Type Cover and "Functions"

[undrwater]

Many of the "function" keys at the top work as they are displayed. Brightness, however, does not. Anyone else having this difficulty?

Also, do the "F" keys work at all? If so, how to access them? I use them quite a bit on my laptop.

This Surface Pro 2 is 2 days new to me, and I have had a few hiccups and glitches. I had some higher expectations from MS with software / hardware inter-operability as this is their device. Still, it will likely be more useful to me than an iPad or Android tablet might.

Thanks!

 

[daniielrp]

Many of the "function" keys at the top work as they are displayed. Brightness, however, does not. Anyone else having this difficulty?

Also, do the "F" keys work at all? If so, how to access them? I use them quite a bit on my laptop.

This Surface Pro 2 is 2 days new to me, and I have had a few hiccups and glitches. I had some higher expectations from MS with software / hardware inter-operability as this is their device. Still, it will likely be more useful to me than an iPad or Android tablet might.

Thanks!

The type covers do not have dedicated brightness keys. If you are referring to the symbols on the f1 and f2 keys (on the type/touch 2) they are for increasing and decreasing the intensity of the keyboard backlighting. And yes you can use the f keys, just hold down fn while pressing the one you want.

You can use fn+ backspace/del for adjusting brightness.

 

[ignatz]

Thanks daniielrp... great tip on how to adjust the brightness!
As for MS......... way to be non-intuitive!!! :/
I'm with the OP on this. The hiccups and glitches are endless.

 

[rp_guy]

if you use the function keys (F1-F12), more than the associated actions on them, you can lock it into F-key mode by pressing Caps + Fn together.

 

[oion]

Many of the "function" keys at the top work as they are displayed. Brightness, however, does not. Anyone else having this difficulty?

Also, do the "F" keys work at all? If so, how to access them? I use them quite a bit on my laptop.

This Surface Pro 2 is 2 days new to me, and I have had a few hiccups and glitches. I had some higher expectations from MS with software / hardware inter-operability as this is their device. Still, it will likely be more useful to me than an iPad or Android tablet might.

Thanks!

Microsoft has only been selling their own unified hardware/software platform (Surface) for a bit over a year, unlike Apple, which has been at it for decades. That said, your brightness issue wasn't answered yet (yes, the keyboard icons are for the keyboard backlighting only)--you swipe from the right and open the charms menu, then in Settings at the bottom, the "Screen" icon allows you to manually adjust brightness (you should disable auto-brightness if you prefer manually adjusting--Start Menu, search charm, "brightness," turn on/off auto brightness).

And of course the Pro will be far more useful than Android/iPad. They're completely different classes of devices.

I'm with the OP on this. The hiccups and glitches are endless.

OP isn't with you. "A few" glitches hardly translates to "endless" in the English language.

Like I said in your other complaint post, if you're having that many problems beyond the normal incompatibilities we see in the Windows ecosystem, you should get some real troubleshooting from MS, especially if you might have a faulty unit. Don't be like that dude who childishly trolled every single "I like my Surface" thread to whine about his problems when it turned out he (1) bought the wrong device for his use case and (2) may have had a faulty unit anyway.

 

[undrwater]

I discovered that the backlight was for the keyboard the other night when the lights were off. I found the screen options in the charms menu, thanks oion. I disabled auto brightness, but found it enabled again this morning.

Regarding "glitches", they look to me like growing pains, and hopefully they will be addressed. I really like this device (though I resent the whole forced account unification trend of all the manufacturers).

Thanks for the help all!

 

[undrwater]

if you use the function keys (F1-F12), more than the associated actions on them, you can lock it into F-key mode by pressing Caps + Fn together.

Very helpful!

 

[oion]

I discovered that the backlight was for the keyboard the other night when the lights were off. I found the screen options in the charms menu, thanks oion. I disabled auto brightness, but found it enabled again this morning.

Regarding "glitches", they look to me like growing pains, and hopefully they will be addressed. I really like this device (though I resent the whole forced account unification trend of all the manufacturers).

Thanks for the help all!

If the Metro command doesn't seem to be sticking, you might try the desktop control panel access:
Microsoft Surface | How To Disable Automatic Brightness Adjustment | Windows RT Source

You can also manually specify the "dimming" brightness for the idle dim setting. (Change power settings > Change advanced power settings > Display > etc.)

I didn't use my Microsoft Account on my Surface RT, since as Windows users we're just not used to the whole constant cloud sync unified account blah blah thing, but the sole reason why I decided to stick with it on my S2 with 8.1 is for security (device encryption and app/setting backup in case something happens to my S2 and I need a new one, or whatever). You can still use a local account to log into your Surface, by the way, but you won't be able to install any apps from the store.

I agree that there are definitely growing pains. If there are any issues that you (or anyone, that is) find particularly troublesome, I highly recommend posting on the official MS boards so more of their folks can see them (link in sig).