my very limited bandwidth.

4 - new "stuff" -- Yup, I do understand. "New" means new to me, not necessarily "outa the box new." I am the prototype of the "early adopter," having been blessed with enough disposable income to follow my whims. I love to try "new stuff." (Except women -- that's way too much work.)

5 - Win7 -- I, too, loved Win7, and am still running it. I have some remote capture software that is dated and won't run in Win10, so I have Win7 installed on a spare drive for my laptop. (Yep, I still have a laptop.) I do occasional product photography for my Ladyfriend's company, and the preview function is valuable because they can rearrange the setup before committing the shot. I also have a Win7 drive on one of my shop computers that I keep up to date and use for occasional experiments. That system has three BIOS-Selectable boot drives: Win7, 8.1 & 10.

6 - Win7 vs. Win10 -- Once you run Win10 on your SPro, I think you will never look back. I am immune to all the worry about Win10 (and most other worries, as well). I have two machines on the "Insider Fast Ring," so I get to experience the "broke this, broke that" phenomenon before most other people, and I am untroubled by it. That's why backup was invented.

7 - I am relatively fearless with my own stuff, but immensely cautious with Ladyfriend's computer, since she is likely to be 10,000 miles away in a semi-rural environment -- not a good place to have computer problems. I use LogMeIn to deal with her occasional computer hiccups. Her single solution to computer problems is to call me. During her current trip, I connected to her computer while she was at her Shanghai condo to resolve some issues she was having. She thinks I'm a genius, and I have chosen not to disabuse her of that notion.

8 - BatteryBar -- I have not used it, but you have piqued my curiosity, so think I will get it and run it on my SPro1 plus Ladyfriend's SPro3 (when she comes back). If it's interesting, I'll post it.

EDIT: Tiberian: If your wife wants to use your SPro, and you cannot quickly and easily find a stylus, I'll send her mine (Free Shipping!). I'm always in favor of improving distaff relations. I have never used it, but will test it before sending. Just let me know.

Meanwhile, enjoy your SPro1, and my offer to share any info or do any comparison tests remains open.

Take care,
Russ

 

[Tiberian]

Wow, that's a tremendously awesome answer about the stylus, I'll drop you a PM with info, I can easily pay some shipping and a few bucks if you'd like, it's your call.

So far so good with the SP, for the moment I'm not using it exclusively as I do intend to get the dock but that'll be a few days as I get billed situated now that it's a new month and find out how much "play money" I have left over. I saw a Type Cover 2 for the SP on eBay and had it on my watch list and of course because I decided to wait it's now gone, was $30 shipped and the seller had a lot of nearly 100% positive feedback so I'll have to keep an eye on things and hope another one comes up for a similar price. Most of them are $35-50 and I don't mind paying that but then they tack on like $8-15 shipping which is insane - that keyboard would fit inside one of the USPS flat rate boxes for $4-5 and I know it.

BatteryBar is useful for giving you a quick way to see wear. I saw that Surface Pro Tweak Tool and decided to check it out. When I got the SP of course I did the first look at the wear level and it showed 6.25%, then later that day it was 9%, and now - using the Tweak Tool - it's showing 11% so I suppose yes the age of the battery will be an issue. I used it strictly on battery, with the battery profile for Windows 10 with 40% brightness last night and it was telling me about 2.5 hours, not all that great but I suppose considering the age it's better than some other hardware I've owned. I did research into getting an actual replacement battery, they just don't seem to be available anywhere, not even on eBay and of course the disassembly process would be difficult enough but if I could get a new battery I'd more than likely install it even so.

