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New member that has lots of questions

gstepic

New Member
I am not a Surface Pro 2 owner yet but will be returning my iPad Air today at Best Buy and most likely will purchase the Surface Pro 2, depending on answers to my questions. I want to use my tablet for blogging, for light photo editing and viewing, scheduling, personal planning (I use several excel spreadsheets), word processing, and some light bookkeeping with QuickBooks Online. Yep, I guess I am looking more for a PC than a tablet. I own the Lenovo Thinkpad W530 which I really like. My goal is to be able to travel lighter and this is why I am looking at tablets. I am even selling my heavy duty camera gear and replacing it with a Sony RX10 camera so I can travel light and yet have all I need for travel photos, blogging, and business. I think I know the answer to some of these questions but want to be sure and will trust forum members way way way more than a Best Buy salesman for answers, so here are my questions -

Does the Surface Pro 2 work just like a regular laptop, in other words would my Photoshop Create Cloud subscription work as well as most other software programs I can use on my laptop? I understand for some photo and video editing a powerful processor and more memory is needed, but hopefully the SP2 can do basic editing without problems.

I don't know if any of you use QuickBooks online but my Ipad air forces me to go to a useless app version. I am hoping Quickbooks online will work the same as on my laptop. I am curious if the regular Surface tablet and other windows tablets that use the atom processor will only work the app versions of QB online.

Will my Zune player function as it does on my laptop? I have a Zune pass membership and like being able to "rent" a lot of music.

Are there bluetooth keyboards with numeric keypads that can be used with the SP2?

I have Office 2007 but am not sure if I can download it to the SP2. Does the excel, for example, work like it would on a laptop? I was disappointed with how awkward using a spreadsheet was with the ipad.

Is it bright and crisp enough to provide a good reading experience with a Kindle app? I used to travel with tons of books that I never had time to read and really weighed me down. ebooks seem to be the answer to that problem. In fact comparing the Apple Ibooks to kindle made it clear how Apple overcharges as an electronic book is an electronic book and I could see no reason why I should have to pay more, sometimes double, using the apple store for the same book I could buy in the Kindle store.

Do microsoft apps work just as they do on most tablets? I have read one of the cons of windows tablets is the lack of apps. If the Surface Pro 2 works like a regular pc then to me this can be a non issue if I can view youtube and use pandora as I would on a pc. So would the lack of apps be more of a problem on windows tablets using the atom processor than the SP2 which uses an i5 processor?

Thanks in advance for any advice and help! - Gary
 
Last edited:

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
The Surface Pro 2 is a full 4th Gen Intel Core-i5 Windows 8.1 Professional Computer that is in Tablet Form. You can install your programs the same as any laptop. I wouldn't want to run Office 2007 on it personally but you could. I would look at Office365 Home Premium ($99/year) that will give you Office 2013 licensing for up to 5 computers.
 
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