A Tablet that can replace your Laptop

HP Pavilion TX-2500

Ask my friends they'll say I've always been one on the cutting edge of consumer technology. Back when I was an undergraduate student, I got myself a HP Pavilion TX-2500, the second generation tablet laptop of it's time. This was when touch screen technology was still new to the consumer market. To today's standard, the specs are still valid - dual core AMD Turion X2 2.4GHz processor with ATI Mobile Radeon HD 3200 graphic card, I upgraded the RAM to 4GB and maintained a 250GB hard disk. Yeah, not a lot of space now but back then this was the standard. The best part of this model it that it's basically a laptop - tablet hybrid, one of the first of it's kind. Its 12-inch screen supports a single touch (no multi-touch or gestures) and came with a digitizer (that's the pen) for writing on. Great for taking quick notes and annotate on other documents.

This time around, I invested in yet another cool, sleek, durable, tiny and powerful device - the Microsoft Surface Pro (I'm typing away on the Surface Cover - we'll get to that in a minute). First. the specs:

It is marketed as a tablet, but performs like a laptop, and for a 10-incher, it packs more processing power than meets the eyes. I'll be honest - making the switch between a larger screen to this small one can be a learning curve. 

Let's talk techies. Surface Pro is powered by the 3rd Generation Intel Core i5 processor with Intel HD Graphics 4000. Clocking at 1.7GHz, it handles multitasking smoothly, and together with 4GB RAM, runs a lot of heavy loaded software quite efficiently (let it be known that my heavy loaded software are the Adobe suites, MatLab and Eclipse. Surface Pro eats them up >.<) It also has WiFi (duhhh!!) and Bluetooth 4.0, along with 2 cameras front and rear-facing that supports 720p HD video recording. 

Display-wise, 10-inches of screen asset is what you're looking at. Yeap, not much, but it does have it's perks when you're mobile all the time. Maximum resolution that you can enjoy is 1920 x 1080 px, 16:9 aspect ratio, Clear-type Full HD with 10-points multi-touch display. It supports touch and pen input - and the pen is included in the box on purchase. 

Because the Surface Pro is a tablet, it would not be complete without sensors. This model comes with 4 different types of sensors - Ambient Light sensor for automatic adjustment of screen brightness, Accelerometer, Gyroscope and a Digital Compass. 

It also runs on Microsoft Windows 8.1. If you're wondering why is it such a big deal, imagine working on your Words document while referring to a PowerPoint slide and a couple of PDF files, listening to music on YouTube while downloading games from Steam. This is possible on Surface Pro, not on any other tablets that runs on Android or Apple. The only drawback is the storage space: 2 choices are available - 64GB and 128GB. To compensate, the Surface 2 comes with a MicroSD card slot and a solo USB 3.0 port on the sides. I have yet the need for the MicroSD card slot, but the USB 3.0 is not a letdown. Attach a USB 3.0 hub, you can expand the number of USB ports you'll need for your devices i.e. mouse and keyboard, thumbdrives and external hard disks. 

In terms of aesthetics, the whole design of the Surface Pro is pleasing to the eyes and firm to the touch. Heat-wise, expect some warmth in the lower area but not so much that it becomes uncomfortable for prolonged use. The battery can last a good 3 to 4 hours, depending on use. I don't find carrying it on hand as I go about my days - even went out on a shopping spree clutching it. At roughly 2 pounds, it's not too heavy to be cumbersome, nor too light to lost the firm, solid feel. 

All-in-all, a very good investment. I have yet to cover the apps from Microsoft AppStore. That will be in the next instalment. 

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