I'm also part of the Insider Preview program but this install on the SP isn't tied to the Microsoft account, I may have to look into what's going on - just running "vanilla" 1803 at this time - and see if there's anything interesting to work with. Been a beta tester for Microsoft since the early 1980s and I've seen it all but this rolling release thing with Windows 10, my personal opinion is that it's a seriously bad idea but that's just me (pretty sure I'm not alone in that). For this device, of course, I understand why 10 becomes almost a necessity. Of course, I never gave Windows 8/8.1 a shot at all, I never used it as my day to day OS on any hardware I owned, not once, didn't even participate in the betas of that one. What I've read from a lot of people is that 8.1 fixed a lot of issues, and aside from the Metro interface (which with a touch tablet comes in handy obviously) if someone installs the Classic Start Menu or whatever tool restores that basic functionality that it becomes quite a competitor for Windows 7 so, I can still always just image this current installation on the SP and do some experimentation with other OSes, including Linux at some point and I just might do it.

Anyway, dropping you a PM in a few, thank you for the generous offer, and I know my Wife will be very excited to get to use a true stylus on a device that she draw and doodle directly on meaning not the way the external Wacom tablet she has now works.

Here's a question however regarding color profiles so if you have some experience I appreciate anything you can offer in terms of advice or suggestions. I know the IPS panel in the SP is regarded as being "very accurate" and while I myself don't require it to be perfect, it looks fine to my eyes, with respect to the artwork my Wife will be involved with doing that would be a crucial aspect.

I located two color profiles (icm files) for the Samsung panel that's in the SP, one was created by someone here at this forum and I found it in a thread discussing color profiles and accuracy, the other one was found at the NotebookCheck.net website from their review of the Surface Pro 2 - since the SP and the SP2 had the exact same Samsung panel in them the color profile should be relevant.

So I got both of them, and when I applied them - which could be where I'm having an issue - I see absolutely no difference in terms of color reproduction - adding them and setting them as the default color profile under the Color Management settings doesn't seem to have any change I can visually notice.

Now, if I go and use Window's really basic "calibration" tool and adjust it so the gamma gives me a near-perfect duplicate of the sample images (the dots disappear and it's a smooth grey as it should be), the picture of the guy in the black shirt with the black X against the wall is a dead-on match, the white shirt image is again a dead-on match. So, I suppose that means I'm good to go in that respect, but even with that now supposedly calibrated setting I'm still not sure I'm actually "accurate" or anywhere close to it. Ugh... guess I should find someone local with actual calibration hardware and maybe get them to set it up with a color profile generated directly on this device.

Obviously I just want it to look its best when my Wife uses it for artwork, my eyes can't notice things she's capable of picking out in the color variations, but for the past few years we've been using non-IPS displays with out laptops. I had a ThinkPad W541 workstation laptop earlier this year and it was astonishing how I was able to see things in images and videos I had never noticed before because of that wide gamut IPS display panel it had, it was glorious for lack of a better term.

Anyway, another long post which seems to be par for the course for me. I wish the SP audio was a bit louder by default, it's limited of course but if I "boost" the volume with MPC-HC to 150% it sounds much better, or VLC at 150%, both push it a bit louder so it's more usable. I was pleasantly surprised by the separation and sound-stage with some music files I listened to yesterday, it was quite extraordinary when I found myself looking to the left and right of my desk because I heard audio cues from the songs and they seemed to be coming from several feet to the left and right of the tablet and my desk.

I got no issues so far, so thank you again for responding.

 

[Tiberian]

Ack, forgot the pic I meant to attach and whenever I attempt to edit my posts this forum software won't let me and claims my post is spam, etc, not sure what's causing that (I'm not posting this from my SPro, for the record). Anyway...

 

[Russ]

Tiberian --

First, the important news: The stylus works! Not sure why that is startling, except that I had never used it, so didn't know. I see Ladyfriend use hers all the time on her SPro3, so I know what it's supposed to do (sorta). It will be in the mail tomorrow. My mailbox is down by the county road, and, since it's raining, I don't currently have a plan to go out today. (Forget about shipping cost.)

Marital advice: Don't get into color discernment competition with your wife. You have already lost. Trust me, I know the feeling. Colors are very important to my Ladyfriend as she designs products for her company. Sometimes she will conjure up a color comparison, and say, "See the difference?" After a pause long enough to show that I have given it thoughtful consideration, I reply, "Uh, no." She had her SPro3 "color calibrated" by a tech service she found in Shanghai. I think I read somewhere that women have better color discernment than men. That is an assertion I am willing to take on faith. You should, too. Have it calibrated for her. Spend the money; buy the dock later. She will make you glad you did.

