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lankster2k

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I am switching from an Ipad to a surface pro2. I want to be able to play casual entertainment but also have a proper full PCs for work and learning (Hyper-V VMs). Basically got bored of 60 pence games. I used the Ipad for reading Kindle books, playing videos, (90% of time) and causal gaming. From all the reviews a Surface Pro 2 was a no brainer as a MS alternative and ordered.

Hardware wise i am very happy - its nippy, a bit heavier than expected but the screen is fantastic.

On the ipad i used Plex with PlexPass to sync content of videos to the tablet - its fantastic. Plex havent finished their dev as yet (very concerned) as this feature is missing in the windows app. grrrrr .. anyway ... The built in MS Metro video app doesnt play mkv , dvd iso etc so its appear to simply be of limited use to watch MS store videos basically.

so surface community I need your help! :) ...

1st What does everyone use for media playback thats easy to use and plays all formats that is Metro / touch based.

2nd As games are missing that i like has anyone used BlueStacks - Home to run mobile games on the device (would have to rebuy them all as android but ....) I love touch RTS games - anthill on ipad basically made the device an instance purchase. if bluestacks or an alternative works the surface would be perfect until game developers release new ones in the MS store.

many thanks and hope you can all help
 
I use bluestacks on my SP2 for various Android apps that are not on the windows platform. For gaming performance, its fairly decent. Its not quite as smooth as native on my Nexus 7 in heavier games, but very playable all the same. Note that accelerometer support is spotty at best for its support of games. There are tons of writeups of various games and how they work within bluestacks if you want to search around prior to the purchase just to make sure.

Hope it works well for you!
 
lankster2k said:
I am switching from an Ipad to a surface pro2. I want to be able to play casual entertainment but also have a proper full PCs for work and learning (Hyper-V VMs). Basically got bored of 60 pence games. I used the Ipad for reading Kindle books, playing videos, (90% of time) and causal gaming. From all the reviews a Surface Pro 2 was a no brainer as a MS alternative and ordered.

Hardware wise i am very happy - its nippy, a bit heavier than expected but the screen is fantastic.

On the ipad i used Plex with PlexPass to sync content of videos to the tablet - its fantastic. Plex havent finished their dev as yet (very concerned) as this feature is missing in the windows app. grrrrr .. anyway ... The built in MS Metro video app doesnt play mkv , dvd iso etc so its appear to simply be of limited use to watch MS store videos basically.

so surface community I need your help! :) ...

1st What does everyone use for media playback thats easy to use and plays all formats that is Metro / touch based.

2nd As games are missing that i like has anyone used BlueStacks - Home to run mobile games on the device (would have to rebuy them all as android but ....) I love touch RTS games - anthill on ipad basically made the device an instance purchase. if bluestacks or an alternative works the surface would be perfect until game developers release new ones in the MS store.

many thanks and hope you can all help
Click to expand...

If you like PLEX you will like Media Browser3, it was released for Windows 8.1 Surface just a couple days ago and they have other clients available. It is Client/Server based but once you have it setup it works great and plays everything. You will find it in the Microsoft Store and the website is Media Browser 3
 
trippma said:
For a Metro media app I've been using PowerDVD Mobile
Click to expand...

many thanks for all your feedback so quickly - BlueStack sounds a good possibility so will try that out shortly.

The Media Browser3 doesnt have sync yet so very similar to Plex. I'll be interested to see which company can develop that the best and will use that one. Also check out PowerDVD Mobile.

I wish MS redid the the Home Server 2011 to include direct access for all windows clients and local media sync for playback . You'd then have full access to everything at home media and play... sadly they restrict to corps.... maybe Windows 9 and Home Server 2014 will include... why would any one have anything else if that was available? QNAP devices with the power to run full MS Home Server 2014 & DA running on them with Surface pros for all linking in... (I can dream cant I ??? ...)

Cheers
 
Genymotion is a much more comprehensive developer Android virtualization platform then BlueStacks.
 
olimjj said:
You might want to try VLC Media player. You can download it free from Videolan.org
Click to expand...
VLC is a bit of a CPU hog resulting in poor battery life. For maximizing battery life, you really can't beat the default Metro video app. I don't play ISOs but I convert my MKVs to MP4s using MKV2MP4.
 
eramit said:
Give DuOS-m (www.amiduos.com) a try. It has a better performance than Bluestacks and has all the sensors from Surface Pro integrated. Unlike Bluestacks it does not have Google Play preloaded, but is pretty easy to install (http://amiduos.com/nextsteps).
Click to expand...

I will try it, because i would like to run some android apps. Is there any problem with amiduos? can you install and uninstall it without any problem? i´ve read that bluestacks sometimes it´s difficult to uninstall.

grumpy said:
VLC is a bit of a CPU hog resulting in poor battery life. For maximizing battery life, you really can't beat the default Metro video app. I don't play ISOs but I convert my MKVs to MP4s using MKV2MP4.
Click to expand...

I´m using vlc (desktop pc version) ! i didn´t knew VLC was resulting in poor battery life...i will use it only for mkv´s....

Is Kmplayer better?

thankyou
 
boldo said:
in amiduos forums they report about an issue with this emu

http://amiduos.com/support/responses/heat-power-dissipation
Click to expand...
You will get this with most emulators. Most of the android solutions at the moment are run using a virtual machine that emulates android hardwear rather than directly from your machine. This is processor intensive. I was running Andy emulator for a week or so an that would idle between 30-50% CPU utilisation.
It did run some games ok however. I ran an AnTuTu bench mark test and it was about the same as a Galaxy S3 in terms of performance.
It seems random as to what will an wont run on it though.
I had no issues uninstalling it. I use IObit uninstaller though so cant comment on native windows uninstallation.
 
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