Questions about Surface Pro 2

[ecbritz]

I would like to buy a Surface Pro 2 because some improvements have removed my resistance to Surface Pro 1, the most important being the extension of battery life.

Two matters still bother me.

If you opt for the version of Surface Pro 2 with say 128 GB flash memory installed, you don't have enough memory for a decent variety of installed programs. Should you manage to install your portfolio of programs, there probably won't be memory available for data (documents, photos, videos etc). You can opt for Skydrive, but that's about $100 for 200 GB per year, quite a hole in your pocket on a regular basis if you need at least 600 GB for your archive of files.

More installed flash memory comes at a very steep price, doubling the price of the Surface or worse. So you seem limited to the single USB port, to which you could add a USB hub, external hard drives, etc. This would mean lugging a lot of clumsy hardware around with the supposedly super-portable Surface Pro simply to gain memory.

Why only one USB port? Is there a slot for flash memory cards on the Surface Pro 2 you could use to extend your memory for data storage -- data to be transferred to a hard drive at home? How is one supposed to solve the whole problem of MEMORY when you buy the Surface Pro 2?

Another matter is how you attach a mouse. Is their a special Bluetooth mouse that won't require the use of the single USB port? The tiny mouse pad on the Surface does not seem suitable for fast and serious work.

 

[BillJ]

I can answer based upon my experience with the SP, but I don't pretend to be an expert.

Using a USB mouse with the SP does take up the port and changes the external shape of the machine. Bluetooth is the way to go with a mouse, and there are many on the market. I have preordered the Surface edition sculpt mouse.

I have a 64gb SP that has plenty of space for programs, but I do admit that I don't have enough space for all my music and photos. I have these stored on the microSD. Accessing music and photos from the SD card is easy, and there are several threads on this forum on how to make that access work seamlessly.

It is my understanding that buying a SP2 now will get you 200gb of Skydrive for 2 years for free. That is a good deal.

An elegant solution to clumsy USB dongles is the proposed SP2 dock.

In sum, "solving the problem of memory" with SP2 is the same as with any other ultraportable computer. The good part is, there are many options.

 

[Szadzik]

To me it seems you did not understand what this device is made for. It is a tablet, more portable than a Notebook, Ultrabook and still providing the same functionality. I do not know why you would carry a porttable drive iwth you when you travel to work every day. Get a 256GB version and it will be more han enough storage. I have a laptop with 256GB SSD and it is enough.

 

[jnjroach]

If you opt for the version of Surface Pro 2 with say 128 GB flash memory installed, you don't have enough memory for a decent variety of installed programs. Should you manage to install your portfolio of programs, there probably won't be memory available for data (documents, photos, videos etc). You can opt for Skydrive, but that's about $100 for 200 GB per year, quite a hole in your pocket on a regular basis if you need at least 600 GB for your archive of files.

You receive 200GB of SkyDrive with Purchase for 2 years, also it has a MicrSDXC Card so you can store more data there

More installed flash memory comes at a very steep price, doubling the price of the Surface or worse. So you seem limited to the single USB port, to which you could add a USB hub, external hard drives, etc. This would mean lugging a lot of clumsy hardware around with the supposedly super-portable Surface Pro simply to gain memory.

I use a personal NAS device on my home network for archiving and back up

Why only one USB port? Is there a slot for flash memory cards on the Surface Pro 2 you could use to extend your memory for data storage -- data to be transferred to a hard drive at home? How is one supposed to solve the whole problem of MEMORY when you buy the Surface Pro 2?

Another matter is how you attach a mouse. Is their a special Bluetooth mouse that won't require the use of the single USB port? The tiny mouse pad on the Surface does not seem suitable for fast and serious work.

You don't need to use a dongle as the Pro supports onboard Bluetooth 4.0, Microsoft even introduced a new Surface Edition of the Arc Touch that connects by Bluetooth and is flat for storage

For the record, I get by currently with 32GB on board, 64GB on MicroSDXC and 100GB of SkyDrive

 

[oion]

Please stop calling the STORAGE space "memory."

The max memory in Surface Pro 2 is 8 GB. The max storage in Surface Pro 2 is 512 GB.

For business purposes, unless you work in the video industry, you're extremely unlikely to fill up the storage. For play, the only way I've come near filling up my desktop's SSD was installing multiple MMOs. Do you have AV collection you must have on-hand at all times or something? My department's primary software only takes up 50MB or so.

