Microsoft Surface Pro X

Flexible, useful, large screen, but persistent touch screen frustrations – IN SHORT: KEY NEGATIVES 1) Touchscreen controls aren't very user-friendly and can't be changed. 2) Touchscreen keyboards are extremely buggy. 3) Many apps aren't available on ARMx65. 4) Features are mostly designed for landscape mode and physical keyboard use, with little or no consideration of portrait mode and on-screen keyboard use. (*** I… Read more

was able to overlook negatives 1, 3 and 4 for months, with the positives balancing it out, initially rating it 4 stars. But negative 2 has become a real deal breaker, making it almost un-usable for many purposes. ***)

NEUTRAL OR MINOR NEGATIVES 1) No headphone jack. 2) No traditional USB port. 3) Facial recognition struggles in different lighting conditions. 4) Paid apps normally available on two devices (PC + tablet/phone), do NOT consider it to be a tablet. 5) It's the largest possible size that's still comfortable for me to hold. ie. Ideal, for certain hand sizes and up.

POSITIVES 1) Large, clear screen size. 2) Relatively light weight. 3) Balance between tablet (simplicity, convenience) and laptop (flexibility, options). 4) You can use the full version of MS Office (unlike feature-limited versions online or on iPhone/iPad). 5) Works reasonably well with the pen. 6) OneDrive, integrated with many MS apps, makes it easy to transfer between multiple PCs and the tablet. 7) Easy to have multiple apps and programs running. 8) In landscape mode (but not portrait mode): easy to alternate between snapping windows (to the left/right) and normal PC flexibility for resizing windows manually.

DETAILS: NEGATIVES 1) The touchscreen controls aren't ideal and there is no way to change them. eg. 'Press and hold' for right-click doesn't work with a lot of apps, which use 'press and hold' for other things. Two-finger touch (which is actually the setting for the touchpad) would be much more appropriate. 2) Touchscreen keyboards are extremely buggy - almost unusable. If set to on, each of auto-correct and suggest-as-you-type options sometimes work, sometimes don't. The same is true for the finger-slide typing option, which is additionally limited to only one keyboard layout. Shift often stays on (sometimes temporarily, resulting in 2-3 capitalised letters; sometimes permanently, requiring you to lock and unlock the screen to get it back to normally); Caps Lock often does NOT stay on. Less frequently, the keyboard simply stops working at all (to the point that you can't even close it). 3) ARMx64 is not x64. Apps I'd purposely wanted a tablet to use are not available (or are available in old, less secure versions of apps), despite being available on Surface Pro 7 and iPad. Big oops! I sure wish I'd known about that (and known what impact it would have), before buying this. Sometimes out-of-date apps are still available in x32 bit versions, which do work on ARMx64. They're not always cross-compatible with x64 versions on your PC, though, and can mean security risks (as newly discovered vulnerabilities aren't patched in older versions). 4) Some features too heavily focus on landscape mode and keyboard use. I mostly use it like a reader - otherwise I'd have bought a laptop instead! This is minor, thing, though, compared to the above three points.

NEUTRAL 1) Only wireless headphones - no headphone jack. (Becoming a standard to keep things slim, but I'd much prefer it with a jack). 2) No traditional USB port. (Also becoming a standard to keep things slim. Use OneDrive for transfer instead, and you won't notice.) 3) Facial recognition works fine in neutral lighting, but has trouble with different lighting conditions. Great to have the option, but make sure you learn your passcode, because you'll still need it regularly. 4) Paid apps normally available on two devices (PC + tablet/phone), do NOT consider it to be a tablet. (A benefit if you want an app on both your phone and the Pro X as a laptop. A disadvantage if, like me, you want the app on your home PC and on the Pro X as your tablet). 5) It's the largest possible size that's still comfortable for me to hold. It's *right* on the borderline for me, occasionally awkward, but not normally. ie. Ideal, for certain hand sizes and up. (I'm a fairly average hand-sized male).

POSITIVES 1) The screen size is great. (As mentioned above, the largest possible that's still comfortable - for me that mostly means in portrait mode, 'reader' style). 2) Related to that, it's relatively light weight. 3) Aside from negatives already mentioned, it's a decent balance between Tablet and PC, particular being able to turn tablet mode on and off. You can get the simplicity and the convenience of a tablet, but also get far more flexibility and many more options for programs (if there are either ARMx64 or x32 bit versions) than with iPad, for example. 4) Related to the above point, you can use the full Office programs. I used to use Office on iPad and it was a very feature-limited version, not really any better than Apples own equivalents for iPhone/iPad. On the Surface, you get all the same features you get on your PC - in Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, Excel, etc. 5) It works well with the pen. (Which also serves as a neat shortcut tool. I set it so clicking the top, holding it, or double-clicking auto-runs my top three pen-based apps). 6) With OneDrive set up right, files are very easy to transfer between multiple PCs and the tablet. Being Microsoft-based is an advantage, as many apps and programs integrate OneDrive, so it's pretty convenient. 7) Very easy to have multiple apps and programs running. 8) It's easy to alternate between snapping windows to left/right (great for working with just two apps, when you want to read or watch something while having a note-taking app next to it, for example) and normal PC flexibility for resizing your windows manually (great for working with three or more apps, when you want to lay them all out however you prefer and/or want to easily minimise/maximise).