A funny "color story" I will take the time to tell because it's raining and I can't work outside. One day, Ladyfriend called me from China (for reason now forgot). I could hear traffic noises in the background, so asked where she was. She said, "In parking lot arguing with manufacturer about color." She explained that they were having a disagreement about color on some product she was ordering, and she explained that you cannot properly discern color under fluorescent lights, so she took him out to the parking lot to show him under sunlight. I asked if he spoke English, but, unfortunately, he did not, otherwise, I was going to have her hand him the phone so I could give him some advice: Say, "Yes, ma'am, you're right." Then shut up, go back inside and do what she wants. Since it was a large order and she was the customer, the outcome was never in doubt.

I do not have my SP1 on the Insider Program. No special reason, it's more of a "don't need the nuisance" thing. It is normally not on unless I am using it. I run Insider on the two machines I use most often: this one and the one in my shop. In both of those, I have a spare drive, so, before any new Build update, I clone the boot drive before accepting it. I have enough hardware that backup is so easy, there's no reason not to do it. Before Ladyfriend leaves on a China trip, I do a bootable backup of her SPro3. If some disaster happens, I could air ship it to her and some local tech could do the restoration. Have not had to do that, but at least I rest easy knowing it's there.

If there is an economic trade-off, get the type cover before the dock. It will bring you more satisfaction. I have a dock, and like it, but did not get it originally. I snagged it when we upgraded her to SPro3 and she gave her SP1 to one of her employees.

There is/was an interface utility provided by Stardock that makes 8.1 more usable. I had it on her machine and mine before the Win10 upgrade. If they have a free trial, check it out. It will run in Win10, but the improvement is not as noticeable.

I always kinda wished the SP1 audio output was louder, but never cared enough to do anything about it, but will give MPC-HC a try.

The rain has stopped, so think I will take my dogs for a walk down by the creek.

Take care,
Russ

 

[Tiberian]

Thanks again for the response. The funny thing about audio in laptops and tablets: it's usually capable of being louder (and still relatively clear) than manufacturer's allow the hardware to actually do, either because of some silly hardware limitation (the EU has that audio level/hearing crap that gets in the way too often, society should not dictate hearing or volume limitations), or they constrain the levels with software limitations in the hardware drivers which is more insidious.

Another thing I find nearly intolerable all the dumbass digital audio processing on most every new piece of hardware: that ThinkPad W541 was a beautiful beast, but it had that Dolby crap in the audio system that I couldn't stand, didn't want, and never cared for. Because of how it works and totally screws up the audio output from the headphone jack, I of course immediately want it disabled but when you do that - it's never really disabled I discovered, just limited to certain degrees - the audio volume would plummet to levels where I almost believe I'd need a headphone amp just to be able to listen at decent levels. So they force that audio processing crap (Dolby, Dolby Atmos, Dolby headphone, and the like) on the end user whether they want it or not. I was practically forced to get a USB audio adapter (like $3 on eBay) and use that which allowed me to increase the actual output volume and bypass the internal Dolby processing garbage, and while it was a crappy solution at best it did work.

Thankfully at least the SP doesn't have anything like that, *phew*.

Now as for the volume output to speakers, and while I haven't tested this yet on the SP it's worked on every laptop I've ever owned, if you use a bootable Linux USB distro (like Ubuntu, or Mint, or Fedora, or anything really) and you go into the audio settings (most of the more current distros use the Pulse audio subsystem, some fall back to ALSA but I don't see that nearly as often anymore) it will offer you the option from the system mixer to go over the 100% "normal" level cap and I've found that pretty much without exception the laptop or tablet is fully capable of hitting the 150% boost without any noticeable issues or distortions with most audio content. Of course with such tiny speakers getting "good bass" is impossible (and by good bass I mean accurate for the most part, I don't use EQ ever and always listen to audio content "flat"). The only time you can really notice any issues or potential distortion would be in some crazy situation with lots of explosions and other such heavy bass-laden content.