Full USB port. How many other tablets on the market have USB ports... Otherwise an option is a hub. But I think you'd be better off with a laptop with traditional HDD storage (in terabytes).

 

[hypokondriak]

Please stop calling the STORAGE space "memory."

The max memory in Surface Pro 2 is 8 GB. The max storage in Surface Pro 2 is 512 GB.

For business purposes, unless you work in the video industry, you're extremely unlikely to fill up the storage. For play, the only way I've come near filling up my desktop's SSD was installing multiple MMOs. Do you have AV collection you must have on-hand at all times or something? My department's primary software only takes up 50MB or so.

Full USB port. How many other tablets on the market have USB ports... Otherwise an option is a hub. But I think you'd be better off with a laptop with traditional HDD storage (in terabytes).

I bought at 128GB SP1 but I'm actually downgrading to the 64GB SP2. For personal use I simply don't use the space. All my HTPC movies are sitting on my Synology NAS and I pull across the wire to my SP1 at home, my music is in the cloud with Google Play All Access, and my documents are sitting on Skydrive. I travel a lot and simply copy movies or tv shows onto the drive ad-hoc.

I just share this because it's crazy how things have changed. Local storage is becoming less and less important.

Sent from the SurfaceForums.net app for Windows 8

 

[Deleted member 10837]

I will definitely need the 8GB RAM model of the Surface Pro 2 as I am using that much just by running Google Chrome on my desktop.

 

[oion]

I bought at 128GB SP1 but I'm actually downgrading to the 64GB SP2. For personal use I simply don't use the space. All my HTPC movies are sitting on my Synology NAS and I pull across the wire to my SP1 at home, my music is in the cloud with Google Play All Access, and my documents are sitting on Skydrive. I travel a lot and simply copy movies or tv shows onto the drive ad-hoc.

I just share this because it's crazy how things have changed. Local storage is becoming less and less important.

Sent from the SurfaceForums.net app for Windows 8

It's true, many uses cases now simply don't require lots of local storage. The problem here is that the OP didn't specify an actual use case, only saying the "storage" isn't enough (for what?).

Audio/video rendering and encoding, multiple large applications installed, situations where you cannot stream a vast collection of AV due to bandwidth or whatever... I really can't think of too many specific situations that requires significant local storage on demand, but I have a desktop with storage in terabytes for that sort of thing. An ultramobile device is not intended as an archival storage unit--unless OP intends to use the Surface Pro as a primary machine, in which case I think a USB dock or future docking station with an attached external drive is fine for that archival storage. IMO, unless you're in an AV industry, no one needs to have 500GB of movies on demand on a weekly basis, but maybe someone can supply an alternate use case where this is necessary.

I think this is strictly a case of want vs. need unless the OP can clarify why that 600GB of archival data is important on a mobile device. And even with that, a regular laptop, larger with a lot more storage is probably more appropriate for OP's use-case-that-we-don't-know-about.

 

[demandarin]

I know with Android, the only tablet to have a full size USB port built in was the Toshiba thrive. The original or 1st. Generation one. It also was the only one to have a user replaceable battery.

I do know for those who game off steam or whatever, local storage can fill up very fast. With games ranging from 2gb-over 30gb. I easily burned up almost all my 128gb pro with those games. I had to switch them over to my class 10 64gb sandisk micro card. Now I have a little over 60gb internal storage left inside my pro. So it worked out good for me. Games play fine off of the card.

 

[Deleted member 10837]

I have a 128GB Samsung 840 Pro right now in my desktop which I find is barely adequate with a few games and virtual machines. I will also definitely be upgrading to a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO or similar in my next build.

http://oi40.tinypic.com/2e2qa83.jpg

 

[kristalsoldier]

I know with Android, the only tablet to have a full size USB port built in was the Toshiba thrive. The original or 1st. Generation one. It also was the only one to have a user replaceable battery.

I do know for those who game off steam or whatever, local storage can fill up very fast. With games ranging from 2gb-over 30gb. I easily burned up almost all my 128gb pro with those games. I had to switch them over to my class 10 64gb sandisk micro card. Now I have a little over 60gb internal storage left inside my pro. So it worked out good for me. Games play fine off of the card.

Not quite. My first Android tablet was an Acer A500, which had a fullsized USB port.

See here and here (pic)

 

[demandarin]

Not quite. My first Android tablet was an Acer A500, which had a fullsized USB port.

See here and here (pic)

You're right. I think those are the only 2. But even those weren't well received in android community despite that capability. I think Archos had one also. Or that might of been their windows tablet. Can't remember.