So yeah, the audio hardware on most laptops and tablets is actually much more functional. I was surprised on the SP that when I went into the audio mixer for the Playback and enabled the Loudness equalization option - which usually does actually boost volume levels considerably at low volumes - on the SP that setting had the reverse effect: it sounds much much worse so, that's not gonna work for me on this awesome little slab I now own. The way the Pulse audio subsystem works on Linux is a different beast and pushes the actual audio amp to produce more audio, fairly simple and it gets louder than Windows allows for due to those limitations. I'll have to test that on the SP and see how it goes.

I typically use foobar2000 for music playback and under Preferences - Playback it offers a "preamp" option where it can boost the output to various degrees. I use +3 dB (a 100% increase based on how actual audio output is measured aka a doubling of audio output) and it seems to boost it noticeably on the SP over the default settings. I do use ReplayGain in my audio encodes (had a 2,300+ CD collection I grew from 1985 to about 2005 and then decided enough was enough) that transcode my FLAC copies to Opus 128 Kbps files (considered to be practically transparent by the majority of listeners in hearing tests) and that's good enough for me (and saves a ton of space compared to keep the FLAC files on local storage too, about 12x less space). So I can keep my current music collection on the microSD card in the SP (about 12,000 songs, go figure) and never worry about it.

Anything over the +3 dB doesn't seem to actually get louder so that's more than enough. No, it's not a wall of sound but again the overall speaker audio quality was surprising to me and that audio separation is quite awesome.

I highly recommend MPC-HC for video playback, but of course it can play most any audio files too (and I do use it for quick single track audio playback with a double-click on an audio file). MPC-HC is just so capable in so many respects, very tiny, and while VLC has a large following it suffers from video quality/rendering issues that MPC-HC doesn't. MPC-HC uses something natively call the LAV filters which are pretty highly regarded but they do require a tiny bit of configuration to get the best video quality. I typically don't got that far because the defaults with MPC-HC work just fine for my purposes. And yes I do intend to find someplace locally that can do a color calibration for me at some point and create that custom profile for this SP's display panel and see how it goes.

MPC-HC development ended earlier this year when the original devs decided to call it quits, but there's a newer project which picked it up only for the purpose of updating the LAV filters it comes with so, the latest version of MPC-HC (which is 1.8.3) can be found here, I personally use the "standalone" version (it'll be the MPC-HC.1.8.3.x64.zip file) which you extract to a folder and then you can run it from anywhere; I just call the folder MPC-HC and copy it to my Program Files directory (since it's a proper 64-bit application). Also, when you first run it I suggest running it by right-clicking on the .exe and choose Run as Administrator so any settings that you decide to adjust will be locked in properly):

clsid2/mpc-hc

It's originally based off the old Media Player Class (hence, MPC with HC meaning Home Cinema) which was in Windows 2000 and XP long ago and it remains effectively tight code with minimal BS and it absolutely gets the tasks done, even with Windows 10.

Anywho, again, the Wife and I (she was quite excited about the stylus offer as expected) appreciate it greatly.

Oh, last thing, was looking into cases or sleeves last night and of course with me be so late to this party I just now found out about the FreedomCase and of course they don't make them anymore and of course I'm now kinda disappointed. That thing is AWESOME by any definition of that word and if I can't find one then I might have to attempt to manufacturer one of my own, geez. Why that ended so quickly is baffling to me 'cause there is absolutely nothing else out there like it made by anybody. I even sent an email to the creator/founder last night in the hopes that he just might possibly have one laying around someplace that never sold, no response yet and I presume I won't one either.

But geez, that is the case, seriously, it's crazy wicked how nice that thing is and the potential it offered. Ah well, that 5 year thing really irks me sometimes.

 

[Tiberian]

So I received the Power Cover and of course it's dead in terms of being being an external battery/power source, but the real downside is that it's dead meaning it doesn't even work as a keyboard either which really pisses me off something fierce. The item was not new - it was fairly obvious the factory seal had been broken, so this is more than likely an item that's been purchased at least once before by someone else and returned, potentially several people so that's a wash.

Attaching it my SP has no effect at all, there's absolutely no recognition of any aspect of it whatsoever so it's totally dead. I would have left negative feedback for the seller because of this aspect - it's listed as NEW and it's not - but I decided to start a return for the item and get my $48.99 back. The seller responded and said if he/she/it/whoever would refund my money and I didn't have to ship it back to them if I wouldn't leave negative feedback so, for the moment I'm stuck in some respects. I'd prefer not to have to make a trip to the post office and get it packaged back up even if the return shipping is free. I told the seller if they refund my purchase price back to my PayPal account within 24 hours I'll let the whole thing go and be done with it so we'll see what happens.

I spent time doing research into potentially bringing this accessory back to life with the thread on Reddit on reviving the Li-Ion cells (easy task really) but the fact that the keyboard doesn't work at all and there's no recognition of this device at all with Windows then that's that I suppose. Disappointed to say the least, somewhat angry at sellers doing this to people paying good money for stuff and taking advantage of them from afar, that's what I have no tolerance for.

Anyway, the SP is working fine so far, I got a 128GB SanDisk UHS-1 A1 card from Amazon for some extra storage (reads at about 70MB/s and writes at about 55MB/s in the SP). I believe that tomorrow (Patch Tuesday, Nov 13th) we could see a re-release of Windows 10 build 1809 which caused problems upon release in early October so I'll see what happens with that. Build 1803 is working fine so far, but I keep thinking about using Windows 8.1 'cause 8.1 is more touch-friendly and touch-useful than Windows 10 is, go figure, at least to me.

The journey continues...

 

[Russ]

Tiberian --

Sorry to hear the news about your Power Cover. Good choice -- take your money back and move on. There's another one out there somewhere.

Win10 1809 is available today. I just started a download onto a USB drive because I have several machines to upgrade. It will download while I sleep because I have very slow (very, like 3MB) internet service. I will upgrade my machines this week, then do Ladyfriend's SP3 when she is here this weekend. I will definitely do a full backup before I do hers. Also will back up my sp1, but probably not the others. I'm running 1809 on my two Insider machines with no apparent problems.

I disagree on Win8.1 vs. Win10, but, as they say, YMMV.

I will probably put 1809 on my SP1 tomorrow. Will let you know if there are any issues.

Take care,
Russ

 

[CrippsCorner]

So I received the Power Cover and of course it's dead in terms of being being an external battery/power source, but the real downside is that it's dead meaning it doesn't even work as a keyboard either which really pisses me off something fierce. The item was not new - it was fairly obvious the factory seal had been broken, so this is more than likely an item that's been purchased at least once before by someone else and returned, potentially several people so that's a wash.

Attaching it my SP has no effect at all, there's absolutely no recognition of any aspect of it whatsoever so it's totally dead. I would have left negative feedback for the seller because of this aspect - it's listed as NEW and it's not - but I decided to start a return for the item and get my $48.99 back. The seller responded and said if he/she/it/whoever would refund my money and I didn't have to ship it back to them if I wouldn't leave negative feedback so, for the moment I'm stuck in some respects. I'd prefer not to have to make a trip to the post office and get it packaged back up even if the return shipping is free. I told the seller if they refund my purchase price back to my PayPal account within 24 hours I'll let the whole thing go and be done with it so we'll see what happens.

Are you sure it's the Power Cover and not your Surface that's at fault? Just wondering if you've actually tried out any other covers on it...

As for the eBay thing, very annoying, I've had that before. What I did was hold off from feedback altogether, sent the item back and got my money back... then hit them with the negative feedback

Love to see people still using the original! Mine is with my mum now working absolutely perfectly, in fact, in many ways it's better than the 2017 version that replaced it. I'll probably have it back off